Sense and Census

I just got our 2010 Census form. It asks some basic questions about each member of the household--over half the space is devoted to asking questions designed to pinpoint each person's race. Now, why is that *so* important?

My favorite part is the categories. There is a special category for "Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish Origin" in which you need to indicate if that is "Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano" or "Puerto Rican" or "Cuban" or "Other, for example, Argentinean, Colombian, Domincan, Nicaraguan, Salvadorian, Spaniard, and so on." [Pity the poor Peruvians and Chileans and Bolivians, who are so blatantly ignored as to be lumped into "and so on."]

There are also categories for "Asian Indian" "Native Hawaiian" "Japanese" "Chinese" "Korean" "Filipino" "Vietnamese" "Guamanian or Chamorro" "Samoan" and the "Other Asian, for example Hmong, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian, and so on" [Pakistani, but not Indian!!! and what about the poor Tibetans, are they Chinese or Other Asian?] also "Other Pacific Islander, for example, Fijian, Tongan, and so on"

The "American Indian or Alaska Native" get a space to list their particular tribe.

But, the "Black, African Am., or Negro" races get no line or special way to pick their country of origin. So, while the Census is vitally interested in knowing if one is Vietnamese or Cambodian, whether one is Liberian or Ghanaian doesn't matter and Tutsis and Hutus are all the same "Black, African Am. or Negro" in America (in Rwanda, things are a little different).

Then there is the "White" category. Not "White or European American" of course, and no line to specify country of origin. Germans and French and Greeks are all the same, but Spanish, well that gets into the earlier category, but Portuguese I think is in the general "White" category, and Turks are either in the "White" category" or the "Other Asian" category, but it isn't clear which.

Fortunately, the category I use in all these forms is still there: "Some other race"
I check that and in the space provided write "American"