Conference taveng::bagels

927.0. "US Census ethnicity question" by NOTIME::SACKS (Gerald Sacks ZKO2-3/N30 DTN:381-2085) Wed Apr 25 1990 22:09

I'm prompted to write this after reading a discussion in another notesfile.
What did you think of the "ethnic heritage" question in the U.S. Census?

As usual, the instructions said you shouldn't specify a religion, so "Jewish"
was out.  My grandparents came from Lithuania, White Russia, and Russia,
but I certainly don't consider myself a Lithuanian-Byelorussian-Russian
(and neither would the Lithuanians etc.).

I considered either "Israelite" or "Hebrew," and ended up with the latter,
since I thought they'd confuse Israelite with Israeli.  I really find both
terms somewhat objectionable, since they've been used as euphemisms
for "Jew" in the recent past.

    I got stuck on this one too.  I was never too sure where my
    grandparents came from other than "the old country".  Even if they had
    been more precise, the shtetls they lived in probably aren't even in
    the same country they were in 80-90 years ago anyway.

    I ended up writing "Eastern European".  Let the Census Bureau figure it
    out.

    BTW, this question only appeared on the long form.  The short form only
    had the question about race, which while no less offensive, was at
    least easier to answer.

How about American (if you're from North America)?

    How about American (If you are from South or Central America?)