US Census Argumentative & Analytical

What should the U .S . Census ask people about their identity

People use to distinguish themselves by belonging to a particular group They use to say I am a man\woman (sexual identity ) or I am a lawyer (professional identity ) or I am protestant (religious identity . There can be a lot of identities upon different basics . The matter is , that identifying yourself as member of a particular group is usual for people . However , such identification is always voluntary People specify their group identity if they want and they do not if they do

not want to

Nevertheless , sometimes people have to specify their identity , and one of those cases is census , which , under the US Constitution is to be held at least once every 10 years . The basic purpose of the census is to calculate the population of the states for the purposes of Congress elections , but the government occasionally calculates other facts about the US people , including their national and racial identity . The government needs those facts for statistical purposes , as well as to study demographical and sociological phenomena , and , probably , there is no intention to insult or humiliate anyone by asking questions during the census . But too many people still become frustrated with the necessity to answer questions being asked . This especially concerns racial and national identity . People too often chose other ' unwilling to consider themselves white , black , Asian , American Indian or Alaska native and a category that includes natives of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands , thusly undermining the census process

Mireya Navarro in her Going Beyond Black and White , Hispanics in Census Pick 'Other ' provides an overview of reasons , which American Hispanics turn to in not to attribute themselves to any of the proposed races . Firstly , a person may have mixed blood and be unable to choose between the propose races "I acknowledge I have both black and white ancestry in me , but I choose to label myself in nonracial terms Latina . Secondly , a person may be afraid to chose his\her own identity , which he\she believes to be other than proposed "There may have been a sense that being white was part of the process of being assimilated . Thirdly a person may believe , that he\she belongs to some different race , which is not available at the list "I feel there 's nothing that describes my race per se . For the most part , I say I 'm Mexican . The fourth reason is that it may be psychologically confusing for some reason to answer question about racial identity "We were Cubans , and that wasn 't white " she said "My answer was 'Not that it matters , but I 'm white just like you because the people I came from were from Spain ' They 'd look at you in disbelief

So , based on the materials provided by Mireya Navarro , two groups of reasons can be determined to explain why people dislike questions about identity . The first group are objective or material reasons . People may really not find a race which they...