Quote:
Originally Posted by manuelpr
I dont know. I actually think that the US Census should include something in the lines of Amerindian or Mexican Native, Mestizo. Take me for example. I know for sure that I am part Spanish and part Indian (Mexican Indian). I get my looks from my Amerindian side so I dont like to classify myself as white (even though my dad does). Its kind of wierd how 90% of Mexicans (the largest hispanic group) are reported as Amerindian or Mestizo in the Mexican census. But here in the US its that same percentage that are classifing themselves white.
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I'd agree that changing "Native American" to "Amerindian" so as to include Mexican Indians would make a lot of sense along with possibly dropping the whole Hispanic/Latino thing.
The problem I see with the way the census handles this, is that as Hispanic people mix in with the existing population, as they most certainly are, eventually the term becomes meaningless and misleading (more so even than now). If a white American person and a Mexican person of any color get married all there kids would be counted Hispanic and deducted from the white non-Hispanic totals. Then when people read these statistics and assume Hispanic = Amerindian Mexican, which most people do, they see the Hispanic total growing fast and the non-Hispanic white stagnating and they get a mostly false picture of the country and its ethnic makeup.
Carry that on a few generations and its hard to see how the country could not become majority Hispanic even if it looks largely the same.