Who am I?

In the next few days I will receive a packet from US Census. Once again I will be amazed by the absurdity of the question that relates to classifying us.

To make a classification system work, the categories have to be mutually exclusive. One should not have, at the same time, a classification based on race (Caucasian), region of origin (African American), skin color (white) or linguistic preference (Hispanic). This creates an absurd situation for a white person who was born in Africa of Spanish speaking parents. He would be a white Caucasian Hispanic African-American.

Interestingly, one can not use the other terms in the same category. For example, it is OK to call someone Caucasian—or Caucasoid, but not Mongoloid or Negroid, the other two major races. Similarly, we have Hispanics, but not too many Hindics or Chinicks. White is an acceptable classification term, and to some extent, Black, but try to call someone Brown or Yellow.

I have not even touched the subject of what happens when a child is produced out of a union of parents of two different classes. How would she classify herself? I suppose the answer is ---any way she wants.

Now I understand that the person self selects the classification term to some extent, reflecting his or her cultural identification. That is useful in terms of finding people who share your experience or history, as well as indicate how you would like to be treated by the others.

However, why should we collect this data on a national basis? This is a rhetorical question, because I know the answer---in order to ensure that we have sufficient representation of different classes in things like government, and such.

Perhaps one day that would not be the case. We will achieve a situation where there will be no discrimination based on the “class” and there will be no need to keep tabs on it. Or , more likely, after generations of intermarriages, the system will become so convoluted, that we will abandon it.

Until then…I will ask to be classified as a Caucasian, Indian-American, Brown (wheatish??), Gujaratinic. I hope they have a slot for that in the census.

PS: After I wrote this post, I did receive the census form. There was no box for how I would prefer to be classified, but they did have separate classifications based on whether you are a Hispanic or not, and your “race”---an absurd title for a mélange of categories. In any case, I sheepishly put myself as Asian Indian. Talking about which, why should we be punished for the ignorance exhibited by Columbus? May be that should be a subject of another post!

April 2010