Story Index:

Eclipse!!
08/29/2017

Summer Weekend in the Colorado Rockies
07/19/2016

Kim's Day In The Sun
02/28/2015

Tracing Roots
01/15/2015

Whitney Completes Her Master's Degree
01/10/2015

Day Trip to Moorea
11/01/2012

Stopover in Tahiti
10/30/2012

Exploring New Zealand's Northland
10/27/2012

Waiheke Island
10/24/2012

2012 Triathlon World Championships
10/23/2012

Travails with Tom-Tom
10/21/2012

Off to New Zealand!
10/18/2012

Cycling on the Oregon Coast
07/24/2012

Partial Solar Eclipse, May 20
05/23/2012

"Tour of California" Bike Race comes through town!
05/15/2012

Wildflower Triathlon a family affair
05/07/2012

Truth in Packaging?
04/01/2012

Nik Graduates from Cal Poly
12/10/2011

Cal Poly's Open House Weekend
04/17/2011

The 2010 US Census is here
03/16/2010

Cultural Musings...
09/18/2009

2009 Triathlon World Championships
09/12/2009

Sightseeing around the Gold Coast
09/09/2009

South Bank: Brisbane's Fine Arts center
09/05/2009

Brisbane, Australia
09/04/2009

Catching up . . .
08/31/2009

Summa Cum Laude, Baby!
06/15/2008

Kim completes her first Half-Ironman
06/10/2008

Kim Visits Home for Wildflower Triathlon
05/16/2008

The Last Supper
02/16/2008

Farewell, Dad
01/15/2008

Whitney Plays Final Soccer Game
12/10/2007

Watch the Women's World Cup!
09/12/2007

Kim Blazes Chicago Triathlon
08/27/2007

Nik Bicycles Pacific Coast
08/15/2007

Whitney Begins Final Season
08/13/2007

More Triathlons for Kim
06/15/2006

Corvallis gets snow!
03/09/2006

Pac-10 Conference Player of the Week
01/15/2006

Whitney's new cat
09/26/2005

Kim in Chicago Triathlon
08/31/2005

Rare family get-together
08/23/2005

Empty Nest
08/11/2005

Whitney Signs National Letter-of-Intent
02/08/2004

ODP cancels European tour
04/11/2003

Whitney renamed to Regional Team
08/07/2002

Kim graduates from Willamette
06/17/2002

Whitney Stars in High School Soccer
03/07/2002

Nik graduates from UTI
01/07/2002

2001 - A Year for Remembrance
12/30/2001

Whitney selected to the 2001 State ODP pool for U-15 Girls
03/22/2001

Kim returns from Europe
02/02/2001

2000: A Year for Traveling
12/15/2000

Kim Travels Europe
11/24/2000

Whitney selected to the US Far Western Regional ODP Pool!
07/14/2000

Congratulations to Nik, Ygnacio Valley High Graduating Class of 2000!
06/30/2000
The 2010 US Census is here

Here in the US, it's time for the decennial US Census, wherein the government attempts to tally each and every person living in the nation.

I just received my census form in the mail. On the surface, it seems like it ought to be simple enough -- just answer seven questions about each person.

I'm somewhat bemused, however, how the government can't even put together a simple, less ambiguous form for an undertaking of this massive scale.

The form makes a big deal about counting only people who are physically in my house on April 1. Yet elsewhere it states, "Please complete and mail back the enclosed census form today." Uh, it's not April 1 yet . . . so what to do?



Question 1: "How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?"

Question 2: "Were there any additional people staying here April 1, 2010, that you did not include in Question 1?"



(Two questions in, and my forms-challenged wife has already given up. "Here. You do it." She shakes her head and hands the form off to me.)


Question: "[Are you] of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?"   . . . followed by yes/no checkboxes.

Question: "What is [your] race?"   . . . followed by a bunch of checkboxes for an assortment of ethnicities -- a list which does not include "Hispanic", "Latino", or "Spanish".

"Please answer both questions . . . For this census, Hispanic origins are not races."



Okay, now they've just confused a whole lot of people.

I expect a major segment of the population will be befuddled. "I always thought I was Hispanic, so if that's not a race, what race am I?"

I can envision many people pondering, "What, exactly, does 'origin' mean?" (I'm not Hispanic, so fortunately I can simply answer "no" and not trouble myself further.) Does it mean a person who was born in a Hispanic country? Are you of Hispanic origin if you were born in Argentina to parents who fled Germany after WWII?

What if it was your parent or great-grandparent who was the emigre from a Hispanic country? Does that still count as being your origin? What if said great-grandparent married into a Caucasian/European bloodline and nobody else in the family tree is Hispanic?

Oh, right -- Hispanic is not a race.

Given the large Hispanic population in this country, I would have thought the Census Bureau would have seen fit to add a brief explanation or definition in the instructions.

Also, how about some guideline on how to define race (of which you are supposed to mark "one or more" checkboxes)? In this world of increasingly mixed ethnicity, how much race counts as being of a certain race? If you're only one-quarter Chinese, should you still mark the box labeled "Chinese"? What if you're 1/32 American Indian? Is that enough? How about those white, southern rednecks whose DNA testing revealed they had a black ancestor back in the Jeffersonian era? (Okay, we know they would never in a million years mark the box labeled "Black", but I'm just saying ... )

When you're trying to put a third of a billion people into categories, a few simple guidelines could have gone a long way.

Maybe they didn't beta-test the form.


Posted by Dan 03/16/2010
FreeStyle Journal 19.03.21
©2003-2011 by Dan Goodell

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