The proposal to know less about America

What is a question that you would really like to be added to the census? I'll say for myself, I want to know if people think that the dress was blue and black or white and gold. Brittany, I have to say, as a census reporter, I have to go with no comment to stay neutral because I have been schooled. I have been schooled by so many sources. Adding more questions onto a census form could raise the risk of more people not participating and not getting counted. So that is not an easy question to answer. You know, the census doesn't do this, but I would love to get this somehow on there. I don't know if it would be legal, but a question about religion. We just don't have a lot of good data about religion. That is really interesting. Well, the Trump administration has proposed taking away some questions from the upcoming 2030 census. Chiefly, they'd like to stop asking people in the U.S. about their race and ethnicity. Census data on race can be incredibly useful, not just for understanding America, but also for making sure communities can serve the people in them. So what's the point of getting rid of these questions? And what makes the narratives around our nation's demographics so fraught? To get into it, I am joined by Russell Contreras, senior race and justice reporter at Axios. Welcome back, Russell. Good to be with you. And Hansi Lo Wong, a correspondent here at NPR who covers voting rights and the census. Welcome, Hansi. Thank you, Brittany. Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. So first, I want to know, what do you make of the Trump administration proposing to take the race and ethnicity questions off the census? What did they say about it? Well, the Trump administration is arguing that, there's a, quote, reduced need for census statistics about people's race and ethnicity, even though these are the statistics used for redistricting, enforcing the Voting Rights Act, and other anti-discrimination protections, not to mention informing policymaking and health research. And the administration is also citing the, quote, potentially sensitive nature of this topic, which, by the way, has been part of the U.S. census since the very first one, back in 2017. So this would be a major unprecedented change, assuming the administration finalizes this proposal and assuming it wins lawsuits I'm expecting to be filed. And, you know, we should also keep in mind this change can be reversed by Congress. And in 2029, there is a short window for a new presidential administration to reverse these changes, too. So now we have some idea of, like, what the administration said about wanting to do away with these questions. I want to know, what does this proposal say to you? Well, the proposal, when I read it, I saw it. I saw immediately the debate on social media and a lot of misinformation that the government is going to stop collecting data on race and ethnicity. And that's not true. What the proposal says, it's going to eliminate the questions to give the respondent, the agency, for that person to decide what their race and ethnicity is and give more power to a government official to determine what the race and ethnicity of the person is. Basically, it's a throwback from a previous time where census takers went in and decided what you were. So it may be an extreme position, but that's potentially what could happen. If we look back, say, in the 1910s or 1920s, I'll go back to my great grandfather. I looked at his census records for the point of this discussion, and he was called a mulatto. So he was somebody from Mexico, a dark skinned man, the son of a black woman. But the 1950s. In the 1950s, the census was calling him white. I can almost assure you that he had no say in any of those designations. And so when I was doing my reporting, I was talking to civil rights leaders. They feel that that's a return to that moment. I want to also clarify, I mean, they may not make census takers decide, but collect data in other ways. One of the things we were talking about when we were getting ready for this conversation is like whether or not the government has a right to know, you know, my racial identity. And I'm like. Well, I can assure you, the government can look at me and tell that I'm black. But yeah, I mean, there are so many different ways that that data can be acquired. There's other federal data that one could mine to get that information. And that is problematic. This is occurring not just to become more diverse, but we're also seeing the growth of multiracial Americans. Mm hmm. Hansi, what does this proposal say to you? Well, I mean, it's coming from an administration that has attacked diversity, equity and inclusion. I mean, it's coming from an administration that has attacked diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and pushed for dismantling civil rights laws in this current Trump administration and the first Trump administration have both stalled efforts to update how the census and other federal forms ask about race, ethnicity. And these were efforts designed to produce more accurate statistics specifically about Latinos and people of Middle Eastern or North African descent. The Biden administration approved those changes for the 2030 census to use a different kind of race, ethnicity question after lots of research and public input. And. Now, this Trump administration proposal could basically cancel all of that. Yeah, we're definitely going to touch back on those changes, but I want to zoom out a little bit. What makes the racial data collected through the census important? Like, what is it used for and what would its loss mean? We use that information for a number of reasons. When we're talking about race and ethnicity, we can look at, OK, what are we how are we addressing the law, like saying civil rights violations? What are some inequalities? If you don't know that, if you don't have that data, you cannot take that information for corrective. Action, businesses also use that information to determine what their market is to go to consumers. Census data about race is used to enforce the Voting Rights Act, which has been weakened by the Supreme Court, particularly this year. And those protections relied on racial data in order to do the analysis to see if minority voters that their voting rights are being curtailed. There's an argument that those are words on a page and really hard to enforce. But, you know, theoretically, that is still the law of the land. And so without this data, it is that much harder to enforce the Voting Rights Act in terms of redistricting protections. But I want to give you also just a wonkier take about this. OK, you know, we really don't know the full extent of what the Trump administration is proposing. They've only just said, you know, we are proposing to ban questions about race and ethnicity from the census, as well as some other questions. But there's another possibility here with the Trump administration is thinking about is using other. Surveys to collect this information. But a really big distinction and why the census is so important. A lot of researchers and advocates tell me is that the census is supposed to go out to every household in the country. It's supposed to get every person, not a sample of the population, which is what a survey does. And so it produces a unique, comprehensive national data set about race and ethnicity every 10 years. That really is not replicable by any other survey. And also it is an opportunity. It's an opportunity to get information once a decade, up to information about how people identify in terms of race, ethnicity, which is something that could shift from one decade to another. It could shift in different situations. You know, we're talking about a sociopolitical construct that has never been static in the history of the United States. And so to rely potentially on, you know, sample surveys or to rely on existing government records to make essentially educated guesses of how people identify and what. Those numbers look like in terms of different populations in the country. That's taking a big guess, a big risk of getting an inaccurate portrait of who is living in the United States. Yeah, I mean, and to your point about accuracy, I mean, there's so much that's riding on that as we're discussing. I mean, there are groups that I see come out every 10 years that are really serious about the census. A lot of black civic organizations specifically getting people to sign up to be census takers, educating people about the importance of answering the census. But it really is a huge deal among some black cultural and political organizations to make sure that we get counted. Actually, the theme for the last coordinated black census initiative back in 2020 was called Count Me Black, which I wish I would have had a Count Me Black, any Count Me Black merch. If anyone has Count Me Black merch, please let me know. I say all that to say that, like, these are coordinated campaigns that are really important to some of these organizations because low counts in some communities can mean federal dollars get diverted to other communities. I mean, to your point about accuracy, Hansi, like, this is a pretty big opportunity to get that accuracy. And there is so much that is on the line here. There's so much on the line. And the fact is, decade after decade, the Census Bureau has undercounted people of color while overcounting white people. We're going to take a quick break. But first, if you're a longtime listener or brand new to It's Been a Minute, be sure to come back every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday for brand new episodes. And did you know? You can make it even easier to get new episodes by hitting the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. Whether you're a new friend or a loyal bestie, join the team by subscribing today. Coming up after the break. You know, all my life, when I was handed these things, I always had limited option. There was race and then there was ethnicity. And the race question was white, black, Asian and Native American. But with those limited options, I was not going to choose white unless you put a gun to my head. Stick around. there is also another set of census data that the trump administration also proposed to stop including they proposed to stop including certain non-us citizens in a specific set of census numbers which would be unprecedented how would that change things this is a proposal for the 2030 census that runs up against the constitution you know some people assume the census is only supposed to count u.s citizens but citizens that word is not part of the constitution census instructions if you take a look at the document the current instructions were enacted after the civil war ended slavery united states there i'm talking about the 14th amendment which says quote the whole number of persons in each state must be included in the census numbers used to determine each state's share of congressional seats electoral college votes for a decade and what the trump administration is arguing is that the framers in the constitution did not intend for the word persons to include people living in the states who do not have u.s citizenship or green card so they want to exclude from what are known as census apportionment counts millions of u.s residents who do not have legal status who are refugees asylees or visa holders and this is a broader push for exclusion compared to what the first trump administration tried and failed to do for the 20 census when the focus was on specifically u.s residents without legal status okay so it's interesting though the trump administration would want to not have this data or at least the most accurate picture of this data about america i think it's also part of a larger story that has to do with how america is changing there's been a lot of panic okay capital p particularly among white conservatives about this projection that the census bureau made in the past that starting sometime in the 2040s non-hispanic women and women of color were not included in the census will not be the largest racial or ethnic group anymore do you think that idea like maybe that new data would confirm this trend might be playing into all of this you know it's it's hard to say for sure but you know there is this interesting historical parallel behind this latest trump administration push to exclude certain non-u.s citizens living in the country from the census apportionment counts you know right before the 1980 census hardline advocates for immigration restrictions launched a decades-long push to exclude specifically people without legal status from the census apportionment counts and their leader at the time once wrote in a memo warning about a quote latin onslaught unquote because of the rise of immigration they were seeing from latin america asia and other parts of the world after the u.s got rid of an immigration system based on race ethnicity in 1965 and the trump administration census efforts and i'm talking about the census efforts in the 19th century talking about during the first term and this current one they've been following a playbook drawn up by these immigration hardliners decades ago and so again it's you know the administration is saying this is how they think the constitution's instructions should be interpreted that persons does not include certain people living in the states without u.s citizenship or green card but behind all that is this history russell what do you think yeah the that's right you know i've heard for many years if you just change the terms you could change the data but if you change the term of say latinos and how you count them it's not going to erase the reality outside your window you're not going to wake up and find there are less mexicans there are 403 u.s counties that are already majority minority when we dove into them we found that there are majority minority counties in rural texas mississippi new mexico georgia alaska even nebraska and kansas and i would bet the places in nebraska and kansas those are either slaughterhouse areas or livestock and those are places where you get a lot of undocumented workers there it tells you a reality of those changing economies if you don't count them then you're not giving the accurate picture of what's going on in america the story is misaligned and therefore you can't even address possible civil rights violations so like say in the county of nebraska we found there was a majority of latinos yeah those counties are not going to erase the data that's going on in america those counties are required to say have court interpreters those counties are required to have multi-language ballots if you don't have that data you can say nothing to see here these people are essentially invisible and they don't count both literally and figuratively i mean hansi you pointed out in a story after the 2020 census that there are some issues with the framing about a decline in the white population given that the white population may be growing depending on how you define the quote-unquote white category you're at the since 2000 the census has allowed people to check more than one box to answer the race question and in 2020 quote there was an almost 316 percent jump in the number of u.s residents who identified with the white category and one or more of the other racial groups their responses boosted the size of a white population that includes anyone who marked white which is interesting because in real life it's not just the white population it's the white population it's the people who are being treated in the way that race works socially maybe you might check white on a census box but when people see you in the street you are not getting treated or assumed to be a white person this is complicated stuff right this is this is really complicated stuff because we you know you can't talk to every person feeling at a census form of what's going through their mind and what are they thinking when they're trying to answer this very personal for some people a very personal question and also you know let me throw in another question this is another complicating factor this is at a time when a lot of people are doing dna tests and looking for ancestry tests and looking at those results and assuming oh this means i have roots in this part of the world this part of the world this part of the world and so therefore i should check off all these different boxes to represent my racial identity on the census and perhaps what i checked off just one or a few were inaccurate before i got these dna ancestry test results that's also in the mix so again it's really complicated and i think the key question to keep in mind here is that i think it's really complicated and i think it's really complicated here is whenever you see a headline that says the white population is shrinking or is in decline the question is how are you defining white because for decades many people have equated people who only check off the white box and do not identify hispanic or latino on the census as the white population but the reality is messier than that because the other country's ideas about whiteness has always been in flux just as the idea of race in general has ever been you know ever changing in this country and we try to fit into imperfect boxes on census forms this squishy thing squishy thing but again has real hard consequences for a lot of people in terms of discrimination and these forms by the way have asked about race ethnicity in different ways decade to decade the responses have been processed in different ways decade to decade and so that could also influence the census results but you know the bottom line here is that however you define white whether it's a white person or a white person it's a white person it's a white person it's people who check off just the white box exclusively or in addition to other boxes on the census form white people still make up the largest racial or ethnic group in the united states sticking on this topic of the ever-shifting definition of whiteness in the united states another complicating factor in all of this is that the biden administration made changes to how race and ethnicity can be asked about for the 2030 census and other federal government forms and created new boxes for middle eastern or north african and for hispanic slash latino i think a lot of people don't know that people of each of these backgrounds could not choose those options as a race people of middle eastern and north african descent were directed to check the white box previously hispanic or latino was not a part of a race question because the federal government considers latino to be an ethnicity that can be of any race so like they had to check something else plus latino which for many meant selecting white as well even if that's not how they identify with new check boxes it's likely that many people who are middle eastern or north african or hispanic or latino would not have to pick white anymore because they may have an option that they feel is more accurate and truthful for them and that could also make it seem like the white population is declining more when we're just getting a more accurate picture and the trump administration previously pushed the deadline on federal agencies getting those changes on their forms now it's trying to get rid of these questions that all said if race and ethnicity do get asked about on the census it's really easy to imagine people comparing 2020 and 2030 not taking these changes into account you know seeing the number of white people go down dramatically which i imagine could freak some of them out more than some people have already expressed that they are freaked out there's a lot going on here there is also the potential if these questions are left in for a huge shift between 2020 and 2030 that's right you know all my life when i was headed these things i always had limited option that was race and then there was ethnicity and the race question was white black asian and native american i wasn't going to pick white my mom would i wasn't and only later on they had another question like other then i would click the other thing so i don't know how many people were engaging in this conflict i don't know how that skewed the numbers and it probably did but with those limited options i was not going to choose white unless you put a gun to Latinos were classified as white, it became a movement after World War II. too as they were fighting for civil rights and they saw a black white dichotomy the first wave of civil rights leaders says let's identify with white because it's less problematic for us if you got to choose between a white and black fountain let's go with the white maybe they'll accept us i think those discussions continue especially as we get migration from latin america and how those discussions about race are changing in latin america they're bringing those nuanced discussions here and it's no longer a quote a hum black and white issue yeah that's a very very very good point i mean there are every so many different latin american countries have their own internal definitions when it comes to that and moving between the united states and these countries can also be its own culture shock where you're constantly changing definitions to your point bringing those conversations here it's like a whole other ballpark but hansi what are you seeing here in the potential for big shifts between 2020 and 2021 and 2030 in terms of some if these questions are left on the census yeah it's it's it's a big question mark for me because uh the administration trump administration has made radical proposals and so we'll have to see if these play out but at the same time you know it's coming at a time that more of the public has been experiencing the federal government in their lives in ways that a lot of people haven't seen before and so there's a real question of whether or not of just what's going on in the world right now and i think that's a big question for me and i think what general census participation will look like in 2030 even if there is a new administration in place a new presidential administration there's been a lot of public trust that has been hurt particularly amongst immigrant communities latinos asian americans who see increased immigration enforcement and really do not want to have anything to do with the federal government even if you're you know just from the census bureau just here for the census nothing about immigration enforcement people can't do anything about it so i think it's a big question for me can't necessarily tell the difference and so in this really unprecedented moment that we're in it's really hard to say what census results will look like in 2030 yeah even as we talked about all the tricky stuff that goes in understanding our nation's demographics the panic around the decline of so-called monoracial white people um another term that i feel like the internet made up only within the past three years you know not being the majority anymore i think undergirds a lot of conservative politics in our culture i mean of course politics around immigration but also some of the panic around the birth rate and replacement theory and all these things i mean hansi you reported on how some demographers don't use the phrase majority minority for worry of stoking this fear around this shift but i have to wonder even with mass deportations and trying to convince white women to have more babies are these demographic shifts just inevitable and what do people who are scared of it fear will happen if this shift occurs well there's certainly a lot of conspiracy theories out there and you know the researchers i've talked to said there tends to be a sense of anxiety among white people when they hear or read about a decline in the white population whether or not that you know is true or not in the data and they tend to get concerned about the status of white people in society and a lot of this can be traced back to 2008 when the census bureau put out a report projecting that by 2042 this year has shifted over the years but by 2042 at that point white people would make up a minority of the u.s population and there's been a lot of criticism of that announcement and subsequent projections because it's based on assumptions that may turn out to be untrue and may even become obsolete because there's a possibility here that you know the current more current trends point to no one racial group being the numerical majority at some point within our lifetime does the number even matter like i'm not sure the structural advantages that white people have will just go away at midnight you know the night they are no longer the majority no that hasn't worked in in other countries no south africa for example yeah no i was just gonna say that hasn't worked in other countries i don't see whether it might be different in the united states if it's not different other places but if we're heading into a reality where there is no new census data on race it's going to be hard to track that to measure that one thing that's given us a clue if we look at our classrooms that's what's really interesting if you look at the classrooms are it's showing our demographic future for the rest of the country because right now white students are below half of the enrollment of our public school system our school system in general yet at the same time black and latino students were going to attending schools that are segregated so while at the same time that we're becoming more diverse our black and latino schools are going to be more diverse and we're going to be more diverse and we're going students are still attending segregated schools so we're becoming a more diverse society without necessarily becoming in a more integrated i don't know how long that can last wow wow y'all have given me so much to think about today i really appreciate this conversation russell hansi thank you both so much good to be with you very welcome that was russell contraris senior race and justice reporter at axios and hansi lo wong a correspondent here at npr who covers voting rights and the census this episode of it's been a minute was produced by liam mcvane this episode was edited by nina potthock our supervising producer is share vincent our executive producer is barton girdwood our vp of programming is yolanda sanguini all right that's all for this episode of it's been a minute from npr i'm britney loose talk soon