"I think we should remove the formal distinction between race and ethnicity from the federal classification system, but we must also remain alert to, and seek to change, the complex ways in which ethnic privilege has long been secured by defining ethnicity against race" (Hattam, 81).
Please explain Hattam's arguments in your own words and then explain why you agree or disagree.
Examine the Census handout from class today. For three of the Census' listed (1790, 1850, 1930, 1950, 1990,2000), explain what the racial make-up of the country at that time was and how it impacted the categories on the Census. In other words, what were the social and historical circumstances that led to the categories in those years?
If one of your Hispanic/Latino friends (or family members, if that applies) asked you how to fill out questions 8 and 9 on the Census what would you tell them?
Please define Flores' three approaches to understanding the Latino community: demographic, analytic and imaginary. Why is it important that we look at the community in these three ways?
"The imaginary articulates more than a reflexive response to negative conditions and unfavorably weighted relations which, though oppositional, is as a response still ultimately mimetic and confined to extrinsically set terms. It is important to recognize that the Latino imaginary, like that of other oppressed groups, harbors the elements of an alternative ethos, an ensemble of cultural values and practices created in its own right and to its own ends" (Flores, 71).
Please paraphrase the above quote from Flores in your own words. What is he saying about the relation of the Hispanic/Latino community to larger society? In other words, did the Latino community develop only in response to White racism?
How does the Census both reflect and create racial categories in the United States?
I have also attached the slideshow on the difference between race, ethnicity and nationality below:
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