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Introduction

The concept of RACE is both a biological and social construct. In the US, there are 5 racial groups, and every 10 years the Census Bureau attempts to get a tally of the breakdown of racial identity in the US. The Census defers to the OMB, who in 1997 updated their racial classification. So race is identities culturally, socially, and historically. But racial identity goes beyond the US Census survey and encompasses one’s experiences, beliefs and perceptions which shape their identity and how they understand themselves and the society in which they live.

In the US we have whites, blacks (or African American), East Asian (or Asian), Native American or Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. Each of these racial categories represents not only a demographic group, but also an amalgamation of historical, social, and cultural contexts which then influence how an individual navigates and forms their racial identity. Here, I will discuss which groups fall under which racial categories in the US, why Hispanics/Latinos and Arabs (MENA people) aren’t a race and the relationship between the self and racial identity.

Race in the US

The Census Bureau defers to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on matters of race. In 1997, the OMB separated Asians and Pacific Islanders and changed the term “Hispanic” to “Hispanic or Latino” (OMB, 1997). But in this discussion, they stated that there are 5 races: white, black, Native American, East Asian and Pacific Islander. The US Census Bureau has to defer to the OMB, and the OMB defines race as a socio-political category. Below are the 5 minimum reporting categories (races) as designated by the OMB.

White – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.

Black or African American – A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.

American Indian or Alaska Native – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.

Asian – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. (About the Topic of Race)

Race in America is based on self-identification, and the OMB allows one to put that they are of one or more racial groups. They also allow write ins of “Some Other Race”, which I will get to below. For now, I will elaborate on each racial category, and begin with the—controversial to white nationalists—definition of “white” that designates MENA people as white.

White racial designation—I showed the 5 minimum reporting categories (racial groups) above, and there has been discussion of adding a MENA minimum reporting category per the Federal Register. Such a move would be because they don’t identify as white, they aren’t perceived as white (Maghbouleh, Schachter, Flores, 2022) and and don’t have the same lived experiences as white Europeans. But we know that in OMB racetalk, white isn’t a narrow group that refers only to Europeans, it’s a broad group that refers to the ME/NA (yes, even Ashkenazi Jews). For instance, in the 2000 Census, 80 percent of Arabs self-identified as only white (de la Cruz and Brittingham, 2003). Obviously, Arabs intend to use the white category in the same ah that the OMB uses it. Even then, we know that the aftermath of 9/11 hasn’t changed the self-reported race of around 63 percent of Arab Americans (Spencer, 2019). Further, know that those who feel that the term “Arab American” doesn’t describe them are more likely to identify as white and that some Arab Americans both report strong ethnic ties, identify as white, and reject the Arab American label (Ajrouch and Jamal, 2007). They aren’t afforded minority status in the US even though they account for 2 to 6 percent of the US population, and this is because of their designation as white. This isn’t to deny, though, the fact that they do experience discrimination and that they do have health inequalities (see Abboud, Chebli, and Rabelais, 2019), I just don’t think that they comprise a racial group, and at best they are an ethnicity in the overall white race—the fact that Arab Americans are discriminated against doesn’t justify their being a separate racial category (Jews, the Irish and Italians were also discriminated against upon arrival to the US but they were always politically and socially white; Yang and Koshy, 2016.) Arab Americans (and all MENA people) are simply like Italians, Irish British, Jews, and Poles in America—there is no need for an Arab/MENA racial category; the fact that they’re discriminated against and have differences in health from whites is irrelevant, because you can find both of these things in other ethnic groups labeled as white yet they don’t deserve a special racial status.

Of course, the term white in America also refers to people of European origin like Italians, Germans, Russians, Fins, and others and this designation has stayed relatively the same. Thus, the white race in American racetalk is designated for European and MENA people. (This would also hold for some “Hispanics/Latinos, see below.)

Black or African American racial designation—This category refers to black Americans (“African American”, AfAm “Foundational Black Americans” FBA, or “American Descendants of Slavery”, ADOS). For instance, the overlap between US race terms in the OMB and Blumenbacian racial designations is 1.0 for black or African (Spencer, 2014). Spencer (2019) noted one problem with the OMB’s definition of black or African American—that it would designate all people as black or African American since it says “A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.” But this can be avoided if we say they the way the OMB uses the term race is just it’s referent—it’s a set of categories or population groups (Spencer, 2014). So this racial designation just means any individual who can trace their ancestry back to Africa—which would comprise, say, Cubans/Puerto Ricans/Dominicans and other “Hispanics/Latinos” with African ancestry, black Americans, and immigrants from Africa who have sub-Saharan African ancestry.

American Indian or Alaskan Native racial designation—About 5.2 million people in America identify using this category (Nora, Vines, and Hoeffel, 2012). (This fell to 3.7 million in 2020.) This designation captures not only American Indians, but people who have Native ancestry from Central and South America, like the Maya, Aztec, Inca (which is referred to as “Latin American Indian”) and others. This also includes Alaskan Natives such as Yup’ik, Inuit, and other Natives such as Chippewa and Indians living on reservations. When it comes to American Indians, one must be able to prove their tribal affiliations, by showing that they or an ancestry had tribal affiliation, has an established “lineal ancestor“, or providing documentation that they have a relationship to a person using vital records.

Asian racial designation—This encompasses the far East, the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia. Before 1997, Asians and Pacific Islanders (PIs) were grouped together. For instance, in 1977 the OMB had 4 racial classifications since Asians and PIs were grouped together (and they still noted “Hispanics” as an ethnicity, with the option to identify as Hispanic or non-Hispanic). Thus, if one has ancestry to East Asia, South East Asia and the Indian subcontinent, they are therefore Asian.

Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander racial designation—As noted above, this group was split off from a broader “Asian or Pacific Islander” category. This designation refers to people Native Hawaiians and Oceanians. We know that the overlap between “Pacific Islander” and “Oceanian” is 1.0 (Spencer, 2014). Australian Aboriginals also fall under this category. Along with designating Native Hawaiians and Australian Aboriginals in this category, it also refers to people from other Pacific islands Samoa and other Pacific Islands like Melanesia, Guam, and Papua New Guinea (OMB, 1997). So the breaking up of the “Asian and or Pacific Islander” category is valid.

The question of “Latinos/Hispanics”—Back in August of 2020, I argued that “Latinos/Hispanics” were a group I called “HLS” or “Hispanics/Latinos/Spanish” people (OMB notes that these terms are and can be used interchangeably). This is because, at least where I grew up, people referred to Spanish speakers as one homogenous group, irregardless of their phenotype. So they would group together say Puerto Ricans and Salvadorians with Argentineans, Chileans and Cubans. However, these countries have radically different racial admixtures and culture based on what occurred there after 1492. But the issue is this—HLS isn’t a racial group. To me, it’s a socio-linguistic cultural group, since they share a language and some cultural customs. The category “Latin American is a social designation. But the thing is, the OMB rightly notes that” Hispanics or Latinos “are not a racial group, they are an ethnic group. In 1997 the OMB changed “Hispanic”to “Hispanic or Latino.” The OMB stated that the definition should be unchanged, but that the “Latino” qualifier should also be added. This category would comprise Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Central and South Americans and other Spanish culture or origins REGARDLESS OF RACE. Indeed the Census (who defer to the OMB) is quite clear: “Hispanics and Latinos may be of any race…People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.” Further, as noted above, the category “American Indian or Alaskan Native” also encompasses Latin American Indians (which some think of when they think of “Latinos or Hispanics”).

Furthermore, Spencer (2019: 98) notes that “Conducting a linear regression analysis shows that the average Caucasian ancestry of a Hispanic American national origin group positively and highly correlates (r=+0.864) with the proportion of that group that self-reported ‘White’ alone on the 2010 US Census questionnaire. Quite clearly, “white Hispanics” exist, and this is because as noted by the OMB, Hispanics aren’t a racial group. Forty percent of Central Americans identified as “some other race”, while 85 percent of Cubans, 53 percent of Puerto Ricans, and 35 percent of Dominicans identified as white in 2010; both Puerto Ricans and Dominicans were also more likely to identify as black or report multiple races (Ennis, Rios-Vargas, and Albert, 2011). HLS is clearly not a homogeneous group.

Therefore, phrases like “white Hispanic”, “Afro Latino/a” aren’t a contradiction of terms.

Throughout this discussion, I have shown that there is a relationship between racial identity and one’s self-identification. We also know—consistent with the TAAO—that moderate racial and ethnic identification for blacks and Asians acts as a buffer for racial discrimination while for whites, American Indians and Latinos it exacerbates it (Woo et al, 2019).

One final consideration leaves me with clustering studies. When K is set to 5, there are 5 clusters (Rosenberg et al, 2002). These are what Spencer calls human continental populations or Blumenbacian partitions. These clusters correspond to whites, blacks, Asians, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders. But “Hispanics”, being a recent amalgamation of admixed groups clustered in between other clusters and didn’t form their own cluster (Risch et al, 2002). Defenses of this study to show the biological reality of race can be found in Spencer (2014, 2019) and Hardimon (2017).

Conclusion

I have discussed what race means in the American context (it’s version of racetalk), it’s definition as defined by the OMB, and changes to the categories over the years. I don’t think they MENA people should be a separate racial category, since many of them identify as white, and although some do identify as Arab American and some are discriminated against, this isn’t relevant for their status as a racial category since Jews, the Irish and Italians were discriminated against upon their arrival to America and they also have a qualifier as well; this category also refers to European descendants. Black and African Americans refer to people with ancestry to Africa, so this could encompass many people like American blacks, certain Brazilians, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans.

Native American or Alaskan Native refers to not only North American Indians and people native to Alaska but also Latin American Indians (Maya, Pima and others). Asian and Pacific Islanders were split in 1997, since before then (in 1977) there were only 4 racial groups per the OMB. The Asian category refers to South East Asia, East Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander category refers to people native to Hawaii along with other Pacific Islands like Guam, Samoa and Papua New Guinea. Lastly, HLSs are not a racial designation and can be of any race. I showed that while many Caribbean Hispanics identify with different racial groups, they don’t themselves designate a separate racial group from their self-identification. Hispanics or Latinos can be of any race (like for example the former president of Peru Alberto Fujimori who had Japanese ancestry but was born in Peru, he’d be Hispanic as well, but his race is Asian).

I then showed that there are defenses of what is termed “cluster realism” (Kaplan and Winther, 2009), and that Hispanics aren’t in these clusters. This is a stark difference from hereditarians like Charles Murray who merely assume that race exists without an argument.

Therefore, since racial pluralism is true, there are a plurality of race concepts that hold across time and place (like with how race is defined in Brazil and South Africa). But for the context of this discussion, in America, race is a social construct of a biological reality and there are 5 racial groups and all theories of race are based off of the premise that race is a social construct. Spencer’s racial identity argument is true.