Uncle Sam’s Cabins

The questionnaire — no more than two pages long — was supposed to reach every single household on U.S. soil “between March 15 and 17,” according to estimates from the Census Bureau, the branch in charge of the population census conducted every decade in the United States. First question: What’s the point of counting if the total is already known? On the bureau’s website, one can see a number that changes by the minute and which is supposed to instantly reflect the country’s demographic evolution. Tuesday, March 16, at 6:06 pm GMT, or 1:06pm in Washington, D.C. (EST), the first world power counted 308,879,255 inhabitants.

That is, of course, an estimate. A practical exercise: Knowing that a birth occurs every 7 seconds and that a new immigrant, legal or illegal, enters the country every 37 seconds — in other words, a total of one person every 13 seconds — you can calculate the country’s annual population increase. The result: “America (the commonly used and somewhat problematic nickname of the United States), experiences a population growth of almost 2.5 million each year — 2,425,846 to be precise, according to the Census Bureau’s parameters. 41 percent of this growth is due to immigration. Despite the restrictions on residency put in place after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the United States remains a huge receptacle of voluntary migration.

Every decade, following a constitutional injunction, the administration proceeds to a more precise head count. What matters when one counts one’s population? Searching for an answer to this question yields a few significant surprises. A call to the public relations department of the famous Columbia University and a request to meet with a specialist:“We have exactly the person you’re looking for.” His name is Dave Epstein. An appointment is made. Is he a demographic expert? Not at all: He is a professor of political science, but most of all “a specialist on racial matters.” When you mention “population census” to an American, he will understand “racial or ethnic census.” In fact, the Census Bureau is not concerned whether those filling out the questionnaire are U.S. citizens, residents or illegal immigrants (a proposal to introduce these distinctions was rejected by Congress). But it does want to know everyone’s ethnic origin. “Progressive diversity constitutes the only possible American common identity,” according to the political expert.

This year, the questionnaire is particularly succinct: Ten questions for a household made up of a single individual, seventeen for those with two or more members. “The administration wanted to obtain a maximum of responses. They had to go for short and simple,” says Professor Epstein. And yet, once you answer the more general questions — name of resident(s), gender, relationship status of household members, etc. — only three specific questions remain. The first one has to do with the type of housing. “Is this house, apartment or mobile home: owned by you or someone in this household with a mortgage or loan? Without a mortgage or loan? Rented? Occupied without payment or rent? This is when one remembers that 11 million Americans live in a mobile home. Where one sees that the crisis led to a renewed interest in government structures when it comes to housing.

The other two questions have to do with ethnic or racial identity. Question 8: “Is the head of the household a person of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?” (If yes, Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, other-specify.) Question 9: “What is the head of household’s race?” Options: “White,” “Black or African American,” “American Indian” (or Alaskan Native), then a much more precise subdivision for those of Asian descent (“Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian, Guamanian or Chamorro, Samoan, other Asian-print race, other Pacific Islander-print race)… As a reminder, the word “race,” used to define a specific population whose skin color constitutes a distinctive trait, does not bring into question the accepted fact of the unity of the human race and, for the past ten years, people are given the option to check more than one answer regarding one’s racial or ethnic origins.

But how can one blame the average American for considering the census first and foremost to be an ethno-racial count, when that topic seems predominant. Professor Epstein is astonished that this may in fact be a surprise to the public. “No public policy is possible if the administration doesn’t know its constituents to the dot. A large number of federal expenses are linked to ethno-racial identities. All politicians are interested in knowing the population of their districts, especially since the census can lead to a reorganization of electoral districts. Finally, representatives of the various groups also need to know the weight of their racial or ethnic group to carry out a public action. In order to claim, one first needs to count.”*

The 2010 census, accompanied by a guide available online in 40 languages, focuses primarily on learning about Hispanics and Asians. Therefore its singularity is that it breaks away from the traditional structural division: whites and blacks. These two categories are only analyzed in a very general way. Thus, whether you are African American or a black person from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America or the Middle East, this time, you mark the same box.

Furthermore, many types of populations that could have been separated into different ethnic or racial (in the American sense of the term) categories are not listed: Arabs, Persians or Turks are not identified as such, as opposed to Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese. Once again, Dave Epstein says there is a pragmatic reason for that. “Latinos and Asians have represented the majority of new immigrants for the past 20 years. The government wanted to go into details in order to work more efficiently.”

During the first half of the twentieth century, whites were divided into three categories (Nordic, Slavic and Mediterranean). The Jews (and others) constituted a specific sub-category. Most immigrants at the time came from Europe. These categories lost their relevance and all those who were then placed into different categories fall today into a single category: White. Could the different racial and ethnic categories be primarily determined by the specific circumstances of our times?

*Dr. Epstein’s original quotes could not be verified. This is a translation from the quotes in the French article.

Translator’s Note: The French title “Les cases de L’oncle Sam” appears to be taken from the French Title of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (“La case de l’Oncle Tom”) and was therefore translated as “Uncle Sam’s Cabins.”