Last year's Census predicted that whites would be the minority by 2043; but, if a new finding by Pew Research is any indicator, that won't be true--at least, not on paper. It turns out that 1.2 million American's that identified themselves as Hispanic actually changed their race to "white" or "some other race" in between the 2000 and 2010 census. The odds are pretty slim that these people turned into a different race in that decade, so what's going on? Why would 7% of Latino's change their mind on being called such? First, the labels in the Census may not be reflective of how many Americans see themselves. Hispanic is a cultural identifier, and ethnicity is not necessarily the same thing as race. Add in the nuance of second, third, or fourth generations and how they identify, and how Hispanics perceive themselves racially (I'm not black or white, I must be "other"), you get a really complicated read of who we are. For example, research suggests that Latino's that have been victims of discrimination are less likely to identify as being white, perhaps as they do not see themselves as such. Cut and dry categories often do not encompass the experience of any person, especially someone from a complicated identity. Identifying as white does not necessarily mean Hispanics consider themselves white, or in the inverse, not Hispanic.
If anything, this research hints that the next couple of decades will be more complicated in how we identify and categorize ourselves, as our own perceptions of our identity, and how we can parse out ethnic and racial identifiers in an increasingly diverse culture.
New York Times, May 2014
