I will remember this next time I fill out my census form. What do I want to be? I never knew I had this choice!
If politicians didn't think that they could somehow capture wholesale blocks of votes from "Hispanics", the category would never have been invented!
Signed,
ávido oyente
The "category" was created because the civil rights legislation of the 60's and 70's required equal treatment for Latinos and African Americans. However, there was no Census data for "Latinos" because they had been counted as "white" up to and through the 1970 Census; there was no way to insure compliance with existing legislation.
You posted the public excuse and rationale, I posted the true reason.
The simple truth is there is still no way to ensure compliance with existing legislation for affirmative action quotas for Hispanics because there is no legal definition of what "Hispanic" is. If I check the block on a job application claiming to be Hispanic, then I'm Hispanic. There's no legal standard to prove otherwise. I simply have to claim that at one point in my ancestry, there was a Mexican milkman making deliveries.
Just change your name to Tuna Tierra.
I know this will come as a shock, but the real background on the designation of various ethnic groups in the census isn't political, but financial.
Here I agree in part with Avid. The creation of the "Hispanic" term and the consequent available breakouts in Census data came as a direct result of the civil rights legislation that passed in the 60's and 70's.
I get all that. But the purpose wasn't for politicians to "capture wholesale blocks of votes." That came later. In fact some politicians have only very recently become aware of this strategy.
The original post said nothing about Hispanic or Hispanic music. That said, WMID in Atlantic City, NJ has a decent format of oldies and classics.
I'm changing my name to Carlos Goldfarb.
Certainly true, also. Putting a label on a group of previously unlabeled people does not make them a larger voting bloc.
No, but recognizing that capturing most of the votes in ethnic neighborhoods, include the barrio, is a good way to boost vote totals was something politicians learned over a century ago. Pandering to blocs of voters is a process, not an event. Politicians pandered to ethnic blocs of voters since the first blocs of ethnic voters existed. Recognizing that a large voting bloc exists precedes labeling it, especially if the labeling assists in handing out pork to buy votes. And make no mistake, programs like Affirmative Action are as much vote-buying pork as awarding contracts to big employers or funding bridges in a Congressman's district is.
In that case, I think I'm going to "latinoize" my own name to Kah Emme Ricardos. (Stop laughing, David.)
No, but recognizing that capturing most of the votes in ethnic neighborhoods, include the barrio, is a good way to boost vote totals was something politicians learned over a century ago.
A century ago most Latinos in the US were disenfranchised, save in the places where they had always been a majority such as San Antonio and Albuquerque. In most other areas, they were discouraged from registering to vote and not particularly encouraged to become citizens, either.
Well into the 60's, even Puerto Ricans in New York were quite ignored in the political process, despite the fact that they were all US Citizens.