Ethnicity & the boundaries of race
Rereading Directive 15
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9685641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Victoria Hattam (0000-0002-3773-3457, The Century Foundation, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 134 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 61-69 |
| Publication date | 2005-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Daedalus (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-5266 • E-ISSN: 1548-6192 |
| Publisher | MIT Press - Journals (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1162/0011526053124352 |
| OpenAlex | W1987080365 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 1 |
gories current in American life can be traced to an obscure government edict: Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, promulgated by the Of1⁄2ce of Management and Budget (omb) on May 12, 1977.1 Although the directive was of1⁄2cially limited to federal statistics and administrative reporting, its categories quickly became the de facto standard for American society at large, setting the terms ever since for racial and ethnic classi1⁄2cation in the United States. The omb categories–speci1⁄2cally the Census Bureau’s use of them–are currently being renegotiated. Stripped of important particulars, the question on the table is whether Hispanics, to use the Census Bureau term, will continue to be classi1⁄2ed as an ethnic group and not as a race. Ethnicity has long served to establish the boundaries of race by marking the dividing line between black and white. Where that line is drawn, who is designated as an ethnic, establishes the terms within which racial politics is waged in the United States.2 To comprehend the political choices at hand, we need to recover the somewhat arcane history of Directive 15. Retracing the omb race categories is no simple antiquarian delight; it is required currency for following contemporary debates over racial classi1⁄2cation and politics in the twenty-1⁄2rst-century United States. Directive 15 was initially created as a means of standardizing the racial and ethnic categories used in government statistics. These data took on new political import after the passage of several civil rights laws. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal
Directive · Ethnic group · Political science · Race (biology · Sociology · Census and Population Estimation · Computer Science · Gender Studies · Law
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,47 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2023 (17) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |