Taiwanese as an ethnicity option in US census

[Gain]

@MikeN1

Not to mention race.

At least people of difference race look vastly different. People of different ethnicities in the same race? Not really.

[Andrew0409]

I always write in Taiwanese

[FatKaz]

@hansioux

Would the term American outside of the US imply only Native Americans?

“American” as an ethnicity certainly would. “American” as a nationality wouldn’t. But this question is asking about “Taiwanese” as an ethnicity.

[Gain]

@FatKaz

“Taiwanese” as an ethnicity.

Do you have a problem with it?

[FatKaz]

@Gain

Do you have a problem with it?

No

[Dr_Milker]

@Andrew0409

I always write in Taiwanese

Do you use pe̍h-ōe-jī?

[nz]

@Gain

This is really stupid. Ethnicity like nationality is a social construct. There’s no rule that prohibits naming Taiwanese a new ethnicity. Before WWII German was just an ethnicity but Austrians disassociated themselves from Germany after the war, and now Austrians are just called Austrian, not Germans in Austria. The same goes for a bunch of different groups of people in Europe where the DNA is essentially the same but people call them something else like Flemings and Walloons. I doubt any Austrian/Swiss/Belgian would cross the German/French/Dutch box on a form.

Taiwanese aborigines have a different name: Formosans and their languages are called Formosan languages.

I’m pretty sure there’s only a section for “race”, not “ethnicity” on the US census, and I’m pretty sure the only box for me to check is “white”. We don’t separate out every “race” or “ethnicity” of Africa, Europe, or the Americas on the US census. Why would there be a separate box for a group of people that are the same race (Han Chinese) but have a different national identity?

Or did I miss something? Are there separate boxes for every tribe of Europe, Africa, and the Americas on the US census? That’d be a heck of a lot of pages long. No, we have “white, non Hispanic”, something for “Hispanic” or “Latino” or whatever they called it this year, Native American, Pacific Islander, Asian, and maybe a few others. There might be 15 options at most. Is Han Chinese even an option? Or just “Asian”?

[Pizzaman]

link provided above of the 2020 us census.

[hansioux]

@nz

the only box for me to check is “white”

For the 2020 one, the first option is for you to check whether you are white or not, but it does expect you to fill in a specific Caucasian ethnicity, such as English, German or Egyptian.

[hansioux]

The main issue I have with the wording on the census is that basically reinforces the notion that skin color is the determining factor of “race” of human beings.

If you are an Indigenous Australian, what exactly are you going to fill in here? Black or African American, or Other Pacific Islander?

Skin color alone is terrible at providing any useful information. I think collecting information of what people identify as their ethnicity and origin would be much more useful.

[Explant]

@nz

Does that mean those of us with European women ancestors that fought in the US Revolutionary War should demand there be a “DAR” or even plain old “American” option?

I love pushing back against China, but if you’re not aboriginal Taiwanese but born in Taiwan/to Taiwanese parents, you’re probably ethnically Han, and therefore “Chinese”. Unless I’m not ethnically Irish/German/Italian/Welsh/French/Russian/ a bunch of other places that weren’t even countries when my ancestors arrived in North America, and I am, in fact, “American”? Which would be rude AF to the less than 1% of the US population that remains of Native Americans. Yeah, wanting to be not Chinese makes sense, but that’s really opening a new can of worms…

I think if you are going to split those hairs and divide legitimate heritage, you must first pick either a date in time, or a number of years in which this can be claimed, then apply accross the board. Or creat a few boards based on human dispersal and/or hybridization and evolution. Otherwise, you are just discriminating

To clarify what i mean, see the definition of the word. And note, race, culture, ethnicity are slightly different.

As such, the land mass with the title TAIWAN has numerous ethnicities. As does china. actually, especially china given its size and environmental variables. But, in no way other than a seed germplasm, does the han group in taiwan directly reflect with being chinese (other than political and by proxy via financial). If some do want to relate to that group, let them do it individually, but as a nation, that is simply not true. I dont see it as a good thing being.prehudice against a group and pushing them away. good example is white folks in Canada. Canada is going further and further into first nations being true canadians and people of european seed being imports. Even though first nations are of asian seed (probably). It comes accross as prejudice to distinguish in these ways. It creates barriers and negativity that actually are not so warranted after numerous generations in this construct.

But i think its fair to say the han, hakka, aboriginal etc are all ethnically taiwanese here if they associate with being taiwanese. Thye clearly are different genetically, and.new.words could ve formed to describe them if the current ones seem innapropriate. But Chinese certainly is NOT the right word. By that standard, with a time rule, we can say we are all african. That said its like saying whiteys are all ethnically the same. But we all can agree that irish, italian, greek, norwegian etc all have real differences in regards to ethnicity.

Back to “human separations” conversation. If our species wasnt so immature and petty, we would be well served to organize things more clearly and move forward from there with mixed dna etc. if it were any other animal species, we would be quite pragmatic about australian aboriginals and swedish people being divided at the sub specific level. Then wihin such classification we could further differnetiate in races and whatnot further down the chain. Instead people fight over color shades of various body parts and we cant actually discuss common sense topics without problems. Its actually fascinating how we do that, but its not good…

[Steve4nLanguage]

@hansioux

For the 2020 one

Wow, I don’t recall this multitude of choices the last time I completed a US census (2000). I genuinely wonder if this much of a detailed categorization is useful for anything. [Perhaps that’s my white-northern European race(?)/ethnicity (?) speaking in ignorance]

[BiggusDickus]

@Steve4nLanguage

@hansioux

For the 2020 one

Wow, I don’t recall this multitude of choices the last time I completed a US census (2000). I genuinely wonder if this much of a detailed categorization is useful for anything. [Perhaps that’s my white-northern European race(?)/ethnicity (?) speaking in ignorance]

This is why censuses have become a waste of time and money. Other than total population, there’s little to accurately compare between them. You can probably class your ethnicity as white Cornish on the UK one now.

[nz]

I stand corrected

[Dr_Milker]

@BiggusDickus

white Cornish

[MikeN1]

@BiggusDickus

This is why censuses have become a waste of time and money. Other than total population, there’s little to accurately compare between them. You can probably class your ethnicity as white Cornish on the UK one now.

I don’t know. I think the French model that leaves out ethnicity/racial background omits a lot of valuable background information.

[Explant]

They should just outsource it to facebook/apple/google eyc and buy their data…would save money, time and provide FAR more information that we willingly gave up legally with consent.

[BiggusDickus]

@MikeN1

@BiggusDickus

This is why censuses have become a waste of time and money. Other than total population, there’s little to accurately compare between them. You can probably class your ethnicity as white Cornish on the UK one now.

I don’t know. I think the French model that leaves out ethnicity/racial background omits a lot of valuable background information.

I don’t know about the French model, but it sounds like it would have worked.