Abstract
Between 1850 and 1930, demographic upheaval in the United States was connected to reorganization of the racial order. Socially and politically recognized boundaries between groups shifted, new groups emerged, others disappeared, and notions of who belonged in which category changed. All recognized racial groups—blacks, whites, Indians, Asians, Mexicans and others—were affected. This article investigates how and why census racial classification policies changed during this period, only to stabilize abruptly before World War II. In the context of demographic transformations and their political consequences, we find that census policy in any given year was driven by a combination of scientific, political, and ideological motivations.Based on this analysis, we rethink existing theoretical approaches to censuses and racial classification, arguing that a nation's census is deeply implicated in and helps to construct its social and political order. Censuses provide the concepts, taxonomy, and substantive information by which a nation understands its component parts as well as the contours of the whole; censuses both create the image and provide the mirror of that image for a nation's self-reflection. We conclude by outlining the meaning of this period in American history for current and future debates over race and classification.
Highlights
Hochschild, Jennifer L., and Brenna Marea Powell. 2008
After 1940, it no longer used the term “color” in conjunction with “race.” The United States entered World War II with the racial order established and the era of racial reorganization complete—until it started unraveling again toward the end of the twentieth century. This trajectory raises two empirical questions to be pursued here: why was the Census Bureau’s system of racial categorization so inconsistent and unstable, and why did experimentation in reorganizing the racial order begin and end when it did? others have recognized the importance of these questions, no one has as of yet systematically pursued their answers for all groups across the full time period, as we argue is essential for complete understanding
We show how context and choice interacted in creating classifications of what is understood as the ethnoracial pentagon.[10]
Summary
Hochschild, Jennifer L., and Brenna Marea Powell. 2008. Racial reorganization and the United States census 1850–1930: mulattoes, half-breeds, mixed parentage, Hindoos, and the Mexican race. The 1930 census marked the last stage of the period of racial reorganization; after that year, the Census Bureau perceived only three races (white, Negro, Indian) and five Asian nationalities for many decades It no longer explicitly identified racial mixture,[8] mixed parentage, the Mexican race, Hindoos, fractions of Indian blood,[9] or other innovative categories. We show how context and choice interacted in creating classifications of what is understood as the ethnoracial pentagon (white, black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic).[10] we consider why the period from 1850 through 1930 was especially important for developing the American racial order, and why experimentation in racial reorganization ended when it did. The term is from David Hollinger, Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (New York: Basic Books, 2006)
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