18th and 19th centuries 1790 census The
1790 United States census was the first
census in the history of the United States. The population of the United States was recorded as 3,929,214 as of Census Day, August 2, 1790, as mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the
US Constitution and applicable laws. The law required that every household be visited, that completed census schedules be posted in two of the most public places within each jurisdiction, remain for the inspection of all concerned, and that "the aggregate amount of each description of persons" for every district be transmitted to the
president. The
US Marshals were also responsible for governing the census.
Loss of data About one-third of the original census data has been lost or destroyed since documentation. The data was lost in 1790–1830, and included data from
Connecticut,
Delaware,
Georgia,
Maine,
Maryland,
Massachusetts,
New Hampshire,
New Jersey,
New York,
North Carolina,
Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island,
South Carolina,
Vermont, and
Virginia. However, the census was proven factual and the existence of most of this data can be confirmed in many secondary sources pertaining to the first census.
Data Census data included the name of the head of the family and categorized inhabitants as: free white males at least 16 years of age (to assess the country's industrial and military potential), free white males under 16 years of age, free white females, all other free persons (reported by sex and color), and
slaves.
Thomas Jefferson, then the
Secretary of State, directed US Marshals to collect data from all 13 original states, and from the
Southwest Territory. The potential reasons Washington and Jefferson may have thought this could be refusal to participate, poor public transportation and roads, spread-out population, and restraints of current technology.
Data availability No
microdata from the 1790 population census are available, but
aggregate data for small areas and their compatible cartographic boundary files, can be downloaded from the
National Historical Geographic Information System. However, the categories of "Free white males" of 16 years and upward, including heads of families under 16 years, "Free white females", including heads of families, All other free persons, and "Slaves," existed in the census form.
1800 and 1810 census In 1800 and 1810, the age question regarding free white males was more detailed with five cohorts and included All other free persons, except "Indians not taxed", and "Slaves".
1830 census In the 1830 census, a new question, which stated, "The number of White persons who were foreigners not naturalized" was included. The biggest change in this census was in racial classification. Enumerators were instructed to no longer use the "Mulatto" classification. Instead, they were given special instructions for reporting the race of interracial persons. A person with both white and black ancestry (termed "blood") was to be recorded as "Negro", no matter the fraction of that lineage (the "
one-drop rule"). A person of mixed black and American Indian ancestry was also to be recorded as "Neg" (for "Negro") unless they were considered to be "predominantly" American Indian and accepted as such within the community. A person with both white and American Indian ancestry was to be recorded as American Indian, unless their Indigenous ancestry was small, and they were accepted as white within the community. In all situations in which a person had white and some other racial ancestry, they were to be reported as that other race. People who had minority interracial ancestry were to be reported as the race of their father. For the first and only time, "Mexican" was listed as a race. Enumerators were instructed that all people born in Mexico, or whose parents were born in Mexico, should be listed as Mexicans, and not under any other racial category. In prior censuses and in 1940, enumerators were instructed to list Mexican Americans as white, perhaps because some of them were of white background (mainly Spanish), many others mixed white and Native American and some of them Native American. The supplemental American Indian questionnaire was back, but in abbreviated form. It featured a question asking if the person was of full or mixed American Indian ancestry.
1940 census President
Franklin D. Roosevelt promoted a
Good Neighbor policy that sought better relations with Mexico. In 1935, a federal judge ruled that three Mexican immigrants were ineligible for citizenship because they were not white, as required by federal law. Mexico protested, and Roosevelt decided to circumvent the decision and make sure the federal government treated Hispanics as white. The State Department, the Census Bureau, the Labor Department, and other government agencies therefore made sure to uniformly classify people of Mexican descent as white. This policy encouraged the
League of United Latin American Citizens in its quest to minimize discrimination by asserting their whiteness. The 1940 census was the first to include separate population and housing questionnaires. 1940 census data was used for
Japanese American internment. The Census Bureau's role was denied for decades, but was finally proven in 2007.
1950 census The 1950 census questionnaire removed the word "color" from the racial question, and also removed Hindu and Korean from the race choices.
2000 census Race was asked differently in the
2000 census in several other ways than previously. Most significantly, respondents were given the option of selecting one or more race categories to indicate racial identities. Data show that nearly seven million Americans identified as members of two or more races. Because of these changes, the 2000 census data on race are not directly comparable with data from the 1990 census or earlier censuses. Use of caution is therefore recommended when interpreting changes in the racial composition of the US population over time. The following definitions apply to the 2000 census only. •
White — A person having origins in any of the original peoples of
Europe, the
Middle East, or
North Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "white-skinned people" or report entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish. The Census Bureau defines "Hispanic or Latino" as "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race." Although used in the census and the American Community Survey, "Some other race" is not an official race, As the 2010 census form did not contain the question titled "Ancestry" found in prior censuses, there were campaigns to get non-Hispanic
West Indian Americans,
Turkish Americans,
Armenian Americans,
Arab Americans, and
Iranian Americans to indicate their ethnic or national background through the race question, specifically the "Some other race" category. The Interagency Committee has suggested that the concept of marking multiple boxes be extended to the Hispanic origin question, thereby freeing individuals from having to choose between their parents' ethnic heritages. In other words, a respondent could choose both "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino".
2020 census The
2020 census featured similar designs to the 2000 and 2010 censuses. Subsequently, the Census Bureau adhered to the 1997 OMB standards and thus used two separate questions to collect data on race and ethnicity. However, there were improvements in the phrasing of the race and ethnicity questions within the OMB guidelines, that would enhance clarity for respondents. The Hispanic origin question included the same checkboxes as the 2010 census ("Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano", "Puerto Rican", "Cuban"), along with a "Yes, another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin". Under this category, two changes emerged. The first was the shift from "Print origin, for example" to "Print, for example". The removal of the word origin was due to the surveyed confusion and differentiating meanings origin has for respondents or varying backgrounds. Furthermore, the Census Bureau updated the write-in instructions for the "Some Other Race" category and included the instruction to "Print race", but changed the instruction to read "Print race or origin" to match the primary instruction to "
Mark ☒ one or more boxes AND print origins". In 1900, there were no specified categories on the census listing form, and the instructions called for enumerators to list "B" for "Black (or negro or negro descent)", displaying the first occurrence of the controversial term "Negro". In 1930, there were specific instructions that used the term "Negro". Mixed persons were to be counted as "Negro" no matter how small the share of blood, also known as the
one-drop rule. It was not until 1970 that the term Black appeared on a census form, and in 1990 the enumerator of color was eliminated. The term MENA includes the Arab American population, which is growing quickly as of 2023. This allowed the 2020 census to include dis-aggregated data on MENA populations, which made up over 3.5 million Americans. California, New York, and Michigan have the largest MENA populations, and Lebanese, Iranian, and Egyptian populations made up nearly half of them. That number may have been an under count however, as 19% of the American population provided no answer for the "Ancestry" question. Many people in the community "may not be perceived, nor perceive themselves, to be White". The added category could allow for more targeted funding, social programs, and political representation. A 2015 study from
Rutgers University found significant inequalities in household income, citizenship rates, and English-speaking rates between New Jersey's White population and Arab population, concluding that America's White and Arab populations might be different enough both culturally and economically to justify a separate category. The next change was reordering the example groups from "Argentinean, Colombian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on." to "Salvadoran, Dominican, Colombian, Guatemalan, Spaniard, Ecuadorian, etc." to reflect the ever-increasing geographic diversity of the Hispanic or Latino category and the variations in populations sums each year.
Hispanic or Latino Translating the data set, the 3.45 difference in net coverage error for the Hispanic or Latino category proves widely problematic, but is an avid reflection of the seismic shifts in the United States. Mexican immigrants have been at the center of one of the largest mass migrations in contemporary history, reaching a peak of 12.8 million in 2007, but have since declined, as reported by the
Pew Research Center. The predominant reasoning being shifts in political authority and the coronavirus pandemic resulting in policy changes. More specifically, immigrants entering through a permanent legal residency (green card), visa overstays, and apprehensions have drastically changed the input and output of data. The total number of non-immigrant visas processed in Mexico by the US Department of State dropped 35% in 2020 compared with the prior year, from about 1.5 million in 2019 to about 960,000 in 2020. The temporary visas were processed for tourism, business, or crossing the border. Consequently, due to political shifts, apprehensions of unauthorized Mexican immigrants increased considerably after the pandemic started in 2020. In fiscal 2020, the number of detainments of Mexican adults at the US-Mexican border reached sky-high new levels under former president Donald Trump. There were 253,118 such encounters, up 52% from 166,458 the previous year. == Relation between ethnicity and race in census results ==