Earlier
this year in February, an Associated Press article reported findings
that revealed varying, and at times contradictory, definitions for
Hispanic, Basque, Latino and/or Portuguese at the highest levels of the
U.S. Government, including the US Congress. The article was rapidly
disseminated through the Portuguese American media and along with a
false rumor that the US Census Bureau had plans to classify Portuguese
Americans as Hispanics in the 2020 census. Unfortunately, this caused a
visceral and uninformed reactions from our community some of which were
neither flattered our community nor represented our tolerance and
respect for diversity. Many individuals contacted the National
Organization of Portuguese Americans (NOPA) with concerns to investigate
the source of such a decision and why key leaders of the community
where unaware of it.
Upon
realizing that there was nobody leading the effort to clarify why such a
decision would have been made without any input from the community,
NOPA immediately contacted Ambassador Nuno Brito to update him on the
situation and see if he would be able to get an immediate audience with a
federal official. After researching which government offices had
oversight and influence over Census ethnic classifications, NOPA shared
the information with Ambassador Brito, who within a day was able to meet
with top officials at the US State Department and Census Bureau where
he discovered that there was no current or future effort planned to
classify Portuguese Americans under the Hispanic classification. To this
day, there is no information about how or where this rumor began.
NOPA confirmed with the Census Bureau that their offices received calls about this topic and that the rumor was not
true. Census officials stated that there were "no plans to count
Portuguese Americans as Hispanic in 2020" and that the "Census
Bureau follows the Office of Management and Budget definition of
Hispanic origin: A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or
South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race."
NOPA
is grateful to Ms. Susan Graham Pereira, who works in the area of
multiracial policy issues, for reaching out to NOPA and providing
guidance on contacting the entities who would clarify the erred
information. NOPA is also grateful to Ambassador Brito, who took
immediate action to represent the interests of the Portuguese American
community.
Unfortunately,
there has been a limited amount of effort to disseminate this update as
compared to efforts to announce the erred information. Therefore NOPA
asks that the community disseminate this press release as much as
possible. Moving forward, NOPA believes that a more accurate measure of
the community's pulse on this issue is needed that can capture feedback
from a proper sample size and ensure that the respondents are properly
informed with background information such as the pros and cons of
changing or not changing our community's ethnic classification. Most
importantly, there has been a lack of an education effort to inform our
elected officials about our community, and NOPA believes that more has
to be done to ensure that the Portuguese American community is properly
defined and recognized by government agencies and officials.
For any questions regarding this matter, please call NOPA at 703-389-3512 or email info@nopa-us.org.
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