Indicators of ethnicity in Census 2000 data include data on race, hispanic origin, place of birth, ancestry, and language spoken at home. The key indicators of race and hispanic origin were asked of everyone (long and short form) while the other indicators (place of birth, language, and ancestry) were asked of only those filling out the long form.

Basic Race and Hispanic Origin Categories	Ancestry
Definition   --     Totals on Summary Files
Detailed Race and Hispanic Origin	Place of Birth for Foreign Born
Definition   --     Totals Summary Files
Race and Hispanic Origin on the PUMS Files	Language Spoken at Home

Defining Basic Race and Hispanic Origin Categories

Basic Hispanic Origin Categories	Basic Race Categories
Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino (of any race) are of hispanic origin and all others are not.	Persons self-identified based on the race or races with which they most closely identified. The questionnaire data was collapsed and reported so that each reported race fell into one of the six BASIC RACE categories. The result is that every person was assigned to at least one of these six categories while for those who reported more than one they could be assigned to as many as six. These categories are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. Furthermore, the race categories include both racial and national-origin groups.
Hispanic     Not Hispanic	White     Black/African American     American Indian and Alaska Native     Asian     Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific     Some Other Race

Totals for Basic Race and Hispanic Origin

See the note below about how race and hispanic origin totals described here are presented on Summary Files.

• Reporting Total counts
  • On Summary File 1, Summary File 2, and Summary File 4
    • totals in the six basic categories for those who reported one race with a single total for those reporting two or more races,
    • totals in the six basic categories for those who reported that basic category alone or in combination with other categories ,
    • all combinations of the basic race categories (57 combinations),
    • totals for total hispanic/not hispanic.
  • On Summary File 3
    • totals in the six basic categories for those who reported one race with a single total for those reporting two or more races.

Defining Detailed Race and Hispanic Origin

For the Asian, the Native Hawaiian and other Pacific, and the American Indian and Alaska Native races, respondents could also indicate a DETAILED RACE. In addition, those indicating they were Hispanic could indicate a DETAILED HISPANIC origin. The detailed race-hispanic origin groups reported are summarized here.

Asian	Asian Indian, Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Chinese, Chinese (except Taiwanese), Taiwanese, Filipino, Hmong, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Thai, Vietnamese, other
Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders	Native Hawaiian. Samoan, Tongan, Micronesian, Guamanian or Chamorro, Melanesian, Fijian, Other
American Indian and Native Alaskan	Includes 70 tribes and 8 Alaskan races
Hispanic	Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central American, Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Honduran, Nicaraguan, Panamanian, Salvadoran, South American, Argentinean, Bolivian, Chilean, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Uruguayan, Venezuelan, Spaniard, other

Totals for Detailed Race and Hispanic Origin

See the note below about how race and hispanic origin totals described here are presented on Summary Files.

• Reporting Total counts (detailed race/hispanic origin is not reported on SF3)
  • On Summary File 1 (detailed races are reported within tables based on the basic race categories)
    • totals for those who reported one detailed race,
    • totals for those who reported multiple detailed races from within the same basic race category,
    • totals for those who reported a detailed race either alone or in combination with another detailed race.
    • totals for all detailed hispanic origin categories
  • On Summary File 2 and Summary File 4
    
    • totals in the detailed categories for those who reported that race alone,
    • totals in the detailed categories for those who reported that detailed category alone or in combination with other categories.
    • totals for total hispanic/not hispanic.

How Race and Hispanic Origin Totals appear on the Summary Files

• On Summary File 1 and Summary File 3
  Race and Hispanic origins totals are presented as subject tables within the files; for example table P3 Race, is all combinations of race while P7 Race (total population) is the totals for those who reported one race with a single count for all those with more than one race.
   
  Categories of race and hispanic origin can also be cross tabulated with other subject characteristics. When this occurs, tables about that subject characteristic will repeat for by race/hispanic groups; for example, P12 Sex by age (total population), P12A Sex by age (White alone).

 
• On Summary File 2 and Summary File 4
  The tables on Summary File 2 and 4 cover only subject characteristics other than race and hispanic origin. The selection of the race/hispanic population groups is done in a separate step. With American Fact Finder this additional step is the last one before the tables display. With the Allocate extraction interface it is the first decision you make.

See page on Cross Tabulating by Race and Hispanic Origin for more details.

How Race and Hispanic Origin appear on the PUMS Files

• Race
  The following fields contain the race indicators on the PUMS files:
  • NUMRACE - Number of basic races marked
  • WHITE - No or yes (reported alone or in combination)
  • BLACK (Black/African American) - No or yes (reported alone or in combination)
  • AIAN (American Indian and Native Alaskan) - No or yes (reported alone or in combination)
  • ASIAN - No or yes (reported alone or in combination)
  • NHPI (Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific) - No or yes (reported alone or in combination)
  • OTHER - No or yes (reported alone or in combination)
  • RACE1 (race recode) - code for basic races alone (American Native and Alaskan tribes have both separate and combined totals) and one total for two or more basic races,
  • RACE2 (race recode)- codes for basic races for white, black, other and more two or more races, and codes for all detailed race categories for those who reported one race,
  • RACE3 (race recode) - codes for combinations of 71 combinations of major basic and detailed race groups.
   
  Note that the above lists are as they appear on the ASCII file. At the IPUMS site, race is handled by:
  • using their standard basic race category for those reporting one basic race,
  • having a variable for each basic race similar to the race-specific variables on the ASCII file
  • having a variable with a code for 71 combinations of major and detailed race groups
  • having a variable for the number of races reported
 

• Hispanic/Not Hispanic
  There is a single variable indicating Hispanic/Not Hispanic Origin on the PUMS files:
  • HISPAN - code with one value for not hispanic with other values indicating one of the detailed hispanic origin categories.

Ancestry

• Definition
  Ancestry was asked on the long form. Persons were asked to self-classify according to the ancestry group or groups with which they most closely identify. Ancestry refers to a person's ethnic origin or descent, "roots," heritage, or the place of birth of the person, the person's parents, or their ancestors before their arrival in the United States. Some ethnic identities, such as Egyptian or Polish, can be traced to geographic areas outside the United States, while other ethnicities such as Pennsylvania German or Cajun evolved in the United States. If a person used a religious affiliation for ancestry, that response is grouped as "other."

 

• Reporting
  Persons could specify one or more groups so responses are reported as first reported ancestry and second reported ancestry. Although data on all ancestries was gathered, the level of reporting defers on the Summary Files and the PUMS files.
   
  Summary File 3 reports totals for ancestries other than the groups used for Hispanic and detailed race reporting. Counts for those ancestries that fall within the census' detailed race and hispanic categories, are tabulated as "other."
   
  On Summary File 4, counts for 86 ancestry groups are cross tabulated with any other data.
   
  The first and second reported ancestry on the PUMS files uses detailed codes for ancestry, including those groups also reported under detailed race/hispanic origin.

 

• Tabulated Data
  Reports produces by the Census Bureau based on the Ancestry question are listed on the Ancestry page maintained by the Bureau.

Place of Birth of Foreign Born

• Definition
  Foreign born are those respondents who were not U.S. citizens at birth.

 

• Reporting
  On Summary File 3 the place of birth of foreign born is reported by country of birth. For cross tabulations by citizenship status and year of entry, reporting is done by continent and by broad region in the Americas.
   
  On Summary File 4 the place of birth of foreign born is reported by continent and by broad region in the Americas. These tables are cross tabulated by sex, by year of entry. As with all subject tables on SF4, these tables can be obtained for the detailed race and hispanic groups.
   
  On the PUMS files detailed country codes are used to record responses to the place of birth question.

Language Spoken at Home

• Definition
  The question about language spoken at home was asked to measure the current use of languages other than English in the home.

 

• Reporting
  On Summary File 3, totals for specific languages (beyond just spanish and English) are reported for those ages 5 to 17 and those 18 years and older. No cross tabulations for specific languages are done.
   
  On Summary File 4, except for English and Spanish, specific languages are not reported. Some reporting is done for two language groups: Indo-European, and Asian and Pacific languages.
   
  PUMS files include detailed language codes that are used to record what language persons uses at home.