Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Social & Demographic Trends
Pew Hispanic Center
Census History: Counting Hispanics
Despite the long history of Hispanic residents in the United States, there was no systematic effort to count this group separately in the Census until the late 20th century. An analysis of changes in Census question wording over recent decades reveals the challenges in trying to count and describe this fast-growing population.
An estimated 48 million Hispanics are now living in the U.S., or almost 16% of the population. Hispanics are the nation's largest minority group, having surpassed African Americans in number in 2001. The growth of the Hispanic population this century is due mainly to births in the United States, not immigration from abroad, a reversal of the pattern over the previous four decades.
There was a one-time inclusion of a "Mexican" race category in the 1930 Census, when forms were filled out by census-takers who went door to door. The first major attempt to estimate the size of the Hispanic population for the entire nation was in the 1970 Census, in which forms were completed by residents themselves. The question appeared on one of the two long-form questionnaires sent to a sample of the population, not the short form that everybody answered. The question asked: "Is this person's origin or descent-" and the response categories were: "Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, Other Spanish," and "No, none of these."
This question did not work very well. The total count of 9.1 million reported in that census was about 500,000 less than other estimates for the Hispanic population. (See this page on the Census Bureau website for data and more history) Further, even this 9.1 million count was about 1 million higher than responses to the question by people of Hispanic origin. According to later research, a major problem was that hundreds of thousands of people living in the south or central regions of the U.S. mistakenly were included in the "Central or South American" category. As is its usual policy, Census reports on the Hispanic population in 1970 use the originally reported figures.
Read the full story of the Census Bureau's continuing efforts to obtain an accurate count of the Hispanic population -- including the latest modifications included in this year's count -- and more about the 2010 population count at the Pew Research Center's new site All Things Census.