Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 18, 1994                   TAG: 9407180073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO                                LENGTH: Medium

CENSUS OFFICE CAN'T WIN ON RACE ISSUE

Which is fine with the Native Americans. Except for the term "Native American." It's useless, they say. Consider the Scandinavian-American who thinks she, too, is a Native American - she was born in Duluth, wasn't she?

Native Americans prefer "indigenous peoples."

As do some Mexican-Americans, who say their Mestizo identity is lost in the slough of "Hispanic." They want to be known as "pre-Columbian."

It seems a sign of our times that when one of government's most arcane bureaus, the Office of Management and Budget, held a hearing last week on changing its statistical categories on race and ethnicity, every one of the 100-odd seats was taken.

The very air quivered with passion.

The Germanics - not German-Americans, please - proposed four new categories of European-Americans (not "white"): Scandinavian, Celtic, Germanic and Slavic. "White Americans are a multi-ethnic group," said Gerhard Holford of San Jose, Calif. "They do not think, act and vote alike."

Native Hawaiian Mableanne Spencer had been in town for a health conference when she heard about the hearing. Unaware that the feds were also coming to Honolulu, she delayed her trip home to testify. "I am here to tell you that we exist, we exist, we exist," she said, wearing a red muumuu and flowers in her hair.

What is everyone looking for in these dry statistical counts?

Katherine Wallman, chief of Statistical Policy for the budget office, ventured a tentative guess: "Identity?" she wondered.

Wallman has already presided over hearings in Boston and Denver. She will take the reams of suggestions to Washington for consideration. Some will be tested. Decisions will be made by 1996, in time for the 2000 census.

While the federal government has always counted people by race - and slaves as fractions of humans - since the country's origins, it was only in 1973 that then-Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Caspar Weinberger became interested in the lack of government data on racial and ethnic groups and decided to do something about it. He and his staff devised the budget office's Directive 15, which sets up the categories used to collect race and ethnic data.

Now, with 17 years' experience with the current rules, there is a groundswell of noise from statistics professionals, minority activists and unaffiliated folks for change.

What's at stake? Self-esteem, said many of those testifying. But also pride. Money. Power. Votes. Redistricting. Legislative seats. Congressional seats. Voting rights. Money for schools. Bilingual ballots. Clout in Congress. Campaign funds.

For some, like Kendra Wallace, her very identity.

"I stand in front of the mirror of Directive 15, and I do not see myself," said Wallace, a Stanford doctoral candidate, whose parents are white and black. She testified for Reclass All Children Equally. RACE promotes a "biracial" category.

If ever a moment challenged the notion of "race" as science, this hearing was it. Some lobbied for dropping "race" and substituting "ethnicity." No suitable pigeonhole existed, for example, for Arab-Americans. They aren't "white," some say. But neither are they "Asian." Some are black. But most are not.

It was clear that "race" is a mostly political notion, social convention, term of art - and about as solid as a Dove Bar on a hot August sidewalk.

The stretch and intensity of opinions reflected the great range of emotion about race in the United States.

John C. Cougill Jr., for instance, who is white, came from Eugene, Ore., to urge the government to stop collecting statistics by race.

"Racial data collection keeps racism alive," Cougill said. " `Race' was used to identify individuals who deserved to be slaves in American history, individuals who deserved to be sent to the ovens in Nazi history, and to identify individuals who deserved bad service at Denny's restaurants."

But Gilbert E. Martin, who is black and represented the International French Creole Cultural Society, entered a copy of the Creole Declaration of Frustration into the record. He wanted a finer degree of discrimination: "We are the oldest multiracial group on this side of the globe," Martin said. "We are seeking our own box on the census as a matter of right."

Written comments on the statistical categories can be sent before Sept. 1 to Katherine Wallman, Office of Management and Budget, 725 17th St. N. . Washington, D.C. 20503.