Ethnicity: what the census doesn’t tell us

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, Social Science, United Kingdom on 2012-12-19 05:12Z by Steven

Ethnicity: what the census doesn’t tell us

New Internationalist: People, ideans and action for global justice
2012-12-17

Amy Hall, Editorial Intern

As the story goes, we are hurtling towards the anniversary of an important census, when Jesus’s family made its way to Bethlehem. Here in Britain, we have recently been analysing the results of our own 2011 survey – completed without most of us having to undertake an arduous journey (on donkey) back to our home towns…

I have had countless conversations with curious strangers who ask me: ‘Where are you from?’ I would normally answer Cornwall, England or Britain. I often receive a sympathetic smile, or a mildly infuriated expression, and then a ‘yes, but where are you actually from?’ Short of producing a copy of my birth certificate, it can be hard to know how to reply.

The more accusatory their tone, the more they actually mean ‘why are you not white?’ After all, if I were, my initial reply would have been enough. So I explain that my dad was born in Jamaica, my mother in England.

The 2011 census results have been reported as evidence of ‘the changing face of Britain’, celebrating the harmony of the production of children like myself – the ‘Jessica Ennis generation’. There are now over a million people ticking the ‘mixed/multiple ethnic groups’ box.

But nowhere in the mixed section (which wasn’t even added until 2001) is ‘British’ mentioned, despite the presence of mixed-race people being almost as old as the country itself. We are told that immigrants and their descendants need to identify more closely with Britain, but even when they do it is not reflected in monitoring forms like the census. Many mixed-race people can follow multiple cultures and religions, speak multiple languages and support multiple teams in the World Cup and while still feeling British…

Read the entire article here.

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