U.S. Updates Race and Ethnicity Categorization for First Time in Nearly Three Decades

The revision aims to more accurately reflect the nation's diversity, including a new category for Middle Eastern and North African heritage.

The U.S. government has announced the first major revision in 27 years to how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity, aiming to more accurately count Hispanic and Middle Eastern and North African residents.
The changes include combining race and ethnicity questions into a single query, allowing respondents to select multiple categories, and adding a Middle Eastern and North African category.
Previously pejorative terms such as 'Negro' and 'Far East' have been removed from federal forms, alongside 'majority' and 'minority,' to better reflect the nation's diversity.
The revisions are expected to have significant implications for legislative redistricting, civil rights laws, health statistics, and potentially politics, as the number of people categorized as white is anticipated to decrease.
Some concerns have been raised about the potential for the new categorization to reduce the visibility and representation of specific groups, such as Afro Latinos.