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U.S. federal government agencies must adhere to standards issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in October 1997, which specify that race and Hispanic origin (also known as ethnicity) are two separate and distinct concepts. These standards generally reflect a social definition of race and ethnicity recognized in this country, and they do not conform to any biological, anthropological, or genetic criteria. The standards include five minimum categories for data on race: "American Indian or Alaska Native," "Asian," "Black or African American," "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander," and "White." There are two minimum categories for data on ethnicity: "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino." The concept of race reflects self-identification by people according to the race or races with which they most closely identify. Persons who report themselves as Hispanic can be of any race and are identified as such in our data tables. The following sources provide data on race and Hispanic origin population:
The American Community Survey (ACS) has data on these groups. In the survey questionnaire, the Hispanic-origin question had a line which was used to obtain write-in responses of Hispanic subgroups other than the major groups of Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Ricans. Persons with other Hispanic origins (e.g.,Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Argentinean) were able to write in their specific origin group. The Census Bureau's code list contains over 30 Hispanic or Latino subgroups. You can access the American Community Survey 1-year estimates for a population of 65,000 or more and the 3-year estimates for a population of 20,000 or more in the American Factfinder. Data on these groups are available in the Detailed Tables, the Subject Tables, and the Selected Population Profiles. This is the same approach we use in the decennial census. For the 2010 Census, Summary File 2 [PDF - 4.46M] allows users to access any table in the files for a particular Hispanic subgroup, provided the group meets certain population criteria for the geographic area under consideration. At present, census data provide information on geographic areas smaller than those reported in the ACS.
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