The census came in the mail yesterday! I'm so excited! I'm going to have to take some time analysing how they put it together this year, and especially how they're gauging ethnicity now. Fun. (But I'll have to wait until Friday, when both Chris and I are home, to fill it out.)
6 comments:
Ya, I did it as soon as it arrived yesterday. I think it almost took longer on the computer than by hand, but oh well...
And the ethnicity bit... it still bothers me that all of us Europeans are classified as "white"... why can't there be a different name or at least one that differentiates a bit more...
I made a mistake above... sorry...
I'm not seeing anything about ethnicity on my form....?
What I was actually looking for is how they dealt with cultural and ethnic origins. This semester, we did a bunch about the history of ethnicity, and we read a bunch of articles about the evolution of these questions on the census, and the challenges that they pose to historians who try to make anything of the answers. Now they ask you to list the various cultural or ethnic origins of your ancestors. In the 1970s and 1980s, they'd give you a list to check from, and "Canadian" wasn't an option. Or they'd only let you check one, like anyone in Canada is only from one place.
And you used to get more people saying "French Canadian," and now you get more saying "Quebecois."
That's fascinating to me. This sort of thing is why the census is fun -- it's going to be useful for research, in the future, and it's fascinating to watch how it'll be tricky for research.
Dixie, I hadn't noticed that they follow up the ethnic origins with questions about whether you're a visible minority, and (if so) what. That's why they give the "white" option, to indicate that you're not a visible minority.
So that's why it's fun to me.
(Jen: question 17)
I didn't get a census. I feel gypped. BOO.
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