EVOLUTION OF RACE AND ETHNICITY DATA IN THE INFORMATION AGE
 
This report contains an in-depth guide to the descriptors used in each decennial census and the legislation, acts, mandates, and events that preceded the decisions about the information to be collected in the twenty-three censuses. The report also includes an overview of Statistical Directive 15, “Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting.” Because this document is being provided to inform the Black Community about the process for addressing change to the data collection descriptors and options, there is also background on the Black Community, an overview of how stakeholders worked to impact the revised guidelines to Statistical Directive 15 in the 1990s, case studies about the experiences of stakeholder groups who have worked to attain changes to the decennial census questions, a short tutorial about how census data are tabulated and presented, and recommendations for pursuing changes to the 2020 Census Questionnaire.
 
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