Are Brazilians Hispanic? Many say ‘yes,’ report says
A coding error in an annual survey by the U.S. Census Bureau has offered unprecedented insight into how large numbers of Brazilians in the U.S. identify as Hispanic or Latino.
An analysis by Pew Research Center shows that the coding mistake revealed at least 416,000 Brazilians, or more than two-thirds of Brazilians in the U.S., identifying as Hispanic in the 2020 American Community Survey. By comparison, only 14,000 Brazilians identified that way in 2019, and only 16,000 Brazilians did so in 2021 — years when the coding error wasn’t made.
Since 2000, the Census Bureau hasn’t classified Brazilians and other people from non-Spanish speaking countries in Latin America and the Caribbean as Hispanic because of federal government definitions that were last revised in 1997 but are being reconsidered for an update next year. Because of this, if someone marks that they are Hispanic but Brazilian on the survey, they are recoded as “not Hispanic” when the numbers are crunched.
By Mike Schneider via Scientific American