Two Israeli Embassy Workers Assassinated Outside D.C. Jewish Museum

[Rev. Rye]

Hiding the influx of Hispanic people would probably have been easier if not for the fact that they've had their own specific category on the US Census since 1970, and they don't neatly fit into the "races" question for reasons that, for once, I admit you actually hit the nail on the head.

That said, how were they counted before then? Except for the 1930 Census that recognised "Mexican" as its own category, they were counted as white, largely working under the assumption that, since Spaniards were responsible for colonising Latin America (except for the parts that were colonised by Portugal) in much the same way that the English (and, to a lesser extent, the French) did for America, and since Spaniards and Portuguese people counted as white, so must their descendants. That said, by 1970, they figured out that it was a LOT more complicated and relegated that to its own question.

The influx between 1990-2020 was what needed to be covered; as already demonstrated in this thread, I was told I was "wrong" for what you just acknowledged as accurate and that "whites" in the traditional American history sense make up over 50% rather than 70% of the population.

At least where I grew up the Mexican-American population was largely of Spanish descent rather than Indigenous Mexican - like my ancestors they settled in the area in the mid 1800s due to successive dictators styling themselves in the image of Napoleon and other liberal Aristocratic reformers. They fled here under the reign of Benito Juarez, who committed mass ethnic cleansing against Christians - so if I had to guess, it's because the Mexicans in America before 1970 were largely of that Spanish stock fleeing political persecution and we've since been more exposed to the modern Latinos in America long enough that people care what that even means. 

I don't mind looking up those demographics when I get the chance to see if that is the case, but I am more concerned with how it has shifted political meaning in the last few decades.

Also worth noting, the percent of Latinos identifying as white in 2000 was about 48%, and in the 2010 census, it was only up to 52.8%. Not much of an increase. And in 2020, it plummeted down to about 20%. And it's not because a bunch of Indigenous Mexicans came flooding in. It's because more and more Hispanic people are seeing the complexities of their ethnicities.