 The federal government does not consider Latino to be its own race category right now, but should they? And why is this issue a little bit more complicated than people might think? Yeah, we gotta talk about it because there are some major proposed changes to the way that the federal government does its race demographic census around America. Right now, Andrew, there's a pre-box that says are you of Hispanic origin, which sort of indicates you're just from like anywhere in Latin America, right? But then the second box does not include Latino. There's Asian, there's white, there's black, there's native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and some other race. And right now that some other race is the second biggest box in America because there's no Latino box. Right. So why would they have done that to give Hispanic origin? I've seen that question before where it's its own section, its own little like, you know, column and then the ethnicity column is down below. I think to avoid the complicated nuance that this whole article gets into, that's why they just have that pre-box where you click it. It doesn't matter whether you look white, black, Mestizo or anything else. Asian, you can be a Korean from Argentina. Just click that box and the US is going to consider you of Hispanic origin. Right. If you're from Brazil, even they would expect you to pick Hispanic origin. Although the word Hispanic, I believe is referring more to Spanish speaking countries. Yeah. But you could be Latino because Portuguese is a Latin language. Right. So Latino is this larger umbrella term and Hispanic is a little bit more specific underneath Latino, right? Because Latino is referring to Latin language countries, which would be Portuguese Spanish. But let's be honest Andrew, do people in America really make that distinction? That's why it's complicated guys. Make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications guys. We're going to try our best with this. We are not of Hispanic origin. We're not Latino. I just read the article. I'm going to do my best. But you know what's not complicated is the taste of Smala. Smala is a Sichuan peppercorn truffle laced chili oil that we're selling right now. I know we're depleting this bottle right here, but you check out SmalaSauce.com. You can hear more about it. You can do pre-orders right now. But anyways, it goes great on everything. Even Latino food. Los Tacos number one, ten out of ten banger on that one. I'll give you guys a teaser. Anyway guys, the reason why this is very significant right now Andrew is because the US Hispanic population, the people who are clicking that first box, the pre-check box, Andrew, it's at 65 million. It's rising about 15 million every year. Right. It's a very, very, very significant portion, which is why other is the second biggest race in America right now. Which is crazy that it's other, but I guess they're just assuming other is Latino, but that's not necessarily the case because there's no Middle Eastern box either. So Middle Easterners may be either clicking white or other. No, no. I believe the federal government says if you are from Morocco or you are from the Middle East, please click white. They want you to click white, but of course not everybody does. That's why it's so complicated guys. And I'll tell you that you know what the interesting thing is Andrew? State to state, they actually have a way better categorization system like in like New York City. You know, they got Nepal on there, the Himalayas. But guess what? The federal government, Andrew, almost still stuck like 50 years ago. Wow. All right, man. I guess David, what are some proposed, like what it was the argument for having more boxes that are more specific to these identities, right? What's the issue with that of adding more boxes? Well, I think that there are competing groups that are like fighting for and fighting against it. So some groups actually that are even Latino themselves don't want the box, but the majority do want the box. They don't want the box to be broken down into different subgroups of Latino. Like for example, Afro-Latino and White Latino. Because they think that it will make it weaker because the pre-check box right now is the strongest way because they don't want to break into sub-ethnicities because it's true in Latin America, you could be like 100% white. You could be a almost like 100% black. You could be almost 100% Amerindian, which is almost like a native indigenous, but most people are a mix of everything. Right, right, right. I guess the biggest split right now is between like what's considered a mainstream mestizo, which is like your average person from Latin America that I guess your average American is thinking of, Andrew, is anywhere from 60% European to 80% European and 20% to 40% or 50% indigenous. That's what people are thinking of in their mind. Exactly. So I guess like that is the biggest split in terms of like who wants it and who doesn't want to have it. And like we said, Andrew, there's some disagreement even within the Latin community, whether it'll help or hurt government funding and distribution of resources. Because they're thinking if you clump everybody together then you actually, you have more power, right? I think there's some strength in the pre-check box. Yeah, I mean, just like Asian, Asian is a huge group of people and we just clump all Asians together. But I actually have a theory and it's because most, for the most part Asia, right, is its own identifiable continent and that's how it's been classified. I don't know who did that. I don't know if it was Asian people who did that. But anyways, all those countries are Asian. And then a lot of Asians did come over and immigrate to America in large numbers during the same kind of decade and era after 1965. So I guess any Asian that came after 1965 is like, they're just like, yo, you're just Asian. Well, I just don't think there's, it wasn't colonized by European power so it's not like there's a white Asian. Sure, sure. I can't call myself a white, yeah. There's not, no guys, by the way, there is no white Asian. That's not an actual thing. I guess there's Eurasian, which is like more of the Kazakh side or Uzbek side. Anyways guys, that's a whole different conversation. I think it's really interesting, Andrew, because our concept of even being Latin American in America is dominated by Spanish. But there are countries in Latin America that speak Portuguese, French, and if you're like Guyanese, you speak English. Right, so Hispanic, I believe, is referring more to Spanish, the Spanish colonies. And Latino is a larger umbrella term that encompasses like all like South America, Latin America. But then you could be just an Asian who spent several generations in Latin America. Let's say for example, you're a full Japanese person, but you've been in Latin America living in Brazil for like three generations. Should you click Latin American? I mean, I guess they're just not that big of a population. So people are not gonna empathize with that identity. Here's the interesting truth that I have. I think that most people, when they want people to say they're white, they're thinking of like an Anglo heritage white. Yes, right? And when people are thinking of black, it's weird because they're just thinking about how you look like visually, phenotypically, right? And then when you're thinking of like white Latino, you're just thinking, you know how like that's like a thing like a Ted Cruz, right? And then you're thinking about, when you're thinking of Latino people, you're thinking of a mestizo Catholic. And I think when most people are thinking about an Arab person, they're thinking about somebody who's from the Middle East and is Muslim. And I think when the people are thinking of Asian, they're thinking of a us looking person that's Buddhist. And when they're thinking of South Asian, they're thinking of an Indian person who's Hindu. No, I'm not saying that these are all like the best categorizations, but these are like, I guess the largest bulk distribution. Right, no, no, this is what the image that people have in their mind when you say those words. Right. And most people, that's generally what they think. That's the stereotypical, the typical look of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, not saying that that's accurate. I'm just saying like what is people, it popping up in people's mind. So what if we did that? I'm just gonna propose this to the government. We have like a bunch more boxes and people just click as many that apply. But that I guess will break it up into specific groups and go against uniting for political power. But let's just say we had indigenous Native American, white heritage American, which is like, you're a good old white dude. And then you have European, which is like what Luca Donchich and Eastern euros and kind of like Russian or like Slavic people would pick. Foundational black Americans, which are black Americans, black Africans, which are like recent African immigrants who are black, right? Non-black Africans, which I guess would be any African who's not really black or doesn't look African. You mean like, like Elon Musk? Yeah. I guess Egyptians, for example. East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Central Asian, Western Asian, White Latino, Indigenous Latino and Afro Latino. Now that's a lot of boxes. Why are you making it so complicated? That is so many boxes. Why are you making it so complicated? I don't like it. Did I leave it as accurate? Oh, Pacific Islander. Now I gotta put, I'll put Pacific Islander so that everybody checks all the boxes that apply to them. And if you're mixed, you can click more than one box. But that's gonna mess up the data, right? Right. And I think that that's where the disagreement even within the Latino community is. Does it make it stronger to have the pre-check box or does it make more sense and more accurate to break it all down into the sub, sub, sub categories? Right. Is it kind of like you're checking the box to unite for power or are you checking the box to show your true identity? Yo, is it a little bit like the American two-party political system versus like the Canadian like eight-party parliamentary system? You know how they break into their sub-sub boxes? You know, guys, I don't really have the answer. I'm sorry to be on the fence about this because I don't have the answer. I just, we were looking to you to have it. I know everybody was expecting the Chino to have the answer to this question, but I don't. But David, let's go into the comments section because there's some other people with some very opinionated ideas. This guy is Latino and he said, wait, how come Asian can be treated as a race when Asians don't even speak the same language? That doesn't make any sense. At least we all speak the same language even though we look different from each other. You know, at first I was like thinking in my head, I was like, yo, that sounds crazy, but there's some logic to it. He's making a point because at least Spanish is mostly spoken in all these countries, minus Brazil and like a couple other countries. But the majority, the vast majority of Latin America. The vast majority of people speak Spanish, but we wouldn't want to call him Spanish because that's referring to Spain. So he's just saying, he's just making a case for Latino. You know where there's a big gap right now, Andrew? There's a big gap between actual governmental science which is more linked to science science and street science. Street science would say that absolutely everybody that speaks Spanish that's from south of the border gotta be one group, right? But the scientists who are running like the census report, they're like, no, technically everybody's a mix between, you know, Spanish and Ameri-Indian. What if it's just like if you listen to reggaeton? No, that's a good question. That's not a good enough marker. Somebody said, yeah, what about even being Middle Eastern? Middle Easterns are told right now to click the white box. How crazy is that? That's pretty interesting, man. Somebody said being Latino is not a race. It's actually cultural. Interesting. But right. It's good. It's true. It's true. But then now on the census is one group gonna get grouped by culture and the other group is gonna get grouped by phenotype because of all Asians are like Mongoloid people or at least in the U.S. categorization system. Somebody said this is just far too confusing in the U.S. they try to define people by the by race, by the color of their skin and what continent they come from or their ancestors come from. Then you have Hispanics who come in all different shades of skin color depending on where you come from and where you go to and that confuses the Racist Bureau's ignorant racial categories. Yeah, they're basically saying, yeah, this is an American thing and only in the U.S. for some reason with people consider it a race. Think about it. Like we could be from Guyana and my brother could be raised in Venezuela. We're actual brothers because my brother grew up in Venezuela. Now he's Latino but I grew up in Guyana so I don't speak Spanish. So I'm not Latino even though I'm of Latin American origin. It is confusing. Yeah, it is really confusing. I guess it's interesting. I guess in our minds, Andrew, in America we're probably going off anybody when we think of Latino anybody who's anywhere from 50% European to 15% Indigenous all the way up to what like 80% European and 20% Indigenous? Right, yeah, I guess. I mean, as far as like your DNA mixture I can't really speak on that. I think that's always that's extra. That's the level 10 out of 10 dicey because then what are you going to count like people that are past 20% this and that or it just depends on how they look. I mean, I suppose you'd have to just trust and just say it's up to the person to decide what they identify as. You give them the options and you have them fill in the boxes that apply, right? Yo, I got a solution. You have a tier one must answer question. Like you can't move on further on the census until you fill out one of the major categories and you include Latino in there. But if you want to, you can click this thing that has a huge drop down menu of like sub chart maybe like 15 different options. And that way I could pick like Afro Cuban. Right, okay, okay. But you're only required to fill out the top one because not everybody's going to want to get that detailed. And then is every country going to be represented, I guess. I mean, this goes back to the question about representation about any identity, how it is like, it is true that identity is on a spectrum. But I guess the question is for efficiency sake and the sake of the system and collecting data is it important to get every single nuance out there? The pre-check Hispanic box is probably the simplest system, right? Right, I guess that's why they did it. That's why they're using it right now. But if people want the drop down crazy thing like and nowadays Andrew, the gender menu is like very long, right? Right, right. The gender or sexual orientation. Yeah, options are very deep. So I guess racial options or ethnic options got to be large too. Yeah, I mean, I just think it's interesting that there's different groups lobbying for and against it. And some people think it'll make like Latino representation stronger and other people think it'll make Latino representation weaker to break it all up. Yeah, I guess it just means like what's the data for and what are people really going to use it for? Whether it's marketers, right? They want to know the consuming, the consumer behaviors of certain groups, right? So they know how to market or politicians who need to cater or pander or look out and represent certain groups. They need to know who they're representing and how much, right? Let us know what you guys think of the comment section below. Especially I'd like to hear from you guys if you are Latino or you are of Latin American origin or you are Hispanic. Are you guys cool with the current pre-check box method and then clicking other or do you guys want some other system with the drop down boxes guys? And yeah, let us know what you guys think in the comment section below. Very interesting discussion. I learned a lot. I looked at a bunch of charts that I'd never taken a look at. And by the way guys, I'm sorry, but the answer, why don't we just consider all ourselves humans? We're the human race. That's not going to happen guys. Sorry, so that's not the answer. What's the answer in between? I think the truth is Andrew, if we were all honest and we all treat each other with nuance, America is a complicated country. We got to treat this with as complicated as it needs to be to make it all work. Yeah. Well, you know, we talk a lot about race in America. America is obsessed with race for a reason and you might as well know what are all the races in America. So anyways, let us know in the comments down below what you think though. Feel free to leave your thoughts and yeah, thank you so much for watching the Hot Pop Boys. Hopefully this video helped. And until next time, we out. Peace.