The thing is though: being "Hispanic" in North and South America is pretty much by definition speaking of people of 'mixed' ethnicity and/or race. Most "Mexicans" as we speak of them are of mixed-race (white and Native American). So saying you are mixed in regards to your "Hispanic-ness" is sort of..........confusing. The average Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban etc. is by definition "mixed" already.

I'm past the point of caring.
imho, the government is overreaching the basic precept that Reg C was written to curtail and that's redlining.
Especially with all the 'enhancements' above and beyond Dodd/Frank that the CFPB has deemed 'necessary', HMDA has become an invasion of privacy, in my not so humble opinion.
If I could encourage applicants to only apply by mail and mark 'I do not wish to provide' on everything, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Alternatively, if they want to check every box, have at it!
Consider it my protest movement.

Change the categories to: Hispanic, not Hispanic, mixture of Hispanic and non-Hispanic.

Frankly, the number of people who are of ethnically unmixed and racially unmixed heritage grows smaller by the day, at least in my experience. Maybe the day will come when everyone is of mixed background, and we can drop all these categories.

Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly and bacon will grow on trees.

Preach Truff!!!!!

I'm a little bit Filipino and by default a little bit Hispanic. What if I partially shade the boxes in??

We have had the conversation about what you would put if your middle eastern? It's not Asian; you could even come from a northern African country yet not be considered "black or African American" there's really no category for that. I've finally come to the conclusion that you would work your way down the list of races and if you don't identify with any of them then you must be white. It's sort of like white is the default unless your are Indian, Asian, Black or Pacific Islander.

Maybe we should just be required to have each applicant complete a DNA test with Ancestry.com, 23andme, the Maury Povich Show, etc. (whichever company lobbies for and wins the contract).

Dan said:

We'll have to wait and see how the software handles the reporting of this. I read the instructions to say people can choose to be both. As Truffle said "I don't care". I also subscribe to the "Can't Touch This" mentality. If the applicant marks both, I don't care and I need to transfer what they reported to the LAR. If they marked both, which is quite possible, the software reporting needs to be able to let me report what they marked.


I don't agree. As I stated in an earlier post, my son (non-hispanic) is marrying a hispanic lady. If they were to have children would you say they are one or the other? I think they could say "Dad is non-hispanic and mom is hispanic. Therefore, I am both.


I question this too.

I think the entire reason for having only one ethnic category is purely to help determine possible discrimination regarding a hefty portion of our current population. js

David, no one is saying that people can't have one Hispanic parent and one not Hispanic parent--just that the proper way for the federal govt. to reflect that (if that's what they want reflected....who knows what they want reflected) isn't to give the question in the form of "this" or "NOT this". If they wanted people to be able to say "i'm a little bit/part/half Hispanic", they needed to overhaul that section, not leave it like it's always been and suddenly say "they can now choose both answers, even though those answers technically cancel each other out".

At least...that's what i'm saying. IMO, it's a foolish way for them to handle it. They wouldn't have an "Irish" or "not Irish" section.

I don't disagree raitchjay. I simply saying the instructions make it clear that people can choose whatever they want and we are to report what they choose. Thus, people could choose both and we'll need to report both.

I wonder if it's something they simply didn't contemplate and didn't really mean....it's definitely not unheard of for them to make such an error.

We're talking CFPB here. You know, the guys who thought that Dodd/Frank didn't go far enough with a handful of additional fields so they added four handfuls more!!! There's no contemplation involved. It's like a kid on Santa's lap asking for a puppy and not realizing he's going to be getting a load of poop too. (sorry, it popped into my head and I couldn't resist the analogy. )