Manuela Martinez

Should Latinos Be Considered a Race?

Argument Analysis

Definitions:
● Exigence - the requiring of immediate aid or action; the urgency of an issue.
● Context - the intent, audience, purpose, bias, situatedness, and/or background (the larger
environment) of a source or reference.
● Line of reasoning - arrangement of claims and evidence that leads to a conclusion.
● Credibility- the degree to which the source is believable and trustworthy.
● Relevance - the tendency of a given item of evidence to prove or disprove one of the claims of the
argument.

Article

Should Latinos be considered a race?

Author
Geraldo Cadava.

Exigence
The urgency comes from the discussions and proposed changes of how the U.S.A. Census collects data on race and
ethnicity, affecting the self-indication of Latinos. This has led to a reform in the data collection questions, with the
objective to ensure that the Census produce accurate population data.

Context
Various discussions have emerged from the proposed changes, in the way U.S.A. Census collect data. These
discussions were focused in the way Hispanics, or Latinos, would answer the new race-and-ethnicity combined
question. In past census, with separated questions, many Latinos would answer the “Some Other Race” category,
making it difficult to categorize them in a single race. This change was supported by many, and hated by other’s.
The debate revolves around how Latinos and Afro-Latinos should be racial identified.

Author’s Target Audience. All writing has a purpose, which is to communicate ideas and facts to a targeted
audience and to persuade that audience to agree with the claim
The Author’s Target Audience should be people interest in race and identity issues, or in general Latinos.

Author’s Central Claim - the conclusion that the writer is trying to persuade his/her audience to accept. A
central claim is a complete sentence.
Geraldo Cadava argues that the proposed change in the Census is a complex issue that can either benefit, with
and accurate representation, or affect, particularly Afro-Latinos, the perception of racial identity.

“Should “Hispanics or Latino” become a racial designation, as well as an ethnic one, however, it is hard to
imagine what the shared racial characteristics of Latinos are” (Cadava, 2023)
Manuela Martinez
Should Latinos Be Considered a Race?

Sub Claim /Argument 1 (supports the central claim)

- The change in the Census aims to better align with how Latinos perceive their own identities,
potentially resulting in a more precise collection of data regarding their racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Evidence 1a (corroborates argument 1)

- “Census Bureau research demonstrated that a combined race-and-ethnicity question would
dramatically lower the percentage of Latinos who check the S.O.R. box, so the bureau encouraged the
O.M.B. to change its standards.” (Cadava, 2023)

Evidence 1b (corroborates argument 1)

- “But Census Bureau research also showed that a combined question would not lower the Latino
population count and would, in fact, improve the collection of data on Latinos of all racial backgrounds.”
(Cadava, 2023)

Sub Claim /Argument 2 (supports the central claim)

However, the change faces opposition from Afro-Latinos organization and others, who are concerned that it
might homogenize and perpetuate historical undercounts.

Evidence 2a (corroborates argument 2)

- “In the months since the O.M.B.’s announcement, a coalition of Afro-Latino organizations has argued
that a combined race-and-ethnicity question would homogenize a decidedly nonhomogeneous
community and marginalize Latinos of African descent.”

Evidence 2b (corroborates argument 2)

- “López has argued that Latinos’ different experiences stem from their “street race,” meaning how they
are perceived when they walk down the street. For López and her allies, it defies logic that all Latinos
would be counted as members of the same race. “Now we’re just gonna mix race, ethnicity, and origin,
everything,” she told me. “It’s all the same. We’re all the same color. No, that’s not the reality. And to say
otherwise is to eradicate our ability to document inequities based on what you look like.””

Counterclaim (refutes the central claim). If one is not presented by the author, then brainstorm a
possible counter and outline it below.

Call to Action?
Manuela Martinez
Should Latinos Be Considered a Race?

Standards Evaluated:
LO 2.2A Identifying, explaining, and analyzing the logic and line of reasoning of an argument.

LO 2.2B Describing and analyzing the relevance and credibility of evidence used to support an argument,
taking context into consideration.

LO 3.2A Evaluating objections, implications, and limitations of alternate, opposing, or competing perspectives
or arguments.