The U.S. is changing how it identifies people. Recently the Office of Management and Budget announced questions about race and ethnicity, that were previously asked separately, will now be combined.
It’s an effort the government believes will help accurately count those who identify as Hispanic, Middle Eastern and North African.
“Well, I think depending what you use it for, as I was telling you earlier, I am from Pakistan the Indian subcontinent and early on there was no category for that, now there’s a category for that,” Dr. Mobeen Rathore said.
Dr. Mobeen Rathore is a doctor at a local hospital and a member of the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida.
He said the new changes will be helpful, because for people like him, it will make things easier.
When he came to this country decades ago there weren’t many options for him to pick from, and the guy helping him fill out his form told him something he wasn’t too fond of.
“Well, he said you are Caucasian and i said, wait a minute I’ve never considered myself Caucasian,” Dr. Rathore said. “I’m brown as they come.”
News4Jax also spoke with Monica Hernandez, president of the First Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
“I think it’s good,” she said.
She believes combining race and ethnicity will help with more inclusivity and cause less confusion for people like her in the Hispanic community.
I’m Hispanic but when it comes to what I am, I always check the Hispanic and sometimes I’m like what am I going to put on the race part,” Hernandez said. “So now that I have Hispanic and then I can go down to even further for nationality, it’s really truer for who I am.”
The new changes will also strike words like “Far East” and “Negro” from federal forms.
”I just hope that this data is only going to better help and inform and share how diverse the community is,” Hernandez said.
Federal agencies that release data about race and ethnicity are each required to turn in a public action plan to the office, that approves these changes by late September 2025.