Prof. Dowling presents her research at UIC’s “SparkTalks”
Prof. Dowling presents her research at UIC's "SparkTalks"
Prof. Julie Dowling participated in the latest series of UIC SparkTalks, a university initiative meant to highlight the work of UIC faculty and inspire new ideas and collaborations. You can read the abstract of her presentation, titled Latinos and Racial Identity in the US Census, below and watch a recording of her 3-minute lightning talk here (YouTube).
“Race is a social construct, but one with incredibly real consequences in our society. My research and community engagement has focused on how definitions of race impact the quality and counts of Latinos in the US Census. For decades, Latinos have not been counted as a racial group on the census, but rather, as a separate ethnic origin. The result of this separation has led to incredibly inaccurate data on race for Latinos, and contributed to the undercount of these communities, including a 5% undercount of Latinos in the 2020 Census. Undercounts of minority communities such as this result in a devastating loss of federal and state funding as well as political representation for a full decade, making the Census crucial to the fight for racial equity. Serving on the federal advisory committee to the US Census and chairing that committee through the 2020 Census, I worked to assist in strategies for outreach to improve counts of vulnerable communities, and assisted in providing guidance and feedback on the redesign of the race question to include Latinos. The new federal guidelines for race measurement, as implemented by the Biden administration, were set to include Latinos and Middle Eastern persons. But, since Trump has taken office, these changes have been placed on hold. Such equity in data collection would dramatically improve our ability to address racial inequality.”