Yesterday, my mother called me at work, which by itself was unremarkable. What made it remarkable was that the former María Concepción Echeverría of Santa Marta, Colombia called to ask whether she was Hispanic.

She was filling out her census form, and although my father has been gone almost four years now, forms of any kind still compel her to seek assistance. As it turned out, her question was one I had asked myself when I was filling out the form on behalf of my two sons.

The source of confusion was the term origin, used as if its meaning were self-evident. Is the person of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin? If the person is not of Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban origin, a blank needed to be filled in with the country of what I have started to call original kin.

I didn’t ask her, but I suspect that my mother’s confusion stemmed from the depth and sobriety with which she had become a naturalized citizen decades earlier. She had not pursued citizenship until years after my father had, but when she did, she did it with all her heart. I remember the pictures taken after the ceremony of her waving an American flag, wearing a flag sweater with earrings to match. She bore the smile of a woman confident she had made the right decision.

Her point about the census question, which I heartily echoed, was “Why should we care?” To her it was old news. She has lived almost three-quarters of her life in the United States, 40 years in Virginia alone. To add a layer of irony, my father’s name, which I share, reflects the chance migration of a certain Scotsman some six generations back, so to some neighbors she was Marie Stevenson, the lovely lady with an accent.

With regard to my sons, I felt obliged to seek clarification; after much searching, I came upon a telephone assistance line on which origin was said to refer to a person’s place of birth, lineage, ancestry, or culture. Taking lineage as my cue—since my boys are, genetically speaking, 50% Colombian—I put them down as being of Colombian origin, at the risk of diminishing my wife’s German, Dutch, English and Irish ancestors. I then informed my wife that our kids were officially Hispanic. I could not help but note that there was no difference between this distinction and determining, in 19th century America, whether one was, as Homer Plessy, an octoroon, defined in the eyes of the state by a branch of his family tree.

Perhaps most puzzling is the inclusion of Puerto Rico as one of the origins, even though Puerto Ricans have been citizens of the United States for over 90 years. Maybe, in another 10 years, options will be expanded to include Florida, Texas, sections of Denver, and Allentown, Pennsylvania. Or maybe we will, as a culture, wipe away the scales of presumed hegemonic neutrality and start collecting data closer to the heart of what matters to us as citizens. Much of the richness of diversity resists being quantified, but not to worry: There are plenty of other things that need to be accounted for.

Donald Stevenson
Senior Editor
Darden Business Publishing