Iranian American groups mobilized to instruct members to refuse the white box

Evidence

The coalition’s most widely disseminated “Frequently Asked Questions” handout tackled the question of racial liminality, and by al accounts, was the first time any Iranian American advocacy group had been so explicit: 10. What “race” should I put on the census? It is very important that on Question 9 of the Census that you check the box for “Some other race” and write in “Iranian” or “Iranian American.” Otherwise, Iranian Americans will not be counted as a distinct cultural group in the U.S. and will not wield the power that comes with numbers. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 595

Categorization

• SEED: “The power that comes with numbers”: organizing around census illegibility is a concrete case study of demographic self-assertion.
• XREF: Connects to literature on racial formation and how official classification systems shape group political power. — connects to: Iranian American organizations mobilized strategic census identity claims for political power — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 1410

Related

• Iranian American organizations mobilized strategic census identity claims for political power (similarity 0.91)
• Census officials forcibly recoded written-in Iranian identities as white (similarity 0.82)
• Census whiteness contradicts the everyday social exclusion of Iranian Americans (similarity 0.79)
• The Census Bureau has recoded self-described Iranians as white for decades (similarity 0.78)