Any topic (writer’s choice)

Critical Thinking/Engagement Assignment #1

You must attempt all questions.

Part 1. (25 points)

Go the following website: http://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_00-home.htm

Were your results surprising? Why or why not?
How do your results impact the way you understand race?
Do you think there is a specific or narrow expectation for how people of a race are assumed to look? What happens when a person who identifies with a group strays from this visual representation?
What experiences do you infer the people being sorted have encountered as a result of false assumptions regarding race?
Did this activity influence you to affirm or reject the notion of race? Why or why not?
What does this tell you about the rigid constraints people are assumed to fit in racially?
Do you think others could benefit from this activity? Why or why not?   
Part 2. (10 points)

Go to the following website:http://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html

Identify the major racial groups and their composition according to the United States population in Census 2010. How do you understand the term Hispanic. How does this compare with African American/Black/Negro as a racial construct?
Part 3. (15 points)

Go to https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdfOpen this document with ReadSpeaker docReader. According to the 2010 census 308.7 million people resided in the United States on April 1, 2010, an increase of 27.3 million people, or 9.7 percent, between 2000 and 2010.

The vast majority of the growth in the population came from increases from which groups/populations?
Identify which population is numerically and proportionally the largest major race and ethnic group in the United States, and which population is also growing at the slowest rate.
Speculate on what changes you think will occur in census racial categories over the next fifty years, keeping in mind that census categories always reflect the prevailing notions of race and result from an intensely political process.