This blog post began as one in a series of investigations about reproductive behavior in Southeast Michigan. In particular, it was looking initially at the separate influences of race and ethnicity on variables such as the number of births, the ages at which women have children, and adequacy of prenatal care. However, the inquiry took a different turn when we focused not on their influence on reproductive behavior but on the intersection of Hispanic identification and racial identification in four areas of Southeast Michigan: Detroit; Wayne County outside of Detroit (Out-Wayne); Oakland County; and Macomb County.
We found, for example, that among Hispanic-identified women in Detroit and Oakland County who gave birth in the years 2017-2022, the percentage identified as White increased over the six years. However, this was not the case in other areas of Southeast Michigan. Was this an indication of differences among the areas in Hispanic self-identification? This blog post lays out the evidence and then discusses it as a cautionary tale.
Our data come from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) birth certificate database of all births to women residing in Michigan, and for this study specifically in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties in 2017-2022.
Measures
Hispanic identification was measured by a binary “yes” “no” response from the birth certificate. Race, also from the birth certificate, was coded into 20 categories, which are listed in the Appendix. We collapsed the 20 categories into five: White, Black, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Multiple Races, and Other Race, grouped as shown in the Appendix. Grouping them into these general categories of similar characteristics simplifies the analysis while still providing relevant results. Other Race is a catchall phrase selected by those who don’t find any of the options provided adequately represent their identity, meaning the races represented in Other Race may be different between the different geographic areas. In the four areas in this study, over 90% of those identifying as Hispanic were identified as White or Other Race.
Results
We started our exploration by asking whether there are differences in ethnicity-race combinations among the four areas. We also wanted to know whether the ethnicity-race combinations changed systematically over the years 2017-2022. The four charts below show only the percentages for those mothers identifying as Hispanic and either White or Other Race.
Figure 1.

Click to view figure 1 as a table
Detroit Hispanic Mothers’ White and Other Race Identification, 2017-2022 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Hispanic and White |
22% | 33% | 27% | 31% | 34% | 38% |
Hispanic and Other Race |
71% | 60% | 67% | 62% | 61% | 58% |
In these charts the green bar represents the percentage of mothers identifying as Hispanic who were identified as Other Race. Clearly, Other Race is the predominant category for Detroit, although the percentage identified as White (orange bar) gained on it in the most recent years.
Figure 2.

Click to view figure 2 as a table
Out-Wayne County Hispanic Mothers’ White and Other Race Identification, 2017-2022 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Hispanic and White |
51% | 55% | 53% | 44% | 52% | 53% |
Hispanic and Other Race |
42% | 40% | 41% | 47% | 43% | 41% |
In Out-Wayne County, about half of the Hispanic mothers identify as White with around 40-43% Other Race.
Figure 3.

Click to view figure 3 as a table
Oakland County Hispanic Mothers’ White and Other Race Identification, 2017-2022 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Hispanic and White |
57% | 57% | 58% | 65% | 71% | 69% |
Hispanic and Other Race |
39% | 39% | 36% | 29% | 24% | 26% |
In Oakland County, more Hispanic mothers were identified as White than as Other Race, with the gap growing from 18 percentage points in 2017 to 47 points in 2021.
Figure 4.

Click to view figure 4 as a table
Macomb County Hispanic Mothers’ White and Other Race Identification, 2017-2022 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Hispanic and White |
64% | 68% | 58% | 69% | 69% | 73% |
Hispanic and Other Race |
29% | 26% | 35% | 19% | 24% | 19% |
Of the four areas, Macomb County’s percentages varied more than those of the other three areas. Except for 2019, mothers identifying as Hispanic also identified as White ranged from 64% to 73%.
To answer the first question of whether the four areas differ in the combination of race and ethnicity, the data clearly show differences. Within each of the four areas have the ethnicity-race combinations changed systematically over the years 2017-2022? The answer appears to be “yes” for Detroit and Oakland County. In both geographies, the percentage of birthing mothers identifying as Hispanic who were also identified as White generally increased as the percentage of Other Race declined. In Detroit, the percentage of White rose from a low of 22% in 2017 to 38% in 2022. In Oakland County, it rose from 57% in 2017 to 71% in 2021 before declining to 66% in 2022.
Discussion
While it’s tempting to trumpet these findings, emphasizing those of Detroit and Oakland County, as insights into Hispanic identity, there are multiple reasons to be cautious.
- The data from birth certificates were not collected to address the question of Hispanic identity or for research purposes but for administrative purposes. Hospitals, where most babies in the United States are born, have staff whose responsibility it is to gather information from the parents that they don’t have from other sources. Race is a particularly slippery concept. Do the 20 categories of race as coded in the birth certificate data accurately reflect individuals’ conceptions of their race? How often is race decided not by parents but by hospital staff? Are race and ethnicity even distinct concepts? Without certainty around these questions and collection methods, we should be cautious when using these data.
To that point, the Census Bureau has collapsed race and ethnicity into a single question for the 2030 census instead of asking about Hispanic or Latino origin as a separate ethnicity question. Additionally, the Census and Office of Management and Budget have approved adding a new race-ethnicity category labeled Middle Eastern or North African (MENA), with a deadline for the specifics set for 2027. This category would join the other major categories of White; Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; Asian; American Indian or Alaska Native; and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. According to the Office of Management and Budget, its engagement with the MENA and Hispanic/Latino communities has shown “the need for demographic and socioeconomic statistics about its population to inform policy decisions, health research, civil rights monitoring and enforcement, and many other needs.” - While the race-ethnicity combinations differed among the four geographical areas we cannot assume that the combinations within each area are fixed and static or that the Hispanic population in Southeast Michigan is static. What has been happening with that population? Is it growing and if so, where? Are people identifying as Hispanic moving from Detroit to Out-Wayne County, Oakland County, and Macomb County? Are trends different for younger and older people who identify as Hispanic?
- Disaggregating (or breaking down) geographies may reveal important differences. People identifying as Hispanic in northern Oakland County may differ from those identifying as Hispanic in southern Oakland County.
Related: Gaining Insight by disaggregating geographic areas - The data for this study covered the years 2017-2022. The trends in Detroit and Oakland County looked fairly convincing, but that was only six years of data, including three years of the COVID pandemic. Will the trends hold up when we add the data from 2012-2016? This is an important question that will be answered in a subsequent blog post.
More significantly, it is easy to jump from finding intriguing ethnicity-race combinations to concluding that we have unveiled something fundamental regarding Hispanic identity. Maybe there is some truth in that, but an individual’s identity is multifaceted, and this data from MDHHS is not enough for us to draw conclusions from. The two variables of ethnicity (Hispanic/non-Hispanic) and race are not measured consistently across studies, as illustrated by the evolving Census categories in the first point above, nor across time as illustrated below; and the data from birth certificates do not allow us to make such a sweeping conclusion. However, the data reviewed here could be a starting point for a more comprehensive understanding of Hispanic identity.
Race as a Changing Social Construct
Race is a social construct, and our understanding of it changes over time—both at a societal level and an individual level—and we change how we measure it to reflect that. The Census Bureau has used many different identifiers since the first census in 1790, and a corollary to the current “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish Origin” first showed up in 1930 as “Mexican.” This identifier was removed in the 1940 census, to reappear in 1970 as “Origin or Descent: Mexican; Puerto Rican; Cuban; Central or South American; Other Spanish,” and it has remained on the Census since then in similar variations. Hispanic is not the only identity with a complex history—as the chart below demonstrates—even those that started out with a simple classification by the Census often get more complex over time as the Census responds to evolving views of racial and ethnic identities. These complexities always need to be considered when we are looking at race/ethnicity data over time.
As the classifications change over time in response to both power dynamics and societal norms, the consequences of the classifications for individuals and communities also change. While the racial categories used by MDHHS and the Census are helpful for us to do a data analysis on subsets of the population to understand how different communities experience life in different ways, we should remember that it’s the impossibility of a perfect survey question that perfectly represents the complexity of the people represented in the data.

Appendix
Racial Categories used by MDHHS from the birth certificate
1 = WHITE
2 = BLACK
3 = AMERICAN INDIAN
4 = ASIAN INDIAN
5 = CHINESE
6 = FILIPINO
7 = JAPANESE
8 = KOREAN
9 = VIETNAMESE
10 = OTHER ASIAN
11 = NATIVE HAWAIIAN
12 = GUAMAN,CHAMORRO
13 = SAMOAN
14 = OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDER
15 = OTHER RACE
21 = WHITE MULTIPLE RACE
22 = BLACK MULTIPLE RACE
23 = AMERICAN INDIAN MULTIPLE RACE
24 = ASIAN/PACIFIC ISLANDER
MULTIPLE RACE 99 = UNKNOWN
These were grouped as follows:
Category 1 = White
Category 2 = Black
Categories 4-14 = Asian/Pacific Islander
Category 3 and 15 = Other Race
Categories 21-24 = Multiple Race
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