The 4.3 million
Americans whose race could change when they die.
And
Twice as many
Americans whose race was changed at birth!
In the US, there are
two people
responsible for filling out
government paperwork about you,
after
you die:
a medical certifier
and a funeral director.
At birth there are
also two,
a medical certifier
and your doctor.
As a Native American
one must hope that the paperwork gets filled out correctly
or is not changed
later!
Many births in and
around the New England area
60 to 80 years ago,
papers were changed before the
child even left the hospital.
I, for instance,
do not wish to be
called an
American Indian,
Alaska Native
or
non of the above!
I am
and always will
be
a member of
The Moiigans
(Maïngan – Yáw
People).
This government can
change the paperwork after my crossing.
However,
I will still be
crossed
to my Ancestors,
along side of
Father Sky,
the Great Spirit,
and
Kiehtan.
No one on Mother
Earth can change this fact!
I pray to
Kiehtan
(Creator)
for a
'Faith Blessing'
to those worrying
about this posting.
The 4.3 million
Americans whose race could change when they die.
We all carry
expectations about our own deaths:
to be respected,
mourned, missed, by at least a few;
some kind of cultural ceremony or ritual;
a few last wishes
dutifully carried out.
What you might not
expect is to be assigned a new race.
In the US, there are
two people responsible for filling out government paperwork about you, after
you die:
a medical certifier
and a funeral director.
The medical
certifier records details like cause of death.
But in many states
it’s the funeral director
who’s responsible for
completing biographical
sections:
where you died,
your
educational background,
occupation,
race,
and
ethnicity.
These arbiters can
produce some strange final records.
Research conducted
over the last decade by the US National Center for Health Statistics shows that
people of Asian, Hispanic, and especially Native American descent stand a
surprisingly high chance of being mislabeled when they die.
Official US race and
ethnicity demographics are tracked by self-reporting—that is, census.
Every 10 years,
Americans fill out paperwork that lets the government know what race they
consider themselves a part of, and whether they are of Hispanic origin.
After you’re dead,
the person most qualified to state your race and ethnicity is still you.
But, well, you’re
dead.
So according to the
government, it’s up to funeral directors to submit that information for you.
Though each state
might have slight variations on their certificate, the US government provides a
standard for them to follow:
For black and white
Americans, this system seems to work.
Research finds that
mortality records for black and white people in the US are accurate:
They match what
people say in census data.
But for some
minorities, not so.
In a study published
this month by the National Center for Health Statistics,
a part of the
Centers for Disease Control, researchers looked at 3.8 million representative
death records.
They found that for
deaths from 1999 to 2011, 3% of Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander populations
ended up misclassified as other races.
An astonishing 40%
of American Indians and Alaska Natives
were also found to
be misclassified,
as STAT News pointed
out earlier this week.
The majority of
deceased from those populations were misclassified as white, perhaps in part
because interracial marriage among
