The federal White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is asking for public comments on potential revisions to its 1997 standards for collecting and reporting race and ethnicity data. Federal agencies are required to follow these standards.
Currently, federal agencies are not required to count detailed data for Asian American (AA), Native Hawaiian (NH), and Pacific Islander (PI) communities (e.g., Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Native Hawaiian, Chamorro, Samoan, Tongan, etc.). This means our communities remain misrepresented, left out of policy and program decisions, and under-funded.
AAs, NHs, and PIs are a diverse community of over 50 different ethnic groups that speak over 100 different languages and dialects. We have unique histories, cultures, resiliencies, and challenges that differently impact our health, housing, education, and economic experiences.
This is the first opportunity in 20 years for the public to provide comments and recommendations to OMB to support the collection and reporting of detailed data for our communities.