APM RESEARCH LAB

Roots Beyond Race

The APM Research Lab's Roots Beyond Race project is the most comprehensive portrait of Americans’ identity available anywhere. Typically, discussions of race and ethnicity show U.S. residents in five or six broad categories. This project goes beyond basic race groups to reveal our incredibly varied populations and histories, reflecting immigration patterns across generations and up to the present.

Roots Beyond Race contains data on 198 heritage groups and demonstrates the complex, overlapping, and fascinating origins of those who live in the United States. These data are self-reported and therefore reveal Americans’ own construction of identity, as reported to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Embedding Tableau Public Views in iFrame
Frequently Asked Questions
Notes about use

• Display
• Code

• Display
• Code

Frequently Asked Questions

• 1. How did you get/create these data?

  The data source for Roots Beyond Race is the U.S. Census Bureau's 2017 American Community Survey (ACS)—a very large annual federal survey of more than 2.1 million households each year. We used the integrated public use microdata series (IPUMS-USA) for these data, available from the University of Minnesota, to make custom categories for our "heritage" groups.

  We did so because on the ACS questionnaire, people can identify one or more races, sometimes with greater detail or prompts (e.g., Asian subgroups have check-boxes, while other race groups do not), as well as whether they have Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, whether they are enrolled in a Native/Indigenous tribe, and they may also give two answers for their ancestry. We have aggregated data from all of these variables to create more robust "heritage" groups, regardless of the manner that people specified it on the form. (For example, if a woman selected Chinese as her race but did not specify any ancestry, she would be included in our Chinese heritage group. So too would a man who selected Black and Asian as his races, with Chinese ancestry. If the latter person also specified Haitian ancestry, he would appear in the Haitian heritage group as well.) 

  Typically, we see Census data presented either by race (and often only those who list a single race, excluding multiracial persons); ethnicity; tribe; or one ancestry alone. Our method produces a far more comprehensive portrait of Americans' diverse, complex, and often overlapping identities. Users should note, however, that some Americans do not offer any responses to the ancestry question or others used to create heritage groups. While these people do not appear in any heritage groups, they are reflected in the totals by race and overall.

  Specific IPUMS variables used to construct each heritage group are detailed in this document.

• 2. What is the definition of "African American" in these data?

  One of the cruel legacies of slavery is that many Black Americans cannot trace their heritage prior to their arrival in America. We used editorial judgment for the construction of our heritage group for "African American." This group includes those of any race who listed the any of the following responses for their first or second ancestries: African American, African, or Afro-American. It also includes anyone who identified as Black (alone or in combination with other races) AND listed "American" for their first or second ancestries. Users should note that our constructed African American group is smaller than the total population of U.S.-born Black residents.

  Other than this usage, we did not include "American" as a heritage group, although it is a common answer for the ancestry question, because it doesn't illuminate much and could reasonably apply to all American residents.

• 3. Why do these data estimates differ from other data sources, such as the Census Bureau's published tables on race or ancestry, or Pew Research Center's fact sheets on various Latino groups?

  Reported group sizes will differ depending on the variables used to create them. Our variables are detailed above. Importantly, our groups also include multiracial, multi-ethnic persons in all groups they identify with; some data sources do not. Note, however, that our White, non-Hispanic group includes only single-race White people. Additionally, our data comes from the 2017 IPUMS version of the ACS, which is a 1-in-100 household sample (1%) of Americans. Because this data file is a subset of the full 2017 ACS sample, this may also cause estimates to differ from the U.S. Census Bureau's published tables derived from the full sample. 

• 4. Do these data have margins of error?

  Yes. Users are cautioned that these data result from a survey and therefore the estimates have margins of error, but they are not shown. The data shown are the point estimates. Often the margin of error for these groups is several thousand people, plus or minus, around the point estimates.  

• 5. What is the threshold for inclusion? Why doesn't my heritage group appear in here?

  We have included 198 heritage groups in the Roots Beyond Race Project. Overall, Indigenous (one race alone) tribes were included if there were an estimated population 10,000 or more nationally. Other heritage groups were included if there a minimum estimate of 14,000 nationally. If there were fewer than 2,000 people estimated in a particular heritage in a state, we have noted this (and set to 0 in the map and bar graph in the first visualization) due to unreliability for small numbers. Heritage groups that fall below 2,000 for any selected geography do not appear in the second visualization.  

• 6. Do these data include immigrants?

  Yes. These data include current first-generation immigrants (those not born in the U.S., but living here now). They also reflect the many prior waves of immigration that have shaped our nation's character. At present, the data do not show what share of each "heritage" group is U.S.-born versus foreign-born.

• 7. Why do the numbers for various Native tribes look low?

  In these data, the U.S. Census Bureau provides tribal affiliation for those that self-identify as American Indian/Native/Indigenous as their only race. However, tribal affiliation is not made available (suppressed) for those Indigenous people that identify as multiracial (i.e., Indigenous and one or more other races), due to privacy concerns.

  In Roots Beyond Race, we have provided the total number of people who identify as Indigenous for each state and the United States, including those who are single-race and multiracial. However, due to the above data limitation, users should know that the tribe-specific data understate all those who self-identify with a particular tribe, as multiracial Indigenous persons are not reflected. Alternate data sources show that including the multiracial population would roughly double the size of a tribe's descendants, on average. We regret that we encountered this data limitation. Users are also cautioned that these data reflect self-identification with a tribe and not figures of enrolled tribal members. Tribes may have varying criteria for membership based on traditions, language, and degree of tribal blood, among other guidelines. 

• 8. I think your numbers are too low for [fill in the blank] group. Why are they?

  These data reflect the self-identified tribes, races, ethnicities, and ancestries reported by American residents to the Census Bureau in calendar year 2017. The data used are the best, most detailed data available on this topic, but they also have limitations. The data are only as complete as the reporting of residents who belong to these groups. Many newer immigrant communities are less likely to participate in government surveys due to barriers including fear, mistrust, misunderstanding, or language difficulties. Therefore, especially in regard to newer immigrant communities, these data may undercount the true size of those groups.   

• 9. What does "*NOS" mean?

  The following heritage groups are labeled *NOS, meaning "not otherwise specified": Arab, Central American, European, Latin American, Scandinavian, South American, Subsaharan African, West African, and West Indian (Caribbean). This is to alert users that these are direct ancestry responses given by Americans who did not specify a country or more detailed origin. Users are cautioned that data for these heritage groups are not the sum of more specific responses for countries considered to be part of these regions. For example, "Scandinavian" includes those who specified that alone as their ancestry; it does not include the sum of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish responses.

Notes about use

Please include the following citation for information sourced from this project: Source: The APM Research Lab, Roots Beyond Race, 2019. Available at: apmresearchlab.org/rootsbeyondrace. On social media, please use the hashtag #RootsBeyondRace.

These tools have been developed for American Public Media affiliate stations. Please contact your Station Relations Representative for assistance. If you are not an APM affiliate station but would like to embed these tools, please email us at info@apmresearchlab.org.