ArcaMax

Back in the first census, for example, U.S. Census Bureau records show that the heads of households were asked to identify the number of "free white males" under and over 16 years old, the number of "free white females," the number of "other free persons" and the number of slaves.

In 1870, the first post-Civil War census reflected the nation's growing recognition of its own diversity. The "enumerators" who interviewed the heads of households and filled out the forms, could mark "W" for White, "B" for Black, "M" for "Mulatto" (or mixed race), "I" for American Indian and "C" for "Chinese," a category that included all East Asians, whether they or their ancestors actually came from China.

In 1890, enumerators were instructed to get even more personal with the categories "White," "Black," "Mulatto," "Chinese," "Japanese" and "Indian," joined by "Quadroon" and "Octoroon," for one-fourth and one-eighth black.

All of this was to be done without such modern-day innovations as 23andMe, Ancestry.com or other DNA researchers.

Changing times have led dedicated experts such as former Census Director Kenneth Prewitt, author of "What Is Your Race?: The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans," to push not for fewer labels in these tribalizing times but for better ones. "We shouldn't be governing in the 21st century by a race classification given us by a German doctor in 1776," he told me in 2013.

He was referring to the German scientist Johann Blumenbach, whose 1776 book, "On the Natural Varieties of Mankind," established the woefully inadequate five-race model we know so well today: "Caucasian, Mongolian (Asian), Malay (Pacific Islanders), American Indian and Negro."

On the flip side, there are those who want to bail out of the issue by taking race out of our census as France and some other countries have done. Having talked with French journalists and others of color who struggle for recognition when the French motto of "liberty, equality and fraternity" falls short for them, I don't think a so-called colorblind approach would work for us.

We already have enough arguments over whether the enumeration of our citizens, called for in the Constitution, serves its intended purpose. The census doesn't solve all of the conflicts in our racial and ethnic gumbo, but it helps us to understand the ingredients.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

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