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Armenians, Hmong and other groups feel US race and ethnicity categories don't represent them
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Sophia Armen, center passes a dish to Dr. Armond Aghakhanian and joined for lunch with other members of the Armenian-American Census Coalition, Suzie Abajian and former California Assembly Member Adrian Nazarian at the Carousel, a Lebanese-Armenian restaurant in Glendale, Calif. on Friday, May 17, 2024. For some race and ethnic groups, how the U.S. government categorizes them for crucial surveys and the once-a-decade census is still falling short. Hmong as well as Armenian, Arab American and Brazilian communities say they feel excluded or diminished when it comes to how they are counted in their own country. - photo by AP Photo/Richard Vogel
The federal government recently reclassified race and ethnicity groups in an effort to better capture the diversity of the United States, but some groups feel the changes miss the mark. Hmong, Armenian, Black Arab and Brazilian communities in the U.S. say they are not represented accurately in the official numbers. While the revisions were widely applauded, these communities say the changes have created a tension between how the federal government classifies them versus how they identify themselves.