Coding 2020 Census Race Write-Ins by Line and Checkbox: Evidence from Linked 2000, 2010, and 2020 Responses

The 2020 Census asked respondents who checked White or Black to write in more detail about their race, leading a large population to newly report detailed origin information. This new information led to an openness to interpretation that had previously been limited to a small number of respondents and by less response freedom. The same write-in can mean different things depending on context (the line it is written on and the boxes checked with it): "English" written on the Black line may indicate a White respondent who did not pay attention to line placement, or a Black respondent from the UK. This note describes programs that examine each combination of checked boxes, race line choice, and write-in code, asking how the people who gave those responses' race was reported in previous censuses. We use that history along with our judgment about changing racial identification patterns to propose coding rules that map a checkbox pattern, write-in location, and write-in content to an edited race, and to propose additional codes for patterns the current code list does not represent.