Who is Counted and Why
A recap of our 2024 Samuel E. Kelly Distinguished Faculty Lecture, featuring Dr. Sara Curran’s presentation Past, Present and Future Demographic Diversity in the U.S. and Washington
On October 17, 2024, UW community members and students attended OMA&D’s annual Samuel E. Kelly Distinguished Faculty Lecture, led by Dr. Sara Curran. Dr. Curran presented Past, Present, and Future Demographic Diversity, a timely topic exploring who is counted, and why, in the United States.
The evening began at the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center for a reception with Dr. Curran, members of the OMA&D community, and students from across disciplines. Following this warm reception, attendees migrated to Alder Hall Auditorium settling in for the lecture.
OMA&D Vice President and University Diversity Officer Rickey Hall welcomed everyone to the lecture, highlighting Dr. Curran’s work and achievements, and why her lecture was relevant for the times we live in. “In political conversations we hear about the changing makeup of our cities and our neighborhoods. Some equate the demographic shifts to more political and economic power for those who have been the furthest away from that power. However, some question if that is truly the case.” VP Hall posed the questions, “Does shifting demography correlate to shifts in access? Equity? Does it result in changing political power?”
Courtney, a 5th-year Ph.D. student in the UW Department of Sociology delivered a warm and heartfelt introduction, prepared with help from Dr. Aasli Abdi Nur, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford. Dr. Curran took the stage to applause and walked the audience through the two parts of her presentation. “I’m going to talk about censuses, demography and diversity, and what they’ve looked like over the past and in the contemporary times,” she said. “I’m going to put you through a few population pyramid pictures, (we love population pyramids and demography, and I’ll tell you why,) and then I’m going to give you a sense of some of the ways in which we might be seeing and counting, in addition in new ways in the future, as well as the important role of migration to our country, and how we think about the complexities and the fabric of our nation.”
Dr. Curran explored the history of the United States census, the impact and evolution of racial categorization, the evolution of racial categories in the U.S. census, and the consequential shift of the census in the 1960’s. “What I want to make a note here is that prior to 1964-65, most of the categorization around race was about racial hierarchies and controlling population – and trying to manage how we understand those populations,” said Curran. “1964-65 was a seminal moment in census history, and it really marked a shift in how the census was to be implemented on the part of the US government. Civil rights – the Voting Rights Act and the Great Society programs instantiated a major investment on the part of being more observant and counting people more completely.” She also noted this was a first, not final step to more inclusive counting in the census.
Dr. Curran used population pyramids and demographic transitions to explain the diversification and aging of the population in the United States. She guided the audience through the migration and spatial distributions of populations, and explained new categories in the 2030 census, giving future projections on how new data will evolve discussions of race and ethnicity. “There is now going to be a close, probably very soon-to-be-added, a new set of measures around sexual orientation, sex at birth, sexual orientation and gender identity that is moving through to approval. Most of these things have to be approved by 2025 in order to get onto the 2030 census.” She concluded, “Finally, there’s going to be new categories around abilities, hearing, visual, cognitive mobility and abilities to have a better sense of who is in in it needs to be recognized and understood and seen.”
After some thoughtful questions from the audience, Dr. Curran was met with grateful applause from the audience for her presentation. VP Hall presented her with a thank you gift of a “Pitre,” – an original framed photograph of the UW campus by long-time special advisor to the VP and author of Revolution to Evolution: The Story of the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity at the University of Washington, Emile Pitre.
More information about the lecture, Dr. Curran and her area of study can be found on OMA&D’s website. You can watch the lecture on OMA&D’s YouTube.
Video
Gallery
Photo Credit: Tara Brown
Photos from these galleries are not for commercial use. For higher resolution images or for permission to use them within the University of Washington, please contact cpromad@uw.edu. For permission to use these photos for commercial use or for purposes outside of the University of Washington, please contact the photographer directly.
Reception
Lecture
