While categories and classifications have evolved over time, the census has been collecting some sort of data on race and ethnicity ever since it was first undertaken in 1790. America's ever-changing ethnic composition and shifting political moods long have been reflected in the very questions the census poses. In 1850, a growing national awareness of immigration led census takers to ask respondents' place of birth as well as that of their parents.

Forty years later, a heightened interest in miscegenation spurred census officials to track the mixed ancestry of the people we today label as African-Americans. A person was considered black only if he had three-quarters or more black blood, mulatto if he was three-eighths to three-fifths black, and "quadroon" or "octaroon" if he claimed one-quarter or one-eighth African ancestry.

Over the decades, there have been many other changes in the terms we use to identify and classify ethnic groups. Asian Indians, for example, were counted as Hindus in censuses from 1920 to 1940, as white from 1950 to 1970, and as Asians or Pacific Islanders in 1980 and 1990.

But if the new census will more accurately reflect the nation's reality, no one is clear on how to read the results. "It will be a statistical mess," says Bill Frey, a demographer at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica, Calif. "What we do know is that it's going to use up a lot of RAM."

In this year's census, the racial categories will remain essentially the same as in 1990, with a few exceptions. Black, white and American Indian or Alaskan Native and "other" will all remain unchanged. But the old category of "Asian or Pacific Islander" will be split into one classification for Asians and another for native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. Hispanic will continue to be a separate ethnic category.

Although there are only six major categories to select, it is the 63 possible combinations of them that could give statisticians headaches. And that's not taking into account whether those possible combinations are Hispanic or non-Hispanic. That brings the number of potential racial/ethnic mixtures to a grand total of 126.

"I can't see having to make 63 charts," says Jeffrey Beckerman, the head of statistics for the Los Angeles City Planning Department. "But I suppose that somebody might." Local officials throughout the country are still awaiting word on how the Census Bureau will release the final data. But as of early February census officials in Maryland still haven't finalized their plans. "We're still not sure how we're going to show all the information," says Arthur Cresce, a bureau demographer. "We're still working through how to do it."

"We're going to have get over the idea that everything adds up to 100 percent," says Linda Meggers, a demographer for the Georgia Legislature. Racial figures in the United States will soon resemble religious data in Japan, where 186 million people are counted as members of various sects when there are only 121 million souls in the country. In Japan, it is common for people to label themselves as adherents to more than one faith.

We do know that the bureau will release the data in a variety of formats. It will be obliged to present the entire range of combinations, but then there will also be the more abbreviated categories. The most common tables will probably be those showing the six major groupings plus one additional category in which all multiracial Americans are lumped together.

It may also choose to highlight the four major racial combinations, which in all likelihood will be white-black, white-American Indian, white-Asian, and black-American Indian. There will also probably be tables presenting "single-race" Americans alongside constituent combinations, i.e, a black alone category alongside a category for black combinations.

But despite the obvious complications in presenting the data, the real problems will come in the myriad ways people and public agencies will choose to use the numbers. And that's where the fighting begins.

For instance, it is easy to imagine advocacy groups suing over the number of members of a particular racial group. For example, a pan-Asian organization may choose to combine "single-race" Asians with Asian combinations to create a super Asian category. It is conceivable that a competing activist group, say on behalf of mixed-race Asians, could argue to have the categories tallied differently.

In fact, civil rights groups are already pressuring the federal government to develop a method of "reassigning" multiracial Americans into the traditional racial categories in data that serves civil rights purposes.

The government has discussed various ways this could work, but the final plan of action is still unclear. One option is to automatically assign people who check white and another race to the nonwhite category. Another is to have people who are a mix of two non-white groups assigned to the smaller -- and theoretically more vulnerable -- category.

Much like their contrary stance in the debate over the self-standing multiracial category, this posturing puts traditional civil rights groups in the odd position of upholding the old, zero-sum racial scheme. Indeed, some black groups, such as the NAACP and the Black Leadership Forum, a national coalition of the leaders of major civil rights organizations, are encouraging people to check just one box this year. The nuances and complexities of the multiracial future may be too threatening to the stark civil-rights era perspective forged in the segregationist past.

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