How does the Census Bureau define the races?
See
About Race
The U.S. Census Bureau must adhere to the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards on race and ethnicity which guide the Census Bureau in classifying written responses to the race question:
White – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.
Black or African American – A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.
American Indian or Alaska Native – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.
Asian –
A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan,
the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.
Also see:
Underrepresented in Medicine Definition - Initiatives - AAMC
On March 19, 2004, the AAMC Executive Committee adopted a clarification to its definition of "underrepresented in medicine" following the Supreme Court's decision in
Grutter.
The AAMC definition of underrepresented in medicine is:
"Underrepresented in medicine means those racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population."
Adopted by the AAMC's Executive Council on June 26, 2003, the definition helps medical schools accomplish three important objectives:
- a shift in focus from a fixed aggregation of four racial and ethnic groups to a continually evolving underlying reality. The definition accommodates including and removing underrepresented groups on the basis of changing demographics of society and the profession,
- a shift in focus from a national perspective to a regional or local perspective on underrepresentation, and
- stimulate data collection and reporting on the broad range of racial and ethnic self-descriptions.
Before June 26, 2003, the AAMC used the term "underrepresented minority (URM)," which consisted of Blacks, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans (that is, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians), and mainland Puerto Ricans. The AAMC remains committed to ensuring access to medical education and medicine-related careers for individuals from these four historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.
So, it is most appropriate according to the US Census Bureau for someone having origins in the people of the Philippine Islands to self-identify as Asian. It would be up to each school to decide for itself whether Asians of Filipino ancestry are underrepresented in medicine in the region served by that school. You should answer as you will answer the 2020 US Census and let schools decide what to do with that information.