All persons wore asked to identify themselves according to the following race categories on the 1980 questionnaire: White, Black or Negro, American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Asian Indian, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Guamanian, Samoan, and Other. The "Other" category includes Malayan, Polynesian, Thai, and other groups not included in the specific categories listed on the questionnaire. This item was asked on a complete-count basis.

The concept of race as used by the Census bureau reflects self-identification by respondents; it does not denote any clear-cut scientific definition of biological stock. Since the 1980 census obtained information on race through self-identification, the data represent self-classification by people according to the race with which they identify themselves. For persons with parents of different races who could not provide a single response to the race question, the race of the person's mother was used; however, if a single response could not be provided for the person's mother, the first race reported by the person was used.

Counts of the population by race in complete-count tabulations are provisional. Final counts for race will be determined after the sample data have been processed. The sample counts will first appear on tape on STF 3 and in print in Characteristics of the Population, General Social and Economic Characteristics (PC80-1-C) reports.

Limited edit and review operations were performed during the complete-count operations; write-in responses were reviewed in an attempt to classify entries to specific categories, where appropriate. For instance, if the "Other" circle was marked with a write-in entry "Caucasian," then the response was recoded as White. (Additional examples are noted below.) However, all such cases were not identified in the complete-count processing. During the processing of sample questionnaires, a more thorough review and additional editing was done to resolve inconsistent or incomplete responses. Also, during the processing of sample questionnaires, write-in entries for the "Other" category were assigned specific codes, which is included on the person's basic record in the census sample detailed tape files.

Asian and Pacific Islander write-in entries, such as Indo-Chinese, Cambodian, or Polynesian, included in the "Other" category during 100-percent processing, are collectively tabulated and shown as "Other Asian and Pacific Islander" in the census sample tabulations; this group, "Other Asian and Pacific Islanders," will be included in the broader Asian and Pacific Islander category in all sample tabulations by race. This shift of "Other Asian and Pacific Islander" entries out of the "Other races" category in sample tabulations and the recoding of write-in entries in the "Other" category to specific categories where appropriate Will affect the comparability between complete-count and sample data for some groups.

Persons 16 years old and over were classified as to their status in the labor force based on replies to several questions relating to work activity and status during the reference week. These items were asked on a sample basis.

Data on labor force status refer to the calendar week prior to the date on which respondents completed their questionnaires or were interviewed by enumerators. Since the week of enumeration was not the same for all persons, the reference week for labor force data is not entirely uniform. For many persons, however, the reference week for answering the 1980 census employment questions was the last week in March, 1980.