I doubt that it can be taken seriously as a medical question, as some of the American "races" don't cluster genetically. Hispanic is probably the worst offender, but Asian is pretty bad too.
Hispanic isn't a race according to the Census Bureau.
> The United States Census Bureau uses Hispanic or Latino to refer to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race
The way it's used in popular imagination is as a "race" though. My mom doesn't see Pope Francis as hispanic because he isn't mestizo.
I am a "Hispanic" that lives in the US. I am also European. In my experience what qualifies as an Hispanic varies incredibly from institution to institution, from person to person. A few months ago I was admitted briefly to the hospital, my race (not ethnicity) was marked as "Hispanic". Other times, in other places, I have been assumed to be "white".
Also, you wouldn't believe how much better I am treated when I am perceived as "white".
I read that book when I arrived to the US: really interesting. IMO, the activists that pushed the idea of the "Hispanic" race/ethnicity into the American mindset made a huge mistake. Racializing yourself is a bad thing, even if the government gives you a few pennies in exchange.
Well, I think you’ve missed important context here. Darker skinned Latinos didn’t have a choice to not be racialized; “Hispanic” was introduced as an alternative to the prevailing practice of just using the Spanish-speaking country with the most local expats as an informal race designator. White Latinos could in principle have defected and chosen to identify as just white, but I’m glad we didn’t.
I think that the racialization of Hispanics as a group has been pretty bad for "non-white" Latinos too.
1. You are right that someone that doesn't visually appear "white" will be racialized in the US. However, the magnitude of this racialization can differ a lot. Incessantly repeating that "Hispanics" are a very consistent group of people makes the "otherization" of all Hispanics worse, including for "non-white" ones.
2. Including people of European descent in a group that is going to benefit from affirmative action opens an obvious loophole. Unconscious bias will provoke that the opportunities created by AA end up with people who look/are white, not to Latinos "of color". Hollywood is particularly terrible on that: with most of Hispanic actors looking European (Ana de Armas is a recent example) or coming directly from Europe. I guess they can't find non-white Latinos in LA. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3. Finally, the idea of Hispanics forming a genetic cluster will be pernicious for all Hispanics, particularly when applied to medicine. It puts our lives in unnecessary danger.
Do any of them really cluster genetically? Compare a person whose ancestors come from Senegal to a person whose ancestors come from Mozambique – Americans will call both persons "Black", yet I would not expect those two people to have many recent ancestors in common, or much "genetic clustering" at all.
You are thinking too literally. It's just a question that opens the door to more discussion. It's another piece of information, not the end of the discussion.
But does it always "open the door to more discussion", or do some medical professionals just make judgements based on which box was ticked on the patient form? Presented with an African immigrant patient, is a US doctor going to realise that the patient may have rather different genetics from most African-Americans, and hence information about health risks for African-Americans may not be relevant to them? I'm sure an above-average doctor would realise that and take it into account, but would a below-average doctor (of whom there are very many) do it?
If more information is better, isn't that a good argument for replacing "race" questions which expect coarse-grained answers with "ethnicity"/"ancestry" questions which expect more fine-grained answers? (i.e. "Chinese" or "Filipino" not "Asian", "African-American" or "Kenyan" not "Black", "English" or "Polish" not "White", etc.)