America’s Melting Pot. The U.S. Census Bureau publishes data on the population of the United States by race and Hispanic origin in American Community Survey. From that document, we constructed the following bar chart. Note that people who are Hispanic may be of any race, and people in each race group may be either Hispanic or not Hispanic.

Race and Ethnicity in America

(in millions)

229.4 38.9 White 26.3 50.7 Black Asian Other Hispanic 14.7

a. Explain why a break is shown in the first bar.

b. Why was the graph constructed with a broken bar?

c. Is this graph potentially misleading? Explain your answer.