Mixed Race Studies

The Census Is Still Trying To Find The Best Way To Track Race In America

FiveThirtyEight
New York, New York
2014-11-26

Ben Casselman, Chief Economics Writer

At FiveThirtyEight, we use census data all the time to track demographic and social trends, from the aging of the U.S. population to the decline in marriage and shifts in immigration patterns. But the census not only reveals societal changes, it responds to them. This week, we’re examining three changes the Census Bureau is considering for its 2020 questionnaire. In the first two installments, we looked at the proposed changes to the way the census counts people of Arab ancestry and same-sex couples. Here, in our final article: The bureau ponders a new way of asking about Hispanic ethnicity.

Nancy López considers herself Latina — more specifically, Dominican. But she knows that when she walks down the street, many strangers see her as something else: a black woman.

“Race is not one-dimensional,” said López, a sociologist at the University of New Mexico and co-director of the school’s Institute for the Study of Race and Social Justice. “It’s multidimensional.”

The census has struggled to capture that complexity for its entire history, from 19th-century battles over how to count free black Americans to more modern efforts to categorize the U.S.’s growing mixed-race population. Now as it prepares for its 2020 population count, the Census Bureau is considering its biggest change in decades: combining its questions about race and ethnicity into a single, all-encompassing question. López could still, as she did in 2010, mark herself as black and Latina. But she could also select just one category – an option many U.S. Hispanics have said better reflects their self-identity.

That may seem like an academic distinction, but there are significant real-world implications, too. The government uses census data to help draw congressional boundaries, protect voting rights and allocate federal grant dollars. Researchers use it to track discrimination and social trends. And advocacy groups use it to secure political influence.

“Census taking,” said Tanya Hernández, a Fordham University law professor who studies discrimination, “is inherently a political act.”…

Read the entire article here.

Queridos Blanquitos: The Hidden Racism of Nuestra América

NACLA Report on the Americas
New York, New York
2014-11-19

Ed Morales
Columbia University, New York, New York

In Justin Simien’s debut film Dear White People, a passing comment about Puerto Ricans exposes the contradictory status of mixed-race people in the “post-racial” Americas.

There is a moment in Dear White People, a film that is drawing a lot of attention for its frank treatment of “post-racial” America—particularly in Ivy League universities—that made me laugh, although I felt not many in the theater got the joke the way I did. It was during a voiceover dialog during which the protagonist Sam’s African-American suitor was musing that he thought at first that she was “Puerto Rican” because of her lighter skin and superior attitude. Sam is a mixed-race filmmaker and agitator who is constantly angry over “micro-aggressions” she endures every day on campus, and is determined to put the brakes on all forms of neo-racism, period…

…In an Ivy League university a mulata is an exotic character, charged with a social and sexual ambivalence that is hard to resolve in quotidian campus interactions. Sam, reflecting on this, suffered the crisis of being accompanied by her white father to grade school when she was a child–the desire to separate herself to avoid confusion that resulted from noticing how people looked at her curiously–what is that white man doing with that black girl?  Other scenes find Sam grappling with being an object of sexual desire and political solidarity with white and black lovers, with all of this seemingly just adding to her quiet agony…

Read the entire article here.

Let’s Talk About Race (in Latin@ Communities)

NACLA Report on the Americas
New York, New York
2014-10-16

Melissa M. Valle, Ph.D. candidate
Columbia University, New York, New York

While many trivialize race in Latin@ communities as abstract and irrelevant, Afro-Latin@s are still fighting a definitive racial hierarchy.

They say that the Devil’s greatest trick is convincing the world he didn’t exist. While I’m not a religious person, I find something alarming about the notion that a sinister force is exacting its will on humanity while successfully going undetected, and therefore uncontested. Racism in Latin America has a similar invisible, but insidious, sort of quality.

Bring up racism amongst those from Latin America and you’ll often get an exasperated groan, followed by something about how class is the predominate stratifying principle in Latin America, and a plea to stop applying your U.S.-based take on race to those in Latin America and the Caribbean. They may even throw in a “we’re all mixed” or “what is race?” rejoinder for good measure.

They will likely bring up the fluidity of racial boundaries as a way of suggesting that the struggles around this form of discrimination have their own set of particularities when in a different setting like Latin America, and that these particularities absolve them from dealing with contradictory experiences of Afro-Latin@s that reveal a peculiarly hidden racism.

Fortunately, there are now numerous organizations and scholars carrying out the tireless work of bringing to light, documenting, and challenging the cumulative effects of centuries of oppression that continue to negatively impact the lives of millions of Afro-Latin@s. Recognizing the need for a critical analysis of the social reality of African-descended people from Latin America, local activists and scholars led by Juan Flores and Miriam Jiménez Román founded the afrolatin@ forum in New York in 2007. It was a moving experience to serve on the executive board of the forum in New York City in 2011 and help coordinate its first conference, “Afro-Latin@s Now!: Strategies for Visibility and Action.” The afrolatin@ forum is committed to advancing an understanding of the afrolatin@ experience in the United States and abroad. But on a personal level it has also heightened an understanding of racial marginalization and resistance for me and many of my co-organizers. Working with this collective, I feel my own identity as an Afro-Latina and scholar-activist has been affirmed.

This October’s second afrolatin@ forum conference, “Afro-Latin@s Now: Race Counts!” will provide a space to examine the structural and ideological barriers to full Afro-Latin@ representation and discuss opportunities for positive social change. The event will focus specifically on how race structures the life chances of Latin@s of African descent and how it is therefore critical that our experiences be shared and our numbers be counted in the census…

Read the entire article here.

Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America

Brookings Institution Press
2014-11-19
212 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 9780815725589
Paperback ISBN: 9780815725596
Ebook ISBN: 9780815726357

William H. Frey, Senior Fellow
Metropolitan Policy Program
Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

At its optimistic best, America has embraced its identity as the world’s melting pot. Today it is on the cusp of becoming a country with no racial majority, and new minorities are poised to exert a profound impact on U.S. society, economy, and politics.

In April 2011 a New York Times headline announced, “Numbers of Children of Whites Falling Fast.” As it turns out, that year became the first time in American history that more minority babies than white babies were born. The concept of a “minority white” may instill fear among some Americans, but William H. Frey, the man behind the demographic research, points out that demography is destiny, and the fear of a more racially diverse nation will almost certainly dissipate over time.

Through a compelling narrative and eye-catching charts and maps, eminent demographer Frey interprets and expounds on the dramatic growth of minority populations in the United States. He finds that without these expanding groups, America could face a bleak future: this new generation of young minorities, who are having children at a faster rate than whites, is infusing our aging labor force with vitality and innovation.

In contrast with the labor force-age population of Japan, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, the U.S. labor force-age population is set to grow 5 percent by 2030.

Diversity Explosion shares the good news about diversity in the coming decades, and the more globalized, multiracial country that U.S. is becoming.

Contents

• Preface
• 1. A Pivotal Period for Race in America
• 2. Old versus Young: Cultural Generation Gaps
• 3. America’s New Racial Map
• 4. Hispanics Fan Out: Who Goes Where?
• 5. Asians in America: The Newest Minority Surge
• 6. The Great Migration of Blacks—In Reverse
• 7. White Population Shifts—A Zero-Sum
• 8. Melting Pot Cities and Suburbs
• 9. Neighborhood Segregation: Toward a New Racial Paradigm
• 10. Multiracial Marriages and Multiracial America
• 11. Race and Politics: Expanding the Battleground
• 12. America on the Cusp
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index

Hispanic Or Latino? That Is The Question

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2009-09-25

Michel Martin, Host

Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 is being celebrated as Hispanic Heritage Month, but the some say the word “Hispanic” should be retired, and would rather be referred to as Latino. Host Michel Martin speaks to four Latinos with varying opinions on the subject — syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, Afro-Latino Activist Roland Roebuck, “Ask a Mexican” columnist Gustavo Arellano and Tell Me More Planning Editor Luis Clemens.

I’m Michel Martin, and this is Tell Me More from NPR News. It’s time for our weekly visit to the Barbershop, where the guys talk about what’s in the news and what’s on their minds. And this week, we’re going for a different kind of shape-up than we usually do, you know, switching it up a little bit.

It’s Hispanic Heritage Month, and to mark the occasion, we’ve decided to represent right here in the Barbershop. So sitting in the chairs for a shape-up this week are syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, who writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune and CNN.com, Gustavo Arellano, who writes the syndicated column “Ask a Mexican,” community activist Roland Roebuck, and NPR editor Luis Clemens, our own. Welcome to you, and dare I say it? Hola…

…MARTIN: All right. And before we jump into other topics, I have to ask, this being Heritage Month, let’s start with the title itself. Whenever, you know, I have to choose, I always have this little moment, you know, why Hispanic versus Latino Heritage Month? Does it matter? Gustavo, I’m going to start with you because this is actually something you’ve written about and thought about a lot. So Hispanic versus Latino, why? Which?

Mr. ARELLANO: Which one? Honestly for me, it’s whatever people want to call themselves, whatever makes them more comfortable. Some people don’t like either of the labels. They want to call themselves Chicano or Boricua, or whatever their particular labels may be.

The reason why it’s called Hispanic Heritage Month is because it comes from the federal government deciding that hey, guess what? We’re all Hispanics, and this happened – the urban myth is that Richard Nixon was the godfather of Hispanics. That’s what Richard Rodriguez, the noted author said, but it was actually done during the Ford administration. And literally, it was done in the back room of some government hall where they took a poll. Should we call these people Latinos or Hispanic?

So Hispanic won. So in that case, that’s why I don’t like the term Hispanic. I don’t like the government telling me what I should call myself. I’d prefer Latino. But again, if you want to call yourself Hispanic, then God bless you. Or Dios bless you, right?

MARTIN: Okay, why do you prefer Latino?

Ms. ARELLANO: Just because it’s more out of, you know, out of eliminating the other part that I don’t like. So I don’t – I mean, I don’t like Hispanic only for that term, so I’ll use Latino. But me personally, I call myself Naranjedal(ph), a child of, you know, an orange-picker because I come from Orange County, California, and my grandparents were orange-pickers. So that’s what I would call myself, and that’s where – whenever I go across the country, that’s what I tell people I call myself. But, of course, only a very limited amount of people can call themselves that. So if I’m going to express brotherhood with the fellow people that were colonized by the Spaniards or the Portuguese, then I’ll just – I decide to call myself Latino.

MARTIN: Okay. Roland, what about you?

Mr. ROEBUCK: Well, this month should be called White Hispanic Heritage Month, because it allows an opportunity for white Hispanic to display their wares, and it also heightens the invisibility of Afro-Latinos that are seldom given a chance to participate in these national holidays. So we are invisible during the year, more so during White Hispanic Heritage Month.

MARTIN: Why do you say that? And for those who can’t – you consider yourself Afro-Latino.

Mr. ROEBUCK: Yes, yes. But just look at the events. Ever since Celia Cruz died, Roberto Clemente is not around, people are scrambling to find Afro-Latinos to be recognized because they concentrate on two areas.

MARTIN: Now, you prefer Latino, as opposed to – you don’t say Afro-Hispanic.

Mr. ROEBUCK: No. I say – if I’m going to use the Latino, it would be Afro-Latino because I want to acknowledge my Africanness, and I also want to recognize my cultural background, which is Puerto Rican. But I have to use both.

For me, Hispanic refers to white, Spanish-speaking individuals. So the whiter you are, the more inclined you will be to identify yourself as Hispanic. And this is prevalent throughout the Southern region of the United States. If you ask the average person on Columbia Road, do you consider yourself Hispanic? No. They will use a geographic identification…

Read the transcript here. Listen to the story here. Download the story here.

‘What are you, anyway?’: Why I loved growing up in a mixed-race family

The Digital Universe
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah
2014-11-01

Angela Marler

When I was a kid it was completely normal for me to spend one weekend with my mom’s side of the family, roasting a goat in a pit in the driveway, surrounded by fruit trees and watching Telemundo. It was also normal for me to spend a Sunday with my dad’s relatives, lounging in a million-dollar home, playing video games and feasting on all-American roast and potatoes.

I felt equally comfortable in either situation, and I loved both sides and their quirks. My heritage was something I was proud of, and even if some people didn’t believe that my brother (dark-skinned with thick, curly hair) was the offspring of my father (extremely white and balding), I liked the fact that my family was a little different from my friends’ families…

Read the entire article here.

Growing Up On Burritos and Black-Eyed Peas: An Autoethnography of Multiracial Identity Development

Georgia State University
2014-05-16
210 pages

Marie Castro Bruner

A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Teaching and Learning in the Department of Middle-Secondary Education in the College of Education Georgia State University

The immigration debate is not new to the United States; however, today’s heated discussions include strong anti-Mexican sentiments (Bean & Stone, 2012; Hughey, 2012). As Americans attempt to secure borders in an effort to insure safety and economic security, current legislation includes elements of racial profiling against Mexicans that could extend to those who possess varying levels of Mexican blood since physical characteristics tend to guide racial labeling (Aoki & Johnson, 2009; Bernal, 2002; Fernandez, 2002; Quiñones et al, 2011). As an individual of Mexican and White bloodlines, racial categorization has resulted in internal struggles and social dilemmas for me.

The purpose of this dissertation was to gain understanding of my personal multiracial identity development within various social contexts; this study fulfills the requests of theorists seeking to understand multiracial identity development through self-analysis over a lifetime (Binning et al, 2009; Charmaraman & Grossman, 2010; Cheng & Lee, 2009; Miville et al, 2005). This qualitative dissertation used critical autoethnography as its methodology and theories of multiracial identity (Poston, 1990; Root, 1996; Rockquemore, Brunsma, & Delgado, 2009) and LatCrit (Aoki & Johnson, 2008; Solórzano & Bernal, 2001; Tate, 1997; Valdes, 1997; Villalpando, 2004; Yosso, 2005) while considering the impact of Whiteness Studies (Jay, 2005; Jeffries, 2012; Yeung, Spanierman & Landrum-Brown, 2013), and the cultural process of naming (Boris, 2005). The research questions guiding this dissertation were: How have I internalized and interpreted encounters related to racial identification, and what does being multiracial mean to me?

The presentation of findings included narrative analysis of visual and audio data sets located on a personal website that accompanies this study; online presentation of this study provides an opportunity to explore multiracial identity development in a space that has potential for impacting change due to popularity and accessibility (Bamford, 2005; Lang, 2002; Lange, 2008). Findings revealed complexities and fluidity in multiracial identity development as well as problems of self-identifying as monoracial. The significance of this study is that it will contribute to ongoing discussions of multiracial identity development as well as add to the growing body of literature related to LatCrit Theory, Whiteness Studies, and autoethnographic studies.

Read the entire dissertation here.

Should “Latino” be a Race on the Census?

National Institute for Latino Policy
Guest Commentary
2014-10-26

Thomas Lopez, President
Multiracial Americans of Southern California

Few questions cause as much existential angst among Latino intellectuals as this one. The Latino origin question was added to the Census in such a hurry back in 1970, that little thought was likely given to how it would fold into the existing racial categories at the time. It has remained a separate question ever since; thus was born the ubiquitous phrase “Latino (or Hispanic) can be of any race.”  It has been stated so often that it has become more of a platitude than a validated scientific fact.  Kudos should be given to the Census Bureau for finally addressing this issue.  Even if nothing changes in the Census, just considering the question forces us into a deeper conversation about identity in general. Because in order to answer the question of whether or not Latino should be a race, one must first answer a more fundamental question: what is race?

Perhaps it would be easier to start with what race isn’t. There is no biological or genetic basis for race. The full argument supporting this assertion is beyond the scope of this commentary so we will just have to accept that as truth for now.  So what is race? Race is a social construct, which is fancy academic speak for simply being made up. That isn’t to say it doesn’t have meaning just because it is made up. We infuse numerous social constructs with meaning. However, it does create a challenge for demographers to determine what society considers a race and what it doesn’t. The key is looking at the context in which it is used…

Read the entire article here.

Why Latinos won’t become white

Al Jazeera America
2014-10-22

Gabriel Arana

Assuming Latinos will join the white majority ignores the stark divisions in a racially diverse group

In the lead-up to the midterms, President Barack Obama has been parroting the conventional wisdom about the GOP’s future: Republicans are doomed if they keep up their opposition to immigration reform and continue the inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric. “It’s anybody’s guess how Republicans are thinking about this,” he said during a town hall event in Santa Monica, California. “If they were thinking long term politically, it is suicide for them not to do this.”

Latinos make up 14 percent of the population, and their share is projected to grow to 29 percent by 2050. This demographic traditionally identifies with the Democratic Party; the toxic immigration debate in Washington, fueled by xenophobes in the GOP, will only increase that tendency. In 2006, 49 percent of Latino eligible voters identified as or leaned Democratic. By 2011, that number jumped to 67 percent. With the United States projected to become a majority-minority country by 2043, Republicans’ chances of winning the White House on the backs of white voters will grow ever slimmer.

But a counternarrative, one that would put Latino votes back in contention for the GOP, has begun to emerge. In the coming decades, Latinos could become “white” — a process in which cultural assimilation would presumably be followed by political realignment — opening them up to affiliation with the Republican Party. It’s a theory espoused most prominently by Slate political writer Jamelle Bouie, who argues in the winter issue of Democracy that “the future won’t be majority-minority; it will be a white majority, where Spanish last names are common.” But this vision of complete assimilation ignores the stark racial divisions in Latin American societies, in which socioeconomic status and skin color, as in the U.S., tend to fall along parallel lines.

Ethnic attrition

The idea of Latinos becoming white in the American sense — a vision of racial and cultural assimilation independent of self-identified race — isn’t a new one. Economists Brian Duncan at the University of Colorado and Stephen Trejo at the University of Texas at Austin call it ethnic attrition. As Latinos intermarry and climb the socioeconomic ladder, the theory goes, they are less likely to self-identify as Hispanic. Duncan and Trejo’s research shows (PDF) that while virtually all first- and second-generation Hispanic immigrants identify as Hispanic, in the third generation, those of mixed heritage start to self-select out of this group. Among third-generation immigrants with only two Hispanic grandparents, 79 percent identify as Hispanic. Among those with only one Hispanic grandparent, the number falls to 58 percent. Think of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father is Cuban and whose mother is white, or comedian Louis C.K., whose grandmother is Mexican and whose other grandparents are Irish and Hungarian…

Read the entire article here.

Multiracial family embraces twins’ uniqueness

News 10, KXTV
Sacramento, California
2014-10-02

Daria Givens, News 10 Staff

A Lincoln family embodies California’s melting pot and embraces their uniqueness.

LINCOLN – Fraternal twins Viviana and Dennis look very different from each other. They are part of the Ng Family, a multiracial family from all parts of the world.

The twins’ parents Kenika and Ashley Ng also come from multiracial families. Kenika Ng’s is African-American and Hispanic; his father is Hawaiian and Chinese. Ashley Ng is Irish and Hispanic.

Combine their racial make-up, and their children have more of a unique blend. Ten-month-old Viviana, who is four minutes older than her brother, has bright blue eyes and light brown hair like her mother and looks white. Dennis on the other hand, with the big brown eyes and black hair looks like his dad.

Read the entire article and watch the story here.