Mixed Race Studies

Making sense of race and racial classification

Race and Society
Volume 4, Issue 2, (2001)
Pages 235-247
DOI: 10.1016/S1090-9524(03)00012-3

Angela D. James, Associate Professor of African American Studies
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles

As social scientists, race scholars, and demographers, how do we begin to make sense of recent changes in the Census Bureau’s system of racial classification, as well as of the popular response to those changes? This paper explores the lacuna between popular and scientific understandings of race. It reviews the theoretical understanding of race as a social construct, providing a brief history of racial classification in the United States. In addition, it examines the concepts of race mixing and racial ambiguity as a function of the peculiar and distinctive construction of race in the United States. Finally, the essay critically assesses how race is currently used in social research and how race might be more accurately represented and effectively employed in that research.

Article Outline

1. Changing notions of race
2. Race as social construction
2.1. The origin of race
2.2. The nature of race
3. The U.S. Census and its use of race for classification
3.1. Race versus ethnicity in the Census
4. From ethnicity to race: contemporary racial construction and Hispanics
4.1. Mixed-race and racial stratification
4.2. The strange history of race in social science research
5. Conclusions
References

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Racial Ambiguity and Relationship Formation in the United States: Theoretical and Practical Considerations

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
Volume 20, Number 2 (April 2003)
pages 153-169
DOI: 10.1177/02654075030202002

Angela D. James, Associate Professor of African American Studies
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles

M. Belinda Tucker, Social Psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
University of California, Los Angeles

This article explores in conceptual terms the nature of romantic relationship formation and maintenance when a potential or actual partner does not fit into the dominant racial schema – a situation we define as ‘racial ambiguity.’ When a potential other cannot be classified according to one’s existing notions of racial organization, how does this ambiguity affect approach and maintenance? In the discussion, we first explore the concept of racial ambiguity as a function of the peculiar and distinctive American construction of race. Next, we examine conceptual perspectives that can be used to understand the role of racial classification and racial ambiguity in personal relationship formation and maintenance. And, finally, we discuss strategies for incorporating more fluid understandings of race into research on personal relationships.

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