Mixed Race Studies

Checking More Than One Box: A Growing Multiracial Nation

All Things Considered
National Public Radio
2013-05-12

Arun Rath, Host

[Note from Steven F. Riley: My wife and I live in the White Oak neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland, USA.]

Larry Bright holds his 3-year-old son’s hand while the boy steps through a leafy playground in Silver Spring, Md., and practices counting his numbers in English.

At the top of the slide, the boy begins counting in his other language: Vietnamese.

Bright, the boy’s father, is African-American; his mother, Thien Kim Lam, is Vietnamese. The couple has two children.

“They are a perfect mix between the two of us,” Lam tells Arun Rath, host of weekends on All Things Considered.

Bright and Lam’s son and 7-year-old daughter are multiracial, just two of thousands born in what’s been called a multiracial baby boom. Today, 15 percent of marriages are interracial and inter-ethnic…

…Evolving Perspectives

Multiracial people identifying as just one race is part of a long trend. University of Southern California professor Marcia Alesan Dawkins’ father was one such man: part black and part white.

“He has lived his life as an African-American man. He lived through segregation, he lived through civil rights,” Dawkins says. “And though he acknowledges these other aspects of his identity, he sees the world from the perspective of a black man. That’s how he chooses to identify.”

But just one generation makes all the difference for Dawkins herself, who claims black, white and Latino heritage. Dawkins and her sister see the world a little differently, she says.

“I don’t think it’s better or worse, but I think it’s a credit to the progress in both ways that people can choose to identify just as one, or choose to identify as two or more,” Dawkins says.

Despite the trend, Dawkins says it is important to remember that it is still less than 3 percent of the population that identifies as multiracial. The overwhelming majority of Americans identify as having one race only.

“That’s not a bad thing, but we have to be really careful how we read and interpret and spin these census results,” she says.

Read the entire story here. Listen to the story here.  Download the audio here.

Latino Racial Reporting in the US: To Be or Not To Be

Sociology Compass
Volume 7, Issue 5 (May 2013)
pages 390-403
DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12032

Clara E. Rodríguez, Professor of Sociology
Fordham University

Michael H. Miyawaki
Fordham University

Grigoris Argeros, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Mississippi State University

This review focuses on how Latinos report their race. This is an area that has recently experienced a major surge of interest in both government and academic circles. This review of the literature examines how and why Latinos report their race on the census, in surveys and in more qualitative studies. It reviews the vibrant and growing scholarly literature relevant to the questions of the placement—by self or others—of Latinos along the US color line, what determines it and how the Census has coped and is coping with it. We begin with a brief review of the history of Latino classification in the census and then discuss the factors influencing racial reporting. These include national origin and skin color, acculturation and generational status, socioeconomic status, perceived discrimination and identification with others who have experienced actual discrimination, location, and question format. We end with a discussion of the implications of the recent 2010 Alternative Questionnaire Experiment conducted by the census, and conclude with suggestions for future research.

Read or purchase the article here.

Changing Race: Latinos, the Census and the History of Ethnicity

New York University Press
July 2000
283 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9780814775479

Clara E. Rodríguez, Professor of Sociology
Fordham University

Latinos are the fastest growing population group in the United States. Through their language and popular music Latinos are making their mark on American culture as never before. As the United States becomes Latinized, how will Latinos fit into America’s divided racial landscape and how will they define their own racial and ethnic identity?

Through strikingly original historical analysis, extensive personal interviews and a careful examination of census data, Clara E. Rodriguez shows that Latino identity is surprisingly fluid, situation-dependent, and constantly changing. She illustrates how the way Latinos are defining themselves, and refusing to define themselves, represents a powerful challenge to America’s system of racial classification and American racism.

White ancestry in perceptions of Black/White biracial individuals: implications for affirmative-action contexts

Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Published online: 2013-05-09
DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12020

Jessica J. Good, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina

Diana T. Sanchez, Associate Professor of Psychology
Rutgers University

George F. Chavez
Department of Psychology
Rutgers University

The present studies examine how White ancestry influences perceivers’ minority categorization of Black/White biracial individuals, as well as the implications of minority categorization for distribution of minority resources and stereotype use. Study 1 suggests that people are less likely to categorize those of Black/White biracial descent as minority and thus are less likely to view them as appropriate recipients of affirmative action than those of Black monoracial or Black/Native American descent. Study 2 tests a model in which Black/White biracial individuals with a greater amount of White ancestry are perceived as experiencing less discrimination and are less likely to be categorized as minority; therefore, they are judged as less appropriate for minority resources.

Read or purchase the article here.

Are You Ready for the Census?

Sacramento Daily Union
Volume 19, Number 2862 (1860-05-29)
page 1, column 4
Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

On the first of June, Friday next, the various Deputy Marshals in the different portions of the State will commence their labors in taking the census of the United States, which mast be completed by the first of November.   The Marshals are required by the Act of Congress to separate their districts into subdivisions containing not over 21,000 persons, unless inconvenient boundaries are made by so doing. Each Assistant must make a personal visit to each dwelling house and each family in his subdivision, make monthly returns to the U.S. Marshal, and within one month after the time specified for the completion of the enumeration, furnish the census returns to the County Clerk. For the purpose of giving information to the public, we publish the following list of questions which it will be necessary to answer. This list can be cut out and the answers prepared in anticipation of the call of the taker:

The age of each, sex and color, whether white, black or mulatto.

Profession, occupation or trade of each male person over fifteen years of age.

Value of real estate owned.

Place of birth, naming the state, Territory or country.

Married within the year.

Attend school within the year.

Persons over twenty years of age who cannot read or write.

Whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane or idiotic, pauper or convict.

Name of owner, agent or manager of the farm.

Number of improved acres.

Number of unimproved acres.

Cash value of farm.

Value of farming implements and machinery.

Live stock on hand June 1st, 1860, viz.: Number of horses, mules and asses, working oxen milch cows and other cattle, swine and sheep.

Value of live stock.

Value of animal slaughtered during the year.

Produce during the year ending June 1st, 1860, viz: Number bushels wheat, rye, Indian corn, oats, beans and peas, buckwheat, barley, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, pounds of wool and pounds of tobacco.

Value ore land products in dollars.

Gallons of wine, value of produce of market garden, pounds of butter, pounds of cheese, tons of hay, bushels of clover seed, pounds of hops, pounds of flax, bushels of flaxseed, pounds of maple sugar, gallons of molasses, pounds of honey and beeswax, value of home made manufactures.

Name of corporation, company or individual producing articles to the annual value of $500.

Name of business, manufacture or product.

Capital invested in real estate and personal estate in the business.

Raw material used, including fuel, viz : Quantities, kinds, value, kind of motive power, machinery, structure or resource.

Average number of hands employed, viz : Male, female, average monthly cost of male labor, average monthly cost of female labor. Annual product, viz: Quantities, kinds, values.

Name of every person who died during the year ending June 1st, 1860, whose usual place of abode was in the family, the age, sex and color, whether white, black or mulatto, married or widowed, places of birth, naming the State, Territory or country, the month in which the person died, profession, occupation or trade, disease or cause of death.

In connection with the subject of taking the census in this State; the San Francisco Herald says:

The compensation fixed by the Act is two cents for each person enumerated, ten cents a mile for necessary travel—to be ascertained by multiplying the square root of the number of dwelling houses in the division by the square root of the number of square miles—ten cents for each farm fully returned, fifteen cents for each establishment of protective industry, two percent, for social statistics, upon the amount allowed for the enumeration of population, and two cents for the name of each deceased person enumerated.  The United Stales Marshals are allowed to employ superintendent clerks, and such other clerks, with the consent of the Secretary of the Interior, as they may deem necessary. In regard to compensation for all these officers, the Act of Congress has been amended so far as it applies to California, Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico, and it may be increased according to the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior, Indeed he has already expressed the opinion that the remuneration is inadequate, and has given assurances that so far as the law applies to California the rates named above shall be quadrupled.

It is estimated that our population at this time exceeds 700,000, and it Would not surprise us if the census should exhibit a still larger number. With a representation in Congress under this enumeration, the influence of California will be so vastly increased we may no longer be compelled to listen to complaints of inattention and neglect. It may occur that we shall have an equal representation with Kentucky, Tennessee and Illinois.

It has been estimated that the census of 1860 will exhibit a total population in the United States of 81,500,000 souls, of whom 27,000,000 are whites. “To be apportioned on this population,” writes a statistician, “are two hundred and thirty-three representatives. Of this number, it is estimated, the Southern States will have eighty-two, being a decrease of seven; the Middle States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware will have fifty-nine, being a decrease of five; New England will have twenty-five, being a decrease of four; while the Western States will have sixty-seven. being an increase of fourteen.”