Mixed Race Studies

Gender, Generation, and Multiracial Identification in the United States

Demography
Volume 58, Number 5 (October 2021)
pages 603–1630
DOI: 10.1215/00703370-9334366

Janet Xu, Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Sociology
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

Aliya Saperstein, Associate Professor of Sociology; Benjamin Scott Crocker Professor in Human Biology
Stanford University, Stanford, California

Ann Morning, Associate Professor of Sociology
New York University, New York, New York

Sarah Iverson, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Sociology
New York University, New York, New York

Multiracial self-identification is frequently portrayed as a disproportionately female tendency, but previous research has not probed the conditions under which this relationship might occur. Using the 2015 Pew Survey of Multiracial Adults, we offer a more comprehensive analysis that considers gender differences at two distinct stages: reporting multiple races in one’s ancestry and selecting multiple races to describe oneself. We also examine self-identification patterns by the generational locus of multiracial ancestry. We find that females are more likely to be aware of multiracial ancestry overall, but only first-generation females are more likely than their male counterparts to self-identify as multiracial. Finally, we explore the role of racial ancestry combination, finding that multiracial awareness and self-identification are likely gendered differently for different segments of the mixed-race population. This offers a more nuanced picture of how gender interacts with other social processes to shape racial identification in the United States.

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Pardon for Plessy v. Ferguson’s Homer Plessy is an overdue admission of his heroism

MSNBC
2022-01-05

Keisha N. Blain, Associate Professor of History
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In rejecting Plessy’s argument that the Jim Crow law implied Black people were inferior, the Supreme Court upheld the notion of “separate but equal.”

Homer Plessy, a Creole shoemaker from New Orleans and the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, was pardoned by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Wednesday, 130 years after Plessy challenged a Louisiana law that required Black passengers and white passengers to use separate train cars. The case sanctioned the “separate but equal” doctrine and validated state laws that segregated public facilities along the lines of race. The decision effectively legalized Jim Crow segregation for the next 60 years.

As historian Blair L.M. Kelley explains in “Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019“: “Plessy v. Ferguson was the manifestation of the African American opposition to segregationist attempts to shame and degrade Black train passengers.”

The decision to pardon Homer Plessy is a welcome one, an effort to clear his name and raise national awareness to his story. It is also a symbolic gesture to acknowledge a wrong that took place so long ago. In the proclamation Edwards signed Wednesday, he praised “the heroism and patriotism” of Plessy’s “unselfish sacrifice to advocate for and to demand equality and human dignity for all of Louisiana’s citizens.”…

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We’re reporting Census data all wrong

Boston Indicators
Cambridge, Massachusetts
2021-12-13

Luc Schuster, Director
Boston Indicators, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Traditional reporting of census data may be contributing to misleading findings about actual demographic change.

Census data on race and ethnicity are invaluable for understanding who we are as a region and how we’re changing over time. Invaluable, yes. But also imperfect. Headlines during the census count last year focused on challenges facing Census Bureau workers during a pandemic and on the Trump administration’s efforts to depress the count in certain areas. But the physical count isn’t the only problem. While back-end reporting changes for the 2020 Census in some ways help us see more clearly who we are as a multiracial, multiethnic nation, other changes have led to misleading findings about actual demographic change. These challenges are compounded by traditional reporting approaches used by researchers like us that have tended to not include all people who select a given race on their census form.

Fortunately, alternatives exist for painting a more accurate picture. These judgment calls make an especially large difference for Boston’s White, Black, and Native American populations, as shown in the graph below, but the traditional reporting approach skews other race totals as well. Traditional reporting of 2020 census data understates Boston’s Black population by almost 43,000 residents…

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Hidden in the Genes

Finding Your Roots
Season 8, Episode 1
Aired: 2022-01-04

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Host and Alfonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor; Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. helps Rebecca Hall and Lee Daniels solve family mysteries through DNA detective work, illuminating both history and their own identities.

Watch the episode (00:52:11) here.

‘I didn’t know how much he loved me’: Portland woman searches for college sweetheart 42 years after breakup

KGW News
Portland, Oregon
2021-09-15

Katherine Cook, Reporter

Jeannie Gustavson almost gave up on finding her lost love. Then one small break revealed something she never expected.

Most people never forget the one that got away. Maybe they met in college. Perhaps they were a friend of a friend, a neighbor or someone from work. At 68 years old, Jeannie Gustavson has spent most of her lifetime remembering the one who got away, or more accurately, the one she let go.

“He was my first true love. That doesn’t go away,” Jeannie said from her Northwest Portland home.

Fifty years ago, Jeannie and Steve Watts were college sweethearts at Loyola University Chicago.

“He was very handsome,” Jeannie said. “He was 6-foot-4. I like tall guys! He was extremely intelligent, well spoken. He was very caring, he always treated me like a lady. He was a gentleman.”

Even so, Jeannie said none of that would have mattered to her mother, who did not approve of interracial dating. That included Steve, who was Black.

“I was very hurt and very baffled by what my family did and said,” Jeannie said. “We had to keep our relationship a secret.”

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