Mixed Race Studies

Residential Racial Diversity: Are Transracial Adoptive Families More Like Multiracial or White Families?^*

Social Science Quarterly
Volume 97, Issue 5 (November 2016)
Pages 1189–1207
DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12242

Rose M. Kreider, Chief
Fertility and Family Statistics Branch
Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division
United States Census Bureau, Washington, D.C.

Elizabeth Raleigh, Associate Professor of Sociology
Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota

^*The views expressed on statistical and methodological issues are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. Doctors Kreider and Raleigh contributed equally to this publication.

• Objective: The purpose of this article is to examine whether and how the residential racial diversity of transracially adopted children (i.e., nonwhite children adopted by white parents) varies from those of biological children in white monoracial families and biological children in mixed-race families.
• Method: Using the restricted access 2009 American Community Survey, we take advantage of the large number of adoptive families not only to investigate differences among these families, but also to explore whether racial socialization within transracial adoptive families varies by the race and nativity of the child.
• Results: We show that the context of racial socialization for transracially adopted children is more similar to that of white children in monoracial families than that of children in mixed race families.
• Conclusion: This article adds a quantitative, nationally representative picture of the context of racial socialization for specific groups of transracially adopted children, complementing existing research published in this area.

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Americans Fill Out President Obama’s Census Form: What is His Race?

Social Science Quarterly
Published Online: 2014-07-22
DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12105

Jack Citrin, Heller Professor of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley

Morris Levy, Assistant Professor of Political Science
University of Southern California

Robert P. Van Houweling, Associate Professor of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley

Objective

We use nationally representative survey experiments to assess public opinion about how President Obama should have identified himself racially on the 2010 Census.

Methods

Respondents were randomly assigned to three conditions—a control, a treatment that described the president’s biracial ancestry, and a treatment that combined the biracial ancestry information with a statement that Obama had in fact classified himself as black only. All respondents were then asked how they felt Obama should have filled out his Census form.

Results

A clear majority of Americans in all experimental conditions said that Obama should have identified himself as both black and white.

Conclusion

There appears to be suggesting robust acceptance of official multiracial identification despite the cultural and legal legacy of the “one drop of blood” rule in official U.S. race categorization. A subsequent survey experiment found that a convenience sample of Americans support multiracial identification for mixed-race individuals generally and not only for the president.

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Louisiana’s “Creoles of Color”: Ethnicity, Marginality, and Identity

Social Science Quarterly
Volume 73 Issue 3, September 1992
pages 615-

James H. Dormon, Alumni Distinguished Professor of History and American Studies
University of Southwestern Louisiana

This article traces the ethnohistory of Creoles of color, beginning with an examination of the social-historical order out of which they emerged, and argues the case that Creole marginality has been the major determinant of the Creole ethnic experience. While it is impossible to pinpoint the precise timing of the ethnogenesis of the group, it was certainly in the latter decades of the eighteenth century, during which years the group emerged as part of what the historian Laura Foner has termed a “three-caste social system” in colonial Louisiana. In the eighteenth century the dominant Louisiana population–the “hegemonic” population in current usage–was that of the white European elites (or those descending directly from such elites): large landowners and planter/merchants along with colonial officials, both civil and military. The increasingly large slave population, normally perceived by Europeans as African provided the agricultural labor deemed essential to staple crop production. Within the colonial social order, blacks were separated from the white population by caste lines written into law and generally enforced by social as well as legal sanctions. Yet from the beginning, and despite legal provisions forbidding the practice, whites and blacks established sexual contact, producing offspring that shared the genes of both parents.

Backing Barack Because He’s Black: Racially Motivated Voting in the 2008 Election

Social Science Quarterly
Volume 92, Issue 2, June 2011
pages 423–446
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2011.00776.x

Ray Block Jr., Assistant Professor of Political Science/Public Administration
University of Wisconsin, La Crosse

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Options: Racial/Ethnic Identification of Children of Intermarried Couples

Social Science Quarterly (September 2004)
Volume 85, Issue 3
Pages 746 – 766
DOI: 10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.00243.x

Zhenchao Qian, Professor of Sociology
Ohio State University

Objective. Whites of various European ethnic backgrounds usually have weak ethnic attachment and have options to identify their ethnic identity (Waters, 1990). What about children born to interracially married couples?

Methods. I use 1990 Census data—the last census in which only one race could be chosen—to examine how African American-white, Latino-white, Asian American-white, and American Indian-white couples identify their children’s race/ethnicity.

Results. Children of African American-white couples are least likely to be identified as white, while children of Asian American-white couples are most likely to be identified as white. Intermarried couples in which the minority spouse is male, native born, or has no white ancestry are more likely to identify their children as minorities than are those in which the minority spouse is female, foreign born, or has part white ancestry. In addition, neighborhood minority concentration increases the likelihood that biracial children are identified as minorities.

Conclusion. This study shows that choices of racial and ethnic identification of multiracial children are not as optional as for whites of various European ethnic backgrounds. They are influenced by race/ethnicity of the minority parent, intermarried couples’ characteristics, and neighborhood compositions.

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