From Puerto Rican to pan-ethnic in New York city

Abstract

The increasing diversity of the US population has stimulated interest in racial identification, which is complex for phenotypically heterogeneous groups such as Puerto Ricans. We overcome several limitations of the empirical literature on racial identification among Puerto Ricans with a study that is grounded in the experience of Puerto Rican women in New York City. Our analysis focuses on two questions: How do Puerto Rican women in New York identify themselves racially? What are the sources of racial identification? The results indicate that most Puerto Rican women in New York conflate race and ethnicity by designating their race as either ‘Puerto Rican’ or ‘Hispanic’. Moreover, the decision to ‘become’ pan-ethnic has complex roots. In particular, the effect of skin tone on pan-ethnic identification is conditioned by socioeconomic and neighbourhood characteristics.     

Negotiating the discourse of race within the United States welfare system

The incendiary dynamic between race and welfare in the United States is well-known. An under explored aspect of this dynamic is how recipients of colour navigate the racial undercurrents that permeate welfare and which may result in differential treatment. Drawing from qualitative interviews with twenty-four recipients of colour, this study seeks to understand the ways in which they negotiate their relationships with workers. The study finds that to deflect racial stereotypes, participants monitor their behaviour for traces of anger that could be construed as ‘street’ rather than ‘decent’, and divorce themselves from those that don't. Participants also rejected the discourse of citizenship, seeking to sooth and placate workers rather than asserting a right to benefits. This discourse replicates historical patterns of powerlessness in the United States, where the need to beseech rather than insist and avoid appearing too angry resonates loudly for people of colour. This serves to reinforce the dominant discourse of undeservingness and racial stereotyping within the welfare system.     

Changing racial boundaries and mixed unions: the case of second-generation Filipino Americans

I examine an understudied topic of intermarriage – nonwhite mixed unions. Drawing on a study of second-generation Filipino Americans, I compare how respondents in inter-ethnic (those partnered with other Asians) and nonwhite interracial (i.e. Latino, black, and non-Asian bi-racial) unions perceive racial boundaries, or their ‘racial schemas’. I argue that mixed unions can change how partners view racial boundaries. Drawing on phenotype, culture, and power position, both inter-ethnically and nonwhite interracially partnered respondents viewed themselves as different from whites. However, they differed in how they constructed nonwhite boundaries. Respondents in inter-ethnic unions drew on their Asian identity to distinguish themselves from Latinos and blacks, while informants in nonwhite interracial unions highlighted their Filipino identity to distance themselves from East Asians and align themselves with Latinos and blacks. These findings show that marriage affects racial boundary development and that mixed unions impact individuals’ racial incorporation.     

The United States of the United Races: a rejoinder

I respond to a review by C. Matthew Snipp, revisiting how my book connects abolitionist leanings to acceptance of racial mixing in the Early Republic. I reiterate that, contrary to the reviewer's claims, the book does not suggest that the defence of interracial marriage has been a thriving social movement. I correct his reading of my chapter on the Civil War era, referring to both the variety of voices present, and the claims of reformers' opponents, who were the only ones who claimed racial mixing was an aim of the abolitionist movement. Lastly, I defend The United States of the United Races against Professor Snipp's characterization of it as a work anticipating a ‘post-racial’ ideal, embodied by racially mixed people, who would be the end point of the obsolescence of race as a relevant analytic tool.     

The (dis)similarities of white racial identities: the conceptual framework of ‘hegemonic whiteness’

This article examines the processes of white racial identity formation in the United States via an examination of a white nationalist organization and a white antiracist organization. Findings indicate that the construction of white racial identity in both groups is based on the reproduction of various racist and essentialist ideologies. The realization that there is a shared ‘groupness’ to outwardly different white identities has the potential to destabilize the recent trend that over-emphasizes white heterogeneity at the expense of discussion of power, racism and discrimination. As a resolution to this analytic dilemma, this article advances a conceptual framework entitled ‘hegemonic whiteness’. White identity formation is thereby understood as a cultural process in which (1) racist, reactionary and essentialist ideologies are used to demarcate inter-racial boundaries, and (2) performances of white racial identity that fail to meet those ideals are marginalized and stigmatized, thereby creating intra-racial distinctions within the category ‘white’.     

"Race" and the Construction of Human Identity

Race as a mechanism of social stratification and as a form of human identity is a recent concept in human history. Historical records show that neither the idea nor ideologies associated with race existed before the seventeenth century. In the United States, race became the main form of human identity, and it has had a tragic effect on low-status "racial" minorities and on those people who perceive themselves as of "mixed race." We need to research and understand the consequences of race as the premier source of human identity. This paper briefly explores how race became a part of our culture and consciousness and argues that we must disconnect cultural features of identity from biological traits and study how "race" eroded and superseded older forms of human identity. It suggests that "race" ideology is already beginning to disintegrate as a result of twentieth-century changes.     

‘You may not know it,but I'm black’: White women's self‐identification as black*

This article shows ways in which five European American women intertwine and interweave the American discourses of race and ethnicity to talk about themselves as ‘black.’ This black identity both fits with their anti‐racist desires and makes strategic sense in the context of their everyday lives. Importantly, the women do not deny the European side of their heritage, rather they embrace a multi‐racial/ethnic identity. It is argued that the element of choice involved with American ethnic discourse, combined with a general shift toward the allowance of mixed identities, allows this identity construction to be understood as a sensible one. It is further argued that these women's constructions illustrate a type of identity configuration that has become a highly significant option in the United States.     

Racialized national identity construction in the ancestral homeland: Japanese American migrants in Japan

This article examines Japanese Americans in Japan to illuminate how ‘Japanese American’ – an ethnic minority identity in the US – is reconstructed in Japan as a racialized national identity. Based on fifty interviews with American citizens of Japanese ancestry conducted between 2004 and 2007, I demonstrate how interactions with Japanese in Japan shape Japanese Americans’ racial and national understandings of themselves. After laying out a theoretical framework for understanding the shifting intersection of race, ethnicity, and nationality, I explore the interactive process of racial categorization and ethnic identity assertion for Japanese American transnationals in Japan. This process leads to what I call racialized national identities – the intersection of racial and national identities in an international context – and suggests that US racial minority identities are constructed not only within the US, but abroad as well.     

Ethnicity and class identity: The case of French‐ and English‐speaking Canadians*

This study addresses the racial and religious contexts of identity formation among Lebanese immigrants to the United States of America and Somali immigrants to Canada. Each enters with a different racial status: Lebanese as white; Somalis as black/visible minority. Ethnographic interviews explore the strategies of adaptation and identity development within these groups. Specifically, we compare and contrast the Lebanese and Somali experience through an analysis of ethnic relations in the country of origin, the conditions of immigration, and through accounts of their encounters and identity negotiation with the host society. We demonstrate the strategies each group implements to negotiate both race and religion in identity development. Our findings reveal that each group attempts to make their religious identity evident, however, Somali immigrants must negotiate the effects of ‘othering’ processes with both race and religion, while Lebanese immigrants build a religious identity from privileges afforded to them by virtue of their white racial status.     

How race becomes biology: Embodiment of social inequality

The current debate over racial inequalities in health is arguably the most important venue for advancing both scientific and public understanding of race, racism, and human biological variation. In the United States and elsewhere, there are well-defined inequalities between racially defined groups for a range of biological outcomes—cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, certain cancers, low birth weight, preterm delivery, and others. Among biomedical researchers, these patterns are often taken as evidence of fundamental genetic differences between alleged races. However, a growing body of evidence establishes the primacy of social inequalities in the origin and persistence of racial health disparities. Here, I summarize this evidence and argue that the debate over racial inequalities in health presents an opportunity to refine the critique of race in three ways: 1) to reiterate why the race concept is inconsistent with patterns of global human genetic diversity; 2) to refocus attention on the complex, environmental influences on human biology at multiple levels of analysis and across the lifecourse; and 3) to revise the claim that race is a cultural construct and expand research on the sociocultural reality of race and racism. Drawing on recent developments in neighboring disciplines, I present a model for explaining how racial inequality becomes embodied—literally—in the biological well-being of racialized groups and individuals. This model requires a shift in the way we articulate the critique of race as bad biology. Am J Phys Anthropol 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Sociocultural factors and the genetic diversification of Amazonian Indians: A brief overview

Abstract

Within SES categories in the United States, racial and ethnic minorities generally fare less well on a variety of health‐related indicators than do majority groups. Important differences exist within subgroups, however, and at present, these differences are poorly understood. In this paper we address Hispanic subgroup (Cuban American, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Central/South American) differences in utilization of prenatal care. Data from the 1986 and 1987 national Linked Birth/Infant Death files are used to assess patterns of prenatal care utilization across subgroups. Using Kotelchuck's Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilization Index, we find that when controlling for other factors, Cuban American and Puerto Rican women are more likely to obtain adequate care than are Hispanic women of Mexican or Central/South American origin. Other factors important in understanding utilization patterns include marital status, education level, birthplace, and region of the country. We conclude with a discussion of the relatively weak link between prenatal care and birth outcomes and identify important cultural factors that may be important in understanding why this relationship is not stronger.     

Student Voice as Agency: Resistance and Accommodation in Inner-City Schools

In this article we describe the results of a comparative case study of two inner-city high schools located in the southeastern United States. One school, a citywide school with high admission standards, enrolls an all-African American lower-to-middle-class population. The other school enrolls a more ethnically and racially diverse population of students from a single lower-class neighborhood. Using Grossberg's notion of identity politics, we describe how students' racial/ ethnic identity to a greater or lesser degree becomes both a means of resistance and accommodation to white hegemony.     

Place,scale and the racial claims made for multiracial children in the 1990 US Census

Multiracial children embody ambiguities inherent in racial categorization and expose fictions of discrete races. Nevertheless, parents of multiracial children were asked for the 1990 US Census to report a single race for their offspring. Using confidential 1990 Census micro-data, we investigate the choices parents made for the three most common racially mixed household types (Asian-white, black-white and Latino-white) in twelve large metropolitan areas. We find that context affects the reporting of children's racial identity. We examine these effects with models that incorporate three spatial scales: households, neighbourhoods and metropolitan areas. Model estimates reveal that racial claims made by parents of Latino- and Asian-white (but not black-white) children varied significantly across metropolitan area. A neighbourhood's proportion white increased the probability that parents reported their children as white, while a neighbourhood's racial diversity increased the probability that black-white parents claimed a non-white race (black or ‘other’) for their children.     

Determinants of physical activity among a convenience sample of Puerto Rican women residing in the Northeastern United States

The research examining determinants of physical activity among Hispanics focuses on Mexican Americans, although Puerto Ricans are the second largest Hispanic subgroup in the United States. The purpose of this study was to explore factors influencing physical activity among Puerto Rican women in the urban northeastern United States. Two bilingual female investigators administered the Women and Physical Activity Survey by telephone to a convenience sample of Puerto Rican women (n = 28). Women were categorized as physically active if they performed moderate-intensity physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day at least 5 days a week or vigorous-intensity physical activity for at least 20 minutes a day at least 3 days a week. Women not meeting these criteria were classified as physically inactive. Chi-squared testing revealed whether the physically active and inactive women differed among physical activity determinants. Respondents had a mean age of 36 years and were predominately college-educated (64%) and physically active (68%). More physically active women (90%) had an annual income of more than $35,000 than did the inactive women (10%) (p < 0.05). More physically active women belonged to community groups (42% versus 0%), lived in communities where people exercise (95% versus 11%), and felt their community was good for their family (100% versus 67%) than did the inactive women, respectively (p < 0.05). The physically active women reported the presence of exercise facilities (p = 0.084) and well-maintained sidewalks (p = 0.087) to be more important for exercise accessibility than did the inactive women. Annual income, sense of community, and exercise accessibility were the most important physical activity determinants in this convenience sample of Puerto Rican women. Factors influencing the physical activity levels of Puerto Rican women should continue to be explored so that targeted, culturally appropriate strategies can be developed to promote physically activity in this population.     

‘Minority’ as a sociological concept

This article considers how a Muslim cultural discourse of ‘propriety’ has influenced Muslim Arab Sudanese ethnic identity in two locations and time periods in an expanding diaspora. Focusing in particular on women and their embodied practices of whitening and propriety in Egypt in the nineties and the United Kingdom a decade later, I argue that the recent turn towards Muslim expressions of Sudaneseness is a form of resistance to racial labelling. While Sudanese have rejected being labelled ‘black’ in Egypt and in the UK, their renegotiation of a Muslim religious identity in the diaspora nevertheless confirms a racialized Sudanese ethnicity. This study contributes to the rethinking of ethnicity in a transnational space where ethnic nationalism and globalized Islamic discourse intersect with local histories and hierarchies of race and gender.     

Core values and cultural identity

This article examines racial classifications on United States population census schedules between 1890 and 1990 to provide insights on the changing meanings of race in US society. The analysis uses a sociology of knowledge perspective which assumes that race is an ideological concept that can be interpreted most productively by relating its definition and measurement to the larger social and political context. Four themes are identified and discussed: (i) the historical and continuing importance of skin colour, usually dichotomized into white and non‐white, in defining race and counting racial groups; (ii) a belief in ‘pure’ races that is reflected in a preoccupation with categorizing people into a single or ‘pure’ race; (iii) the role of census categories in creating pan‐ethnic racial groups; and, (iv) the confusing of race and ethnicity in census racial classifications. Each theme demonstrates the potential or actual role of official statistics, exemplified by census racial data, in reflecting and guiding changes to the meaning and social perceptions of race. A detailed examination of racial classifications from the 1980 and 1990 Censuses shows that the influence of political interests on racial statistics is particularly important. The article concludes with a discussion of whether official statistical recorders such as population censuses should categorize and measure race, given the political motivations and non‐scientific character of the classifications used.     

Population admixture associated with disease prevalence in the Boston Puerto Rican health study

Older Puerto Ricans living in the continental U.S. suffer from higher rates of diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and depression compared to non-Hispanic White populations. Complex diseases, such as these, are likely due to multiple, potentially interacting, genetic, environmental and social risk factors. Presumably, many of these environmental and genetic risk factors are contextual. We reasoned that racial background may modify some of these risk factors and be associated with health disparities among Puerto Ricans. The contemporary Puerto Rican population is genetically heterogeneous and originated from three ancestral populations: European settlers, native Taíno Indians, and West Africans. This rich-mixed ancestry of Puerto Ricans provides the intrinsic variability needed to untangle complex gene–environment interactions in disease susceptibility and severity. Herein, we determined whether a specific ancestral background was associated with either of four major disease outcomes (diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and depression). We estimated the genetic ancestry of 1,129 subjects from the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study based on genotypes of 100 ancestry informative markers (AIMs). We examined the effects of ancestry on tests of association between single AIMs and disease traits. The ancestral composition of this population was 57.2% European, 27.4% African, and 15.4% Native American. African ancestry was negatively associated with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and positively correlated with hypertension. It is likely that the high prevalence rate of diabetes in Africans, Hispanics, and Native Americans is not due to genetic variation alone, but to the combined effects of genetic variation interacting with environmental and social factors. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

School choice and racial segregation in US schools: The role of parents’ education

We draw on recent developments in the sociology of race and ethnicity and theories of the duality of social structure to explain how the formation of ‘educational identities’ interacts with racial stratification to shape the school choices of highly educated whites in the United States. Analysis of the 1996 National Household Education Survey shows that the racial composition of schools plays an important role in the schooling choices of highly educated whites. As the per cent black in a residential area increases, whites are more likely to select alternative, higher-percentage-white schooling for their children. Importantly, this effect is amplified for highly educated whites (but not highly educated blacks). Ironically, then, despite many positive effects of formal education on racial attitudes, increased education for whites leads to greater negative sensitivity to blacks in public schools, which may in turn have the unintended effect of increasing school segregation and racial inequality.