The U.S. mainstream expands – again

Why we still need to talk about race

“…Let us now look at a specific example of the how the overarching use of 'ethnic group' and ethnicity in the British census informs our understanding of 'difference' in British societyin its conceptualization and measure of 'inter-ethnic unions'. To the extent that measures of intermarriage or interracial unions are a key indicator of social integration and the blurring or declining of racial boundaries, and an important marker of true social acceptance by the wider (dominant) society, such measures are considered to be very important (Gordon 1964;Park 1928;Alba & Nee 2003;Alba et al 2017). However, some scholars have more recently questioned the assumptions about the social outcomes of intermarriage with White people (see Song 2009;Vasquez 2014;Rodriguez-Garcia 2015).…”

Rethinking minority status and ‘visibility’

“…On the whole, Black/White people are more readily seen as monoracially Black, and thus subject to more prejudice and discrimination (Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002;Dalmage, 2000;Khanna, 2011;Aspinall & Song, 2013). Some scholars of race in the US have argued that non-Black multiracial people are often seen by others as White or more likely to self identify as White (see Alba, Beck, & Sahin, 2017;Lee & Bean, 2004;Lee & Bean, 2007;Yancey, 2006). However, when we examine the findings of qualitative studies, what we learn about part Asian multiracial people is less conclusive.…”

“…In the same study of multiracial people who are parents, Song (2017a) found that most multiracial individuals (with White partners) insisted that their 2nd generation multiracial children (many of whom looked White to others) were and should be identified as multiracial too, despite the generational distance from their non-White ancestor (usually one of the 4 grandparents). Thus studies that point to the expanding boundaries of Whiteness (Alba et al, 2017;Lee & Bean, 2004) should not assume that first and second generation multiracial people (with mostly White ancestry) want to be seen as White.…”

What Majority-minority Society? A Critical Analysis of the Census Bureau’s Projections of America’s Demographic Future

“…The trend line of the rise in the formation of mixed families implies that individuals with mixed family backgrounds are found disproportionately among children and youth. Alba, Beck, and Sahin (2018b) showed that in 2013, infants in mixed families represented 14 percent to 15 percent all of U.S.-born infants, and the great majority, almost 80 percent, had one non-Hispanic white parent. (And of those who were partly white, infants whose other parent was Hispanic were more than half.)…”

“…Because in 2016 so many of the individuals from mixed backgrounds were still children, their ethnoracial classifications were determined by the way their parents reported them on a census form. Parents most often describe their children in ways that honor maternal and paternal sides of their heritage; hence, the large majority of children of mixed unions are reported as mixed and classified as "not white" in the projection summaries (Alba et al 2018b;Bratter 2007;Lichter and Qian 2018). Because the ethnoracial assignments of births during the projection are governed by the same empirical probabilities of how parents in specific ethnoracial combinations report their children, the same conclusion applies to them (U.S. Census Bureau 2018a:6).…”