Clara E. Rodriguez

Changing race : Latinos, the census, and the history of ethnicity in the United States

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 Americas 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 Americas system of racial classification and American racism.

Placing race in context

Abstract In the United States, in the last two decennial censuses, 40 per cent of Hispanics rejected racial categories, such as ‘White’ or ‘Black’, and racially classified themselves ‘Other’. Scholars have argued that the format of the question induced them to respond this way; that those Hispanics who ticked ‘Other’ are racially intermediate, that is to say, mulatto or mestizo; and, lastly, that Hispanics simply misunderstood the question. This article examines these interpretations. The 1989 sample used consisted of 240 randomly selected Puerto Rican travellers at New York City airports. The methods used were descriptive data analysis and multivariate logit analysis. Three different dimensions of Puerto Rican racial identity are compared: (a) how race is externally defined, namely, by the interviewer; (b) how it is defined by the respondents themselves in both open‐ended and closed question formats; and (c) how the respondents think it is defined by (White) North Americans. The determinants of racial se...

Hispanics in the Labor Force

Twenty years ago, a researcher studying Hispanics in the United States would have found a somewhat limited list of titles. How dramatically different the situation is today. The study of Hispanic history and social development in the United States has progressed to the point where, in the early 1990s, there is now an entire literature dedicated to Hispanic studies, which certainly reflects the greater importance and visibility given to Hispanics as an ethnic group. Hispanic studies encompasses a diversity of research issues and theoretical approaches that compete in order to understand and interpret the Hispanic reality.

The Effect of Race on Puerto Rican Wages

The manner in which Hispanic individuals chose to identify themselves by race in the 1980 census was quite different from the manner in which non-Hispanics chose to classify themselves. Although 40% of all Latinos classified themselves as neither white nor black, but as other, fewer than 2% of non-Hispanics in any state used this classification. This classification accounted for 7 5 million of all Latinos in the United States. For Puerto Ricans who were living in New York, the group that was the focus of this research, 48% responded that they were other and wrote in an additional Spanish descriptor (i.e., they were Boricua, Puerto Rican, etc.). Another 44% said they were white and 3.9% said they were black.1 Thus, it would appear from these results that Latino racial identity, as revealed in the 1980 census, is a complex and intriguing phenomenon.2

Latino Research and Policy

For quite some time students of the Latino experience have been aware that Latinos in the United States are in a difficult and vulnerable economic situation. Government policy addressing the economically disadvantaged position of Latinos has been limited and proven less than successful. This analysis will therefore focus on one Latino group to examine the reasons for this policy failure. As an extreme case of Latino disadvantage, the plight of Puerto Ricans provides a litmus test of the efficacy of policy as it affects all Latinos, as well as the commitment of the federal government to the eradication of inequality in all its forms.

Index to Puerto Rican collective biography

Preface General Abbreviations and Symbols Keys to Abbreviations of Sources Indexed Index to Puerto Rican Collective Biography Bibliography of Sources Indexed Selective Bibliography of Related Materials Bibliographies Consulted