Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo

Blurring Racial and Ethnic Boundaries in Asian American Families: Asian American Family Patterns, 1980-2005

In this work, the authors use statistics from the U.S. Census to examine trends in intermarriage, racial and ethnic combinations, and categorizations among Asian Americans. Specifically, the authors want to consider the extent to which family patterns may contribute to Asian Americans and their descendants’ continuing as distinct, becoming members of some new category or categories, or simply becoming White. Based on the data analysis and discussion, it seems most likely that Whiteness will increasingly depend on the situation: Where there are Asians,Whites, and Blacks, Asians will tend to become White.Where there are only Whites, Asians, including even those of multiracial background, may well continue to be distinguished. Yet people in mixed families will be continually crossing all racial and ethnic lines in the United States, and their numbers will steadily increase.

REINFORCING POLARIZATIONS: U.S. IMMIGRATION AND THE PROSPECT OF GAY MARRIAGE

In recent years more legal immigrants have entered the United States through marriage than through any other means, while the desirability of current levels and types of immigration has been a matter of controversy. The United States has also been engaged in a heated public debate over the nature and definition of marriage for the past decade. The source of this debate has been the question of whether the legal status of marriage should be extended to same-sex couples. In this study, we want to point out that these two controversies, over immigration policy and over sexuality and marriage, are, in fact, closely connected. First, we observe that sexuality was historically an explicit basis for the exclusion or inclusion of immigrants. Next, we argue that the changes in U.S. immigration reform of 1965 made sexuality an implicit basis for entry by making heterosexual marriage the primary avenue for migration to the United States. Then, we maintain that American attitudes toward same-sex relations in general, and toward same-sex marriage in particular, have become increasingly polarized at the same time that controversies over immigration have intensified. Moreover, these two controversies are statistically connected in attitudes, as well as connected in history and policy: Attitudes toward same-sex marriage are related to attitudes toward immigration. Finally, we suggest that if same-sex marriage becomes a reality, polarization on both matters is likely mutually reinforcing, in the sense that polarization of attitudes toward marriage will intensify polarization of attitudes toward immigration and vice versa, with several important social consequences.