Jennifer L. Hochschild

Racial Reorganization and the United States Census 1850–1930: Mulattoes, Half-Breeds, Mixed Parentage, Hindoos, and the Mexican Race

Between 1850 and 1930, demographic upheaval in the United States was connected to reorganization of the racial order. Socially and politically recognized boundaries between groups shifted, new groups emerged, others disappeared, and notions of who belonged in which category changed. All recognized racial groups—blacks, whites, Indians, Asians, Mexicans and others—were affected. This article investigates how and why census racial classification policies changed during this period, only to stabilize abruptly before World War II. In the context of demographic transformations and their political consequences, we find that census policy in any given year was driven by a combination of scientific, political, and ideological motivations. Based on this analysis, we rethink existing theoretical approaches to censuses and racial classification, arguing that a nations census is deeply implicated in and helps to construct its social and political order. Censuses provide the concepts, taxonomy, and substantive information by which a nation understands its component parts as well as the contours of the whole; censuses both create the image and provide the mirror of that image for a nations self-reflection. We conclude by outlining the meaning of this period in American history for current and future debates over race and classification.

Immigrant political incorporation: comparing success in the United States and Western Europe

Abstract Despite reasons to expect otherwise, immigrant political incorporation occurs more rapidly in the United States than in many Western European states. We provide evidence to support that contentious statement and reasons to explain it. Four features distinguish the United States in this context. First, both in terms of state formation and population growth, it was predicated on immigration, voluntary and otherwise, whereas European states came into being and grew mainly through consolidation of and natural increase among resident populations. That history shapes public attitudes toward immigration policy and immigrants. Second, unlike European states, the United States has a long history of domestic racial subordination and a recent history of efforts to overcome it, and this provides a template for incorporating new immigrant groups. Third, social welfare and school systems differ in ways that slightly facilitate incorporation for immigrants to the United States. Finally, the American electoral system is more open to insurgent candidacies, less dominated by party control, and more rewarding of geographically concentrated electoral groups, thus making election of newcomers easier. In combination, these features make immigrant political incorporation relatively successful in the United States.

Looking Ahead: Racial Trends in the United States

Daedalus Winter 2005 In April of 2004, the quarterly newsletter Migration News summarized the most recent data on race and ethnicity from the U.S. Census Bureau: “In 2000, the racial/ethnic makeup of US residents was: White, 69 percent; Hispanic and Black, 13 percent each; and Asian and other, six percent. By 2050, these percentages are projected to be: 50, 24, 15, and 13.”1For anyone who has been studying racial trends in America these 1⁄2gures weren’t surprising.1 But the newsletter’s conclusion certainly was: “It is possible that, by 2050, today’s racial and ethnic categories will no longer be in use.” Migration News is a scholarly publication that “summarizes the most important immigration and integration developments.”2 It is produced by Migration Dialogue, a group at the University of California, Davis, that aspires to provide “timely, factual and nonpartisan information and analysis of international migration issues.” Migration News cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as fanciful or ideological–and yet in the middle of a summary of census data its authors produced the astonishing prognosis that “by 2050, today’s racial and ethnic categories will no longer be in use.” If Migration News is correct, residents of the United States will, within the lifetime of many readers of this issue of Daedalus, no longer talk of blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans, but will instead speak of–what? Jennifer L. Hochschild

Immigration Regimes and Schooling Regimes: Which Countries Promote Successful Immigrant Incorporation?

While Canada is often described as the most and France as one of the least successful countries in the realm of immigrant incorporation, the question remains unresolved of how to evaluate a country’s policies for dealing with immigration and incorporation relative to that of others. Our strategy is to examine the relationships among (1) countries’ policies and practices with regard to admitting immigrants, (2) their educational policies for incorporating first- and second-generation immigrants, and (3) the educational achievement of immigrants and their children. We compare eight western industrialized countries. We find that immigration regimes, educational regimes, and schooling outcomes are linked distinctively in each country. States that are liberal, or effective, on one dimension may be relatively conservative, or ineffective, on another, and countries vary in their willingness and ability to help disadvantaged people achieve upward mobility through immigration and schooling. We conclude that, by some normative standards, France has a better immigration regime than Canada does. Overall, this study points to new ways to study immigration and new normative standards for judging states’ policies of incorporation.

Including Oneself and Including Others: Who Belongs in My Country?:

To be a full member of a country, must one have citizenship, the same ethnic or racial background, or the same religion as most citizens? What do people of different statuses believe about the criteria for inclusion? To answer these questions, the authors analyze the 2003 International Social Survey Programme survey on national identity, focusing on ten wealthy, democratic countries. They find a series of mismatches. A strong sense of being included is often coupled with a desire to exclude others. Countries with extreme public views are not always the countries with political controversy over inclusion. Views of citizens or members of the mainstream religion or race often differ from views of relative outsiders. Countries often cluster in ways that violate standard assumptions about geographic, cultural, or political affinities. Enjoying high status does not guarantee feeling included or seeking to include others. Given these mismatches, it is no surprise that politics and policies around inclusion are contentious, unstable, and fascinating.

Destabilizing the American Racial Order

Are racial disparities in the United States just as deep-rooted as they were before the 2008 presidential election, largely eliminated, or persistent but on the decline? One can easily find all of these pronouncements; rather than trying to adjudicate among them, this essay seeks to identify what is changing in the American racial order, what persists or is becoming even more entrenched, and what is likely to affect the balance between change and continuity. The authors focus on young American adults, who were raised in a distinctive racial context and who think about and practice race differently than their older counterparts. For many young Americans, racial attitudes are converging across groups and social networks are becoming more intertwined. Most important, although group-based hierarchy has not disappeared, race or ethnicity does less to predict a young adults life chances than ever before in American history.

Technology Optimism or Pessimism about Genomic Science Variation among Experts and Scholarly Disciplines

Like lay people, experts vary in their technology optimism or pessimism about scientific endeavors, for reasons that are poorly understood. We explore experts’ technology optimism through a focus on genomics; its novelty, life-and-death implications, complex technology, and broad but as yet unknown societal implications make it an excellent subject for studying views about new knowledge. We use interviews with scientific and medical elites to show a wide range of views about genomics, and we analyze about 750 articles by prominent social scientists, law professors, and biologists to explore how values and norms reinforce or supersede experts’ shared scientific knowledge. We find that experts in some fields give genomics more attention than experts in others; that they differ in the aspects of genomics on which they focus; and that within a discipline or field, scholars differ in the extent to which they find genomics attractive or aversive. Overall, however, experts in more liberal or humanities-oriented disciplines tend to be less optimistic about genomics than scholars in relatively more conservative or scientifically oriented disciplines. We speculate on why genomics is an exception to the usual finding that liberals support science more than conservatives do.

Is the significance of race declining in the political arena? Yes, and no

The significance of class is increasing in the USA, in the sense that economic inequality is rising within the black and Latino populations as well as among whites. Growing inequality is associated with increasing disparities in lived experiences. Is class also increasingly significant in political life? Survey evidence shows that the answer is yes: compared with previous decades, well-off blacks and Latinos are less strongly liberal in some policy preferences and feel more politically efficacious, while poor blacks and Latinos tend to move in the opposite direction. Well-off non-whites have not, however, lost any commitment to racial justice or identity, so the USA is not becoming ‘post-racial’. Given the complex patterns of change and persistence in opinions, Wilsons arguments about when and how race is significant remain as important and controversial as when first expressed.

Three Puzzles in Search of an Answer From Political Scientists (With Apologies to Pirandello)

fare laggard compared with similar European nations because it spends relatively less on family support, employment assistance, health insurance, or public child care. But the U.S. has always been a welfare leader in the field of education; here public schooling started much earlier, has always included more people, has until very recently given students more years of education, and has absorbed a larger share of resources. In 2001, it cost about

'It Isn't What We Don't Know that Gives Us Trouble, It's What We Know that Ain't So:' Misinformation and Democratic Politics

390 billion to educate children in public schools (that does not include higher education or the more than 10% of K-12 students