More and more Latinos are Embracing their "Whiteness"

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Not totally surprising but definitely something to think about.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...w-Hispanics-are-Crossing-Over-Into-Whiteness#

The claim that America is going to become a "majority-minority" nation in the next few decades is a truism that does political work. For Democrats and the left, they see this as an opportunity to expand their voting base by embracing a multicultural America. For Republicans and conservatives, the "browning of America" is a type of threat which they can use to mobilize racially resentful white voters.

However, both perspectives are grounded in a short-term understanding of how race has historically worked in the United States.

A long-term view demonstrates how race is a dynamic process, one that evolves and changes, in response to the political needs and questions of a given moment. As such, who is considered "white" for example, is a reflection of a given arrangement of social and political power: "Whiteness" and who is considered "white" are not fixed or immutable categories.

Truisms and common sense understandings of race do not make them empirically true. New research from the Pew Research Center on the changing racial identities of Hispanic-Americans would appear to upset the "majority-minority" narrative which has come to dominate the media (and the public's) understanding of the color line in the Age of Obama.

The New York Times reports:

An estimated net 1.2 million Americans of the 35 million Americans identified in 2000 as of “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin,” as the census form puts it, changed their race from “some other race” to “white” between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, according to research presented at an annual meeting of the Population Association of America and reported by Pew Research.
The researchers, who have not yet published their findings, compared individual census forms from the 2000 and 2010 censuses. They found that millions of Americans answered the census questions about race and ethnicity differently in 2000 and 2010. The largest shifts were among Americans of Hispanic origin, who are the nation’s fastest growing ethnic group by total numbers.

The Times continue with:

The data provide new evidence consistent with the theory that Hispanics may assimilate as white Americans, like the Italians or Irish, who were not universally considered to be white. It is particularly significant that the shift toward white identification withstood a decade of debate over immigration and the country’s exploding Hispanic population, which might have been expected to inculcate or reinforce a sense of Hispanic identity, or draw attention to divisions that remain between Hispanics and non-Hispanic white Americans. Research suggests that Hispanics who have experienced discrimination are less likely to identify as white.
The data also call into question whether America is destined to become a so-called minority-majority nation, where whites represent a minority of the nation’s population. Those projections assume that Hispanics aren’t white, but if Hispanics ultimately identify as white Americans, then whites will remain the majority for the foreseeable future.

The ways in which Hispanics are crossing over into Whiteness demonstrates how race is a learned concept. Here, Hispanics are embracing whiteness as a social identity--and the privileges which come with it--while mating it with their own particular history of colorism.
Social scientists have introduced new concepts such as "elevated ethnics" (African immigrants; immigrants from South and East Asia) in order to complicate and enrich our understanding of how race in America is ostensibly no longer a simple matter of "black" and "white". But in seeking to complicate (and perhaps even depart from) the theoretical framework provided by the black-white binary--a set of rules and a hierarchy that has dominated American life for centuries--we must also proceed with caution.

Pew's new research is a reminder that Whiteness (and most importantly, being perceived as "white") is still viewed as the preferred and most social desirable racial identity in the United States.

This is a function of political socialization, habit, and training.

The yearning of those immigrants who can "pass over" into Whiteness is also fueled by realpolitik: given the disparate life chances between blacks and whites, and the historic power of white supremacy to make black folks' lives a living hell, if given the choice, who would "rationally" decide to become "black"?

Race still impacts measures of social distance in the United States. Black Americans are also ranked lowest for desirability as potential marriage partners by whites, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans.

Brother Malcolm X brilliantly observed, with his uncommon grace and candor, that the first word an immigrant to the United States learns is "******".

The "majority-minority" fictive narrative is compelling, but it is not able to overcome a basic fact: blacks are the bottom rung of the racial hierarchy in the United States against which all others are judged, and that many groups, quite literally, stand upon in their ascension to Whiteness.

Whiteness is a fictive category based on how one group arbitrarily defined as "white" is positioned as dominant over those others who are marked as "non-white". By definition and nature, Whiteness evolves to induct new members in order to maintain its majority status.

Whiteness must maintain power in order to have meaning as a racial category.

Consequently, it is very difficult if not impossible for the United States to conquer the inequalities of the color line unless Whiteness is destroyed because the latter is wholly dependent on maintaining in-group status, privilege, and power over people of color.

In the spirit of the comedian David Chappelle, if there is a "racial draft" in the United States "white" Hispanics and Latinos will become the newest group of official "white" people. They will be joined by "mixed race" Asians and Pacific Islanders who will also be fully inducted into the family of Whiteness.

By definition, black Americans can never be white because they are the lynch pin and cornerstone of the American racial order. Thus, a paradox: everyone wants to be "black" if it involves music, culture, and perhaps even sex. But no one really wants to be Black if it involves our lived personhood.

​

 

[4fossa]

 

[Swagnificent]

not surprising. give most nikkas the choice to be white and they'd take it as well. white supremacy is the problem here not the rational decisions of latinos.

 

[Larry Lobster]

They ain't black

 

[Blackout]

They can pick white all they want but at the end of the day white people know who is really white and who isnt.

That wake up call always comes.

 

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Here is another article about this:

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/o...re-Hispanics-in-danger-of-becoming-white.html

To all those who complain that Hispanics are unwilling to assimilate, listen up.

Research shows that not only do they embrace American culture, but many also buy into the convoluted messaging around race and ethnicity that has long been this country’s specialty. Over time, a large number of Latinos have changed their minds about what race they belong to and have decided that they are white.

Researchers tracked how people changed their racial and ethnic identification categories between the 2000 and 2010 U.S. Census. They looked at how 168 million Americans, more than half of the population, filled out the forms. They tracked the same people, answering similar questions about their racial and ethnic makeup. More than 10 million people changed how they self-identified from census to census.

findings being reported by the Pew Research Center.

So what is up with these racial and ethnic switch hitters? Researchers caution against reading too much into the data for a variety of sound reasons. Still, it’s worth pondering why, within a mere decade, a large number of Hispanics decided to identify more solidly as being white.

A major likely factor is the pressure — and the growing opportunity — to blend into society and to identify with the majority. This is a familiar phenomenon. All sorts of immigrants, including Irish, Jews and Italians, were once considered irredeemably alien, even racially inferior to “white” Americans. Today you don’t find their fourth- and fifth-generation descendants puzzling over how to fill out the census. They check “white” — because that is how the rest of America now sees them.

In the census study, Hispanics were not the only group with a tendency to shift racial identity. People of mixed races, American Indians and Pacific Islanders were also among those more likely to adopt a new race characterization; non-Hispanic whites, blacks and Asians were the least likely.

“Hispanic” is an ethnicity on the census; it’s possible to be any race and also Hispanic. That’s entirely fitting. Given the incredible diversity and melding of Latin American cultures, many Hispanics find racial classification problematic, to say the least. Non-Hispanics often mistake “la raza” — a phrase often used by politically minded Latinos — as a term of racial exclusion. Actually, it signifies “the people,” as in all the people encompassed under the Spanish linguistic umbrella of the New World.

Still, there has been a tendency for Latinos in the United States to define themselves against “whiteness.” That point of view has roots in Latin American anticolonial politics of decades gone by but also in the long history of discrimination by Anglos in this country.

The actor and activist Edward James Olmos alluded to this tendency recently when speaking at a Kansas City university. To an audience filled with Mexican-Americans, he asked how many identified with their indigenous roots. Hands flew up. Then he asked who in the crowd acknowledged their Caucasian roots — which, for many Mexicans, traces back to Spanish conquistadors — he received a much less enthusiastic response.

“What? You hate half of yourself?” Olmos joked. “Embrace the cultural diversity that is you.”

He had a point, at least in this respect: Race is a construct. Its meaning throughout history has had no basis in biological reality but rather in social domination and political contention.

On the other hand, it has to be asked: Why are Latinos allowed to pass into the “white” category while others cannot or will not?

The question for Hispanics is whether they will maintain a sense of being an ethnically distinct minority — retaining affinity and alignment with other minority groups — or, whether over time they will blend into the landscape of so-called white ethnics.

The political and social ramifications of this will be significant.

Perhaps we’d all be better off if Latinos held on to a porous definition of race, embracing the complexity of their own histories when answering the question of their race. Or not answering the question. Racial ambiguity might just be a thing the United States needs more of.

 

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That wake up call always comes.

Funny you should say that. 44% of interracial marriage involved whites and Latinos of both sexes. Wow! What a wake call on white racism for Latinos.

 

[Aizen]

The whole checking "White" thing is not a shocker. Some people with roots from Latin America are the direct descendants of Europeans. The whole Latino thing is a culture rather than a race anyway.

 

[Blackout]

Funny you should say that. 44% of interracial marriage involved whites and Latinos of both sexes. Wow! What a wake call on white racism for Latinos.

Who were those people in the marriages? Big time families? or just random couples.

 

[Soundwave]

[]I no black, papi [/]

 

[mannyrs13]

I don't know why a Latino would claim white. But whatever. That's them. What I want to know is. Why they don't put one option to save the trouble and not try to divide people.

Race:
Human


Not trying to see which race has more people so they can use it for their own political gains.

 

[Ziggiy]

How about trying to embrace proper grammar

 

[GunRanger]

Don't most here say latino/hispanic isnt a race anyway? What's the big deal if they check white?



For what it's worth, I have a limited view of who I consider white. I don't consider people like Armenians "white" guys for example.

 

[Rekkapryde]

Brown and black latinos can't embrace their "whiteness"

 

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Who were those people in the marriages? Big time families? or just random couples.

Stop talking in circles fam. The Hispanics are the new White people. Especially outside the northeast.