Colorism and School-to-Work and School-to-College Transitions of African American Adolescents

Using multinomial logistic modeling, the current study estimated the impact of skin tone on school-to-work and school-to-college transitions of African American youths. The findings suggest that African American males with the lightest skin tone were more likely to find a job and to be in college than their co-racial peers with darker skin tones. The odds of finding a full-time job were also significantly higher for African American females with the lightest skin tone. Generally, the multivariate results reveal that among the effects examined in this study, the family background factors, marital status, prior achievement, and average school socioeconomic status matter the most.     

Race and Unemployment Amidst the New Diversity: More Evidence of a Black/Non-Black Divide

The fact that the United States is more racially and ethnically diverse now than in the past has led scholars to dismiss dichotomous—black/white—conceptions of race as antiquated. However, some others have noted the emergence of a black/non-black divide that is manifest in patterns of residential segregation and intermarriage. This study attempts to determine whether such a dichotomous conception is sufficient to capture the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment patterns among entry-level workers in the United States. Findings suggest that more than 80% of the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment can be captured simply by knowing who is black and who is not. The most elaborate conception tested here acknowledges 20 different racial and ethnic groups; it adds significantly but not commensurately to the explanatory power of the models. Despite the increasingly diverse racial and ethnic composition of entry-level labor markets in the United States, it is black exclusion that seems to drive the effects of race and ethnicity on unemployment.     

Immigrant Group Differences in Job Satisfaction

Despite the large number of immigrants in Canada’s labor force, studies of immigrants to Canada have devoted insufficient attention to how country of birth and race are related to job satisfaction. Using data from a general population telephone survey of English-speaking workers in Toronto (n = 659), we investigate job satisfaction differences between white Canadian-born workers and immigrants born in the Caribbean, the Philippines, South Asia, China, Portugal, the United States, and the UK. Each of the immigrant groups is racially homogenous, and most of the groups are composed of (non-white) visible minorities. We find that the contrasts between Canadian-born whites and workers born in the Philippines and China remain substantial, and statistically significant under one-tailed tests, after age, gender, job type, income, job demands, job control, job support, workplace discrimination, job-related stress, and perceived unfairness at work are all controlled. We argue that social comparison theory offers the most compelling explanation for the persistence of group differences in job satisfaction after controls.     

Who are People Willing to Date? Ethnic and Gender Patterns in Online Dating

The United States is a rapidly diversifying country with ethnic minorities comprising over a quarter of the US population. By the year 2050, over half of the United States will be ethnic minority, underscoring the importance of better understanding race relations and willingness to date intra- and inter-racially. Data from 2,123 online dating profiles were randomly collected from four racial groups (Asian, Black, Latino, and White). Results indicated that willingness to date intra-racially was generally high and that willingness to date inter-racially was lower and influenced by racial social status. Because men evidenced an overall high willingness to date inter-racially, women’s willingness to out-date provided a more accurate depiction of racial social status and exchange. Women of higher racial status groups were less willing than those from lower status groups to outdate. Results are explored and discussed in relation to different theories of interpersonal attraction and dating.     

Job Strain, Workplace Discrimination, and Hypertension Among Older Workers: The Health and Retirement Study

Job strain has been associated with hypertension among younger workers; however, whether this relationship persists among older workers, particularly older racial/ethnic minorities, is unresolved. This study evaluated whether job strain and workplace discrimination are associated with hypertension and poor blood pressure control among older workers and whether these relationships vary by gender and race/ethnicity. Data were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study, and analysis was restricted to employed participants with complete information on job strain and blood pressure (N = 3,794). In adjusted models, high job strain was associated with lower likelihood of hypertension (odds ratio (OR): 0.75, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.63, 0.89) relative to low job strain. Stratified analyses indicated this association was only significant among white (OR: 0.71, 95% CI: 0.58, 0.86) and male (OR: 0.61, 95% CI: 0.47, 0.79) workers. High job strain was not significantly associated with hypertension among African American (OR: 1.14, 95% CI: 0.63, 2.07) or Hispanic (OR: 0.56, 95% CI: 0.29, 1.09) workers. Workplace discrimination was not associated with hypertension among any group. Neither job strain nor discrimination was associated with poor blood pressure control. These findings suggest that persistence in work characterized by high job strain in later life may signal resilience to the influence of work-related stressors on health. Future research efforts should examine the factors that contribute to gender and racial differences in these relationships.     

Racial segregation and the limits of international undergraduate student diversity

This study challenges the assertion that the influx of Asian international undergraduate students in universities across the United States creates richer educational and social environments. Drawing on qualitative research at a public university with a large number of Asian international students, this article examines how Asian American student leaders and their organization took on the difficult institutional task of actualizing the diversity of these new students in a racially segregated campus. We found that instead of viewing racial segregation practices as possibly tied to racial discrimination and privileges of normative whiteness, students expressed both support and resistance to Asian international students in race-neutral language of comfort and organizational differences that reflects the dominant ideology of colorblindness. We argue that any claims to the benefits of international student diversity must take serious account of colorblind racism and the experiences of racial marginalization and racial segregation among domestic minority and international students.     

Exposing the white avatar: projections,justifications, and the ever-evolving American racism

In the context of the United States, mainstream entertainment genres continue to recycle dominant racial ideologies typified by the perspectives of white men. American minstrelsy, literature, and film are key sites for whiteness to manifest itself in the design and projection of online personae via white avatars. These projections of whiteness also reify the US racial structure, one that subjects the perspectives of people of color to misrepresentation and further racial marginalization. This theoretical interpretative article employs Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) to investigate how these projections of whiteness are historically rooted and have evolved in the post-racial era. Using popular virtual gaming and social media examples, this paper critically deconstructs how the creation of white personae via avatars maintains and justifies the hegemonic power of whiteness.     

“My Life was Filled with Constant Anxiety”: Anti-Immigrant Discrimination,Undocumented Status,and Their Mental Health Implications for Brazilian Immigrants

Immigration reform and the various costs associated with undocumented immigration have been in national headlines in the past few years. The growth of Latinos as the US’ largest ethno-racial minority has sparked debates about the “browning” of the United States and led to an increase in anti-immigrant discrimination. While some researchers have documented the effects of racial discrimination on the mental health of ethno-racial minorities in the United States, less has explored how anti-immigrant discrimination and undocumented status influence the mental and psychological well-being of Latino immigrants, more specifically Brazilian immigrants, in the United States. Relying on data from in-depth interviews conducted with 49 Brazilian return migrants who immigrated to the United States and subsequently returned to Brazil, this paper will examine how their experiences living as racialized and primarily undocumented immigrants in the United States influenced their mental health. Specifically, I demonstrate that respondents experienced ethno-racial and anti-immigrant discrimination and endured various challenges that had negative implications for their mental health. This paper will also discuss additional factors that researchers should take into account when examining immigrants’ mental health and the challenges immigrants encounter in a racialized society with increasing anti-immigrant sentiment.     

Phenotyping and Adolescence-to-Adulthood Transitions Among Latinos

Phenotyping the system of prejudice and discrimination, which gives preference to European physical characteristics and devalues those of Amerindians, Africans, and Asians, affects the lives of many Latinos in the United States. This study examines the impact of phenotyping on academic and employment outcomes among Latino adolescents/young adults. Outcomes examined include the odds of graduating from high school, finding full-time employment after completing high school, and attending college. Socioeconomic status (measured at individual and school levels), family structure, quality of parent–child relationships, immigrant generational status, and other measures are included as controls. Multilevel modeling and logistic regression are utilized as analytical tools. Results indicate that, among Latinos, light skin and blue eyes are associated with better academic outcomes than having dark skin and brown eyes, while those with darker skin enter the labor market earlier than their light-skinned co-ethnics.     

“Every Shut Eye, Ain’t Sleep”: The Role of Racism-Related Vigilance in Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Sleep Difficulty

Although racial/ethnic disparities in health have been well characterized in biomedical, public health, and social science research, the determinants of these disparities are still not well understood. Chronic psychosocial stress related specifically to the American experience of institutional and interpersonal racial discrimination may be an important determinant of these disparities, as a growing literature in separate scientific disciplines documents the adverse health effects of stress and the greater levels of stress experienced by non-white compared to white Americans. However, the empirical literature on the importance of stress for health and health disparities specifically due to racial discrimination, using population-representative data, is still small and mixed. In this paper, we explore the association between a novel measure of racially salient chronic stress—“racism-related vigilance”—and sleep difficulty. We found that, compared to the white adults in our sample, black (but not Hispanic) adults reported greater levels of vigilance. This vigilance was positively associated with sleep difficulty to similar degrees for all racial/ethnic groups in our sample (white, black, Hispanic). Black adults reported greater levels of sleep difficulty compared to white adults. This disparity was slightly attenuated after adjustment for education and income. However, this disparity was completely attenuated after adjustment for racism-related vigilance. We found similar patterns of results for Hispanic compared to white adults, however, the disparities in sleep difficulty were smaller and not statistically significant. Because of the importance of sleep quality to health, our results suggest that the anticipation of and perseveration about racial discrimination is an important determinant of racial disparities in health.     

The Impact of Perceived Discrimination and Immigration Policies Upon Perceptions of Quality of Life Among Latinos in the United States

This study examined the impact of enforcement of US immigration policies and perceived discrimination on perceptions of quality of life for Latinos in the US. Data for this study were drawn from the 2007 Pew Hispanic Center survey of 2,000 Latino adults living in the US. Multinomial logistic regressions indicated that participants who had higher levels of perceived discrimination and who were personally affected by US immigration enforcement also perceived the following: (1) life was more difficult now for Latinos than in the past; (2) higher levels of fear of deportation for themselves or a loved one; (3) the lives of Latino children will be worse in the future; and (4) a lower quality of life for themselves. Female participants and participants with more years in the United States, and higher levels of linguistic acculturation generally had fewer issues regarding immigration policies or had a more positive outlook for Latinos in the United States.     

Racial Formation in Theory and Practice: The Case of Mexicans in the United States

Mechanisms of social stratification require the categorical definition of an out-group to that can be excluded and exploited. Historically, in the United States, African Americans have been the subject of a systematic process of racial formation to define socially in this fashion. Beginning in the 1970s, however, and accelerating in the 1980s and 1990s, Mexicans were increasingly subject to processes of racialization that have rendered them more exploitable and excludable than ever before. Over the past decade, Mexican Americans moved steadily away from their middle position in the socioeconomic hierarchy and gravitated toward the bottom. This paper describes the basic mechanisms of stratification in the United States and how Mexicans have steadily been racialized to label them socially as a dehumanized and vulnerable out-group.     

Racial battle fatigue and activist burnout in racial justice activists of color at predominately White colleges and universities

Activist burnout scholarship has inadequately considered challenges marginalized-identity activists, such as racial justice activists of color, experience in the course of their activism – challenges from which privileged identity activists, such as white racial justice activists, are protected. This article attempts to address this gap through a phenomenological study examining activist burnout in racial justice activists of color whose primary sites of activism are predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States at which they work. In order to stretch activist burnout theory to differentiate unique marginalized-identity activists’ burnout causes from general causes that do not consider specific activist identities, the lens of racial battle fatigue is employed. Findings show that, although participants shared many causes of burnout that are consistent with general non-identity-specific causes described in existing literature, racial battle fatigue hastened their burnout while their activist commitments elevated their battle fatigue.     

Everyday inter-ethnic tensions and discomfort in a culturally diverse Australian workplace

Australian workplaces are increasingly becoming culturally diverse. As a space of involuntary encounter of racial difference, multicultural workplaces are significant sites for understanding how workers deal with cultural difference. Involuntary cross-cultural encounters are a facet of living with cultural difference which can produce discomfort, tension and conflict in the workplace. The study of workplace social relations has traditionally focused on practices of racial discrimination. In this paper, we shift the focus to examine different modes of negative inter-ethnic interactions at work through the lens of discomfort. It suggests that analysing tension and conflict arising in multicultural workplaces as racially motivated or simply racist fails to capture other factors that adversely affect inter-ethnic interaction. This paper presents findings from a research into workplace interaction in the Australian employment services providers to emphasise that changing work conditions and increasing cultural diversity have profound impact on the workers’ experiences of workplace relations.     

Labour migrants in post-Soviet Moscow: patterns of settlement*

This article explores the impact of the social and the spatial structures of Moscow on the patterns of settlement of labour migrants. It emphasizes the ways in which the structure of post-Soviet urban environment differs from the European and U.S. one, and uses interviews with guest workers from Central Asia to map out the strategies they employ in their search for accommodation in Moscow, as well as the barriers they encounter. Special attention is paid to the role played by ethnic networks in the lives of migrant workers, and the ways in which these networks are configured by the urban space. This article demonstrates how the absence of spatial segregation in the post-Soviet city, inherited from the Soviet period, affects the trajectories of social and economic integration of migrants and explains the absence of ‘ethnic areas’ in today’s Moscow.     

Race science and surveillance: police as the new race scientists

ABSTRACT

This article examines the relationship between race and the urban in the United States through an examination of the role of surveillance – a growing global phenomena in contemporary western cities – and its uses in creating and maintaining boundaries of race, particularly because surveillance of racial and ethnic minority groups tend to be grounded in specific and bounded geographic locations. Using historical evidence and data from the New York Police Department (NYPD) Stop and Frisk program during the 2003–2013 period, this article asks whether or not, strategies of state surveillance of racial and ethnic minority groups should be interpreted as a ‘new’ type of scientific racism given the state’s desire to deploy and its hyper-reliance on technologies to fulfil its surveillance role.     

Racial Identity and Racial Treatment of Mexican Americans

How racial barriers play in the experiences of Mexican Americans has been hotly debated. Some consider Mexican Americans similar to European Americans of a century ago that arrived in the United States with modest backgrounds but were eventually able to participate fully in society. In contrast, others argue that Mexican Americans have been racialized throughout U.S. history, and this limits their participation in society. The evidence of persistent educational disadvantages across generations and frequent reports of discrimination and stereotyping supports the racialization argument. In this paper, we explore the ways in which race plays a role in the lives of Mexican Americans by examining how education, racial characteristics, social interactions, relate to racial outcomes. We use the Mexican American Study Project, a unique data set based on a 1965 survey of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and San Antonio combined with surveys of the same respondents and their adult children in 2000, thereby creating a longitudinal and intergenerational data set. First, we found that darker Mexican Americans, therefore appearing more stereotypically Mexican, report more experiences of discrimination. Second, darker men report much more discrimination than lighter men and than women overall. Third, more educated Mexican Americans experience more stereotyping and discrimination than their less educated counterparts, which is partly due to their greater contact with whites. Lastly, having greater contact with whites leads to experiencing more stereotyping and discrimination. Our results are indicative of the ways in which Mexican Americans are racialized in the United States.     

The uses and abuses of history: understanding contemporary U.S. immigration*

This article focuses on history, specifically on how history affects our understanding of contemporary immigration. The spotlight is on the United States and the two massive immigrations of the last one hundred and forty years as well as on the integration of immigrants and their children. History is what the present chooses to remember about the past, and to that extent it inevitably distorts. This distortion is what is meant when I use the phrase abuses of history. Myths about the past, selective retellings, cherry-picked examples – they all shape how the story of immigration in the United States is perceived today. History, however, can be an extremely effective and illuminating tool. In examining the uses of history, the article pays special attention to the way that earlier immigrants and their children had an impact on cultural, social, and political institutions and patterns, which, in turn, helped shape the context for present-day arrivals. History, in fact, can deepen and expand our understanding of the contemporary immigrant and second generation; it can also provide some useful hints about the future.     

Racial inequality and the recognition of racial discrimination in Jamaica

A growing body of literature posits that a population’s denial of the salience of racial discrimination acts as a mechanism of its perpetuation. Moreover, scholars locate a population’s propensity to deny racial discrimination in contemporary ideologies of racial mixing or ethnic fusion. Most quantitative studies of public opinion on these issues are limited to Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. This study examines the case of Jamaica. We first (1) examine the extent of Jamaica’s contemporary racial inequality using national census data. We then (2) use nationally representative data from the AmericasBarometer social survey to determine the extent to which a recognition of racial discrimination characterizes Jamaican public opinion. Finally, we (3) explore the salience of an ideology of racial mixing in Jamaica and (4) test whether that ideology affects the likelihood that Jamaicans acknowledge contemporary racial discrimination. Our findings document dramatic social inequality by skin colour in Jamaica and suggest that a majority embrace an ideology that racial mixing is negatively associated with Jamaicans’ recognition of racial discrimination. We discuss our findings and their implications for understanding ideologies of racial mixing and racial inequality in the Americas.     

Race and Religion in Social Services

Members of non-dominant racial and religious groups may experience discrimination and inequalities in American society simply because of their race or religious affiliation. The experience may make recipients feel disempowered, humiliated, angry, and hopeless. Social service providers, including mental health counselors and social workers, are tasked with helping to improve individuals’ well-being in ways that range from basic needs to mental health. Given the growth in racial diversity and the role it plays in religion in the USA, it is important to understand social service providers’ experiences, thoughts, attitudes, or actions as they relate to the role of race and religion in service provision in order to better meet the needs of clients who may be marginalized and discriminated against. This qualitative study explored the research question of: What role do issues of race and religion play in social services. Themes identified included: (1) the marginalization of smaller racial and religious groups; (2) the existing assistance provided by religious organizations; and (3) the role of race and religion in social services. Findings from this study may contribute to a better understanding of the impact of race and religion on vulnerable populations in order to provide better social services.