‘Race isn't what defines me’: exploring identity choices in transracial,biracial, and monoracial families

Transracial adoption [TRA], particularly the adoption of black children by white parents, has been a controversial issue in the United States for more than half a century. Much of the criticism surrounding transracial adoption has dealt with concerns that black children raised in white homes will fail to develop a positive black identity. Such critiques are often based on assumptions about the identity of black children raised by their biological parents, yet studies of transracial adoption rarely address identity development struggles experienced by black children raised in black homes. Moreover, while the race of parents in relation to children is at the center of the transracial adoption debate, TRA studies rarely delve into socialization practices of biracial families headed by one white and one black parent. This study addresses a void in the literature by examining the experiences of young black adults whose parents may or may not be of the same race. The impact of varying racialized family structures on black identity development is examined by comparing the experiences of young black adults raised in families with two black parents (monoracial), one white and one black parent (biracial), and two white parents (transracial). Drawing from 32 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with middle-class young black adults between the ages of 18 and 30 years old, findings indicate that all informants, regardless of racialized family structure, approach racial identity development similarly by de-emphasizing the ascribed status of race in favor of achieved statuses as part of the identity construction process.     

A Multilevel Analysis of Interracial Relationship Characteristics Among Young Adults

Using retrospective data on relationship histories from Wave 3 (2002) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), I examined differences between interracial and same-race relationships within a multilevel framework (i.e., relationship histories nested within individuals). The results of this analysis generally supported patterns previously established in the literature through non-hierarchical regression analysis, and additionally provided estimates for the associations of interracial relationship involvement with sexual intercourse and partner age difference (two variables that have received little consideration in the past literature on interracial relationship characteristics). Results indicated that, while controlling for individual-level factors that have been shown to significantly impact interracial relationship formation, interracial relationships have significantly higher odds than do same-race relationships of also being same-sex relationships and of involving sexual intercourse. In addition, compared to same-race relationships, interracial relationship involvement is associated with a greater age difference between partners. Finally, interracial relationships have significantly lower odds than do their same-race counterparts of lasting 3 months or longer in duration, or of progressing to a marital or cohabiting status.     

Parental race as symbolic and social capital: teacher evaluations of part-white biracial and monoracial minority students

As the number of biracial individuals in the US continues to grow, so does research focused on them. While some of this literature examines how biracials fare on a host of social outcomes, little research examines whether part-white biracials are able to use their whiteness as a resource to gain additional resources or rewards. This research seeks to close this gap. Using data from the 1st grade wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten-Class (ECLS-K), I examine whether the parental involvement of white mothers of black/white and Hispanic/white biracial students leads to higher teacher ratings for these children compared to their monoracial minority counterparts. I find the involvement of white mothers results in higher teacher ratings for part-white biracial children, but only when the teacher is white. I conclude that whiteness serves as a symbolic and social capital resource that enhances biracial educational outcomes when it is invoked.     

Sounding Like Your Race in the Employment Process: An Experiment on Speaker Voice,Race Identification,and Stereotyping

Research has shown that listeners can identify black and white speakers with high accuracy rates from voice alone, but few studies have investigated whether individuals can identify Asian American native English speakers. In a three-part hypothetical employment process experiment, recordings of white, black, and US-born Asian American voices are used to test participants’ (N = 49) race identification of unseen speakers, evaluations of speakers’ employability, and accuracy of race identification with the introduction of headshots. Key findings show the following: judges demonstrate high accuracy rates of identifying white and black speakers based on voice alone, judges rated the black speaker at least eight times less likely to be hired than the white and Asian American speakers, and accuracy rates of race identification for the Asian American speaker rose dramatically with the introduction of headshots. The study contributes to research on Asian American English speech and extends work on stereotyping and employment discrimination.     

Fitting In: Segregation, Social Class, and the Experiences of Black Students at Selective Colleges and Universities

We analyzed qualitative data gathered at a selective urban university with a large black student body. We found that black students from integrated backgrounds welcomed the chance to establish friendships with same-race peers even though they were at ease in white settings, whereas students from segregated backgrounds saw same-race peers as a source of comfort and refuge from a white world often perceived as hostile. These contrasting perceptions set up both groups for shock upon matriculation. Students from an integrated background were better prepared academically and socially, but were unfamiliar with urban black culture and uncomfortable interacting with students of lower class standing. Students from a segregated background were surprised to find they had little in common with more affluent students from integrated backgrounds. Although both groups were attracted to campus for the same reason??to interact with a critical mass of same-race peers??their contrasting expectations produced a letdown as the realities of intraracial diversity set in.     

Racial Disparities in US Infant Birth Outcomes: A Protective Effect of Military Affiliation?

Research has been unable to determine why African Americans have higher infant mortality and preterm birth prevalence than whites, even taking into account measurable social and economic differences. This is, in part, due to the difficulty of adequately measuring the impacts of racial inequality and residential segregation. As an alternative approach, this paper comparatively examines infant outcomes among military-affiliated and civilian black and white women. The military setting provides higher-than-average economic equality and universal healthcare access. Although military-affiliated populations are usually left out of most major datasets, we construct a new variable that allows us to identify military affiliation using the CDC’s PRAMS survey data. Multinomial logistic regression analyses show that there is a negative association between adverse birth outcomes and military affiliation for both white and black women. Thus, the black-white infant mortality gap persists in the military even though black affiliates experience significant improvement in outcomes relative to their same-race civilian counterparts. Nevertheless, the black-white disparity among military-affiliated women is somewhat lessened compared to the black-white civilian disparity.     

The Stigma of Privilege: Racial Identity and Stigma Consciousness Among Biracial Individuals

Racial identification is a complex and dynamic process for multiracial individuals, who as members of multiple racial groups have been shown to self-identify or be identified by others differently, depending on the social context. For biracial individuals who have white and minority ancestry, such identity shifting (e.g., from minority to white, or vice versa) may be a way to cope with the threats to their racial identity that can be signaled by the presence or absence of whites and/or minorities in their social environment. We examine whether stigma consciousness (Pinel in J Pers Soc Psychol 76(1):114–128, 1999; i.e., the chronic awareness of the stereotyping and prejudice that minorities face) interacts with the sociocultural context to predict social identity threat, belonging, and racial identification. Using experience sampling methodology, minority/white biracial individuals (27 Asian/white, 22 black/white, and 26 Latino/white) reported the racial composition of their environment, social identity threat for their component racial identities, overall feelings of belonging, and racial identification over a 1-week period. Results suggest that stigma consciousness predicts the extent to which biracial people identify with their white background and experience belonging in different racial contexts. We discuss racial identity shifting in response to context-based threats as a protective strategy for biracial people, and identity where participants’ sociocultural contexts and experiences with racial identity and threat differ as a result of their minority racial group or ascribed race.     

Gendered Black Exclusion: The Persistence of Racial Stereotypes Among Daters

Employing questionnaires of 381 college students, this study examines the reasons why Latinos, Asians, and whites choose to include or exclude blacks as potential dates. First, we find that past structural explanations for low rates of interracial intimacy explain current disparities less among young people today. Only 10 % of respondents cited a structural explanation, lack of familiarity, or contact, as the reason they excluded blacks as possible dates. Second, the reasons for black exclusion vary across racial–ethnic–gender groups. Among non-blacks, whites were the most open to dating blacks, followed by Latinos and Asians. Asians and Latinos were more likely to exclude blacks because of social disapproval, and whites were more likely to exclude blacks because of physical attraction. Black women were more highly excluded than black men and more excluded because of their perceived aggressive personalities or behavior and physical attraction. Black men were more excluded because of social disapproval. Thus, persistent racial ideology continues to drive the social distance between blacks and non-blacks, particularly toward black females.     

‘I’m a different kind of biracial’: how black/white biracial Americans with immigrant parents negotiate race

Increasingly, multiracial families have garnered scholarly attention. However, the roles of ethnicity and immigrant ties are largely absent in bi/multiracial studies. Drawing on 17 in-depth interviews with black/white biracial Americans with at least one immigrant parent, this study analyzes the dynamic interplay of race, ethnicity, and immigrant roots in the bi/multiracial community. Our findings show that participants struggle to articulate the meaning of race, and they assert specific racial/ethnic identities to circumvent stereotypical connotations of whiteness and blackness. We highlight how biracial Americans with immigrant ties – those who we might assume would have a limited understanding of race – voice clear understandings of racial superiority and inferiority, racial relations, and racial stereotypes. Emphasizing their ethnic roots is not only an attempt to accurately describe their ancestry; it also allows them to avoid the social consequences (i.e. stereotypes, discrimination, etc.) of being (half) white or (half) black.     

近代广东女子的独身现象：自梳和不落夫家

在中国传统社会中,女性价值在于照顾公婆、生儿育女,女性角色是贤妻(媳)良母。然而,近代广东珠江三角洲的妇女有的采用“自梳”方式,终生不婚;有的出嫁后“不落夫家”,拒绝与丈夫同居,从而向儒家正统的女性观提出挑战。     

Human capital,family structure and religiosity shaping British Muslim women’s labour market participation

Economic activity among Muslim women in the UK remains considerably lower and their unemployment rate significantly higher than among the majority group even after controlling for qualifications and other individual characteristics. This study utilises two data sets to explore possible factors underlying these differences, such as overseas qualifications, language skills and religiosity. It reveals that while religiosity is negatively associated with labour market participation among British Christian-White women, economic activity among Muslim women are not negatively affected by high religiosity. Furthermore, family structure and the presence of dependent children were among the most important factors explaining the latter’s labour market participation, although these relationships were moderated by qualifications. More women with higher qualifications were economically active even if married and with children, although some of them experienced greater unemployment, probably due to discrimination in recruiting practices and choices and preferences on religious grounds.     

The Socioeconomic Attainments of Non-immigrant Cambodian, Filipino, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, and Vietnamese Americans

Using recent American Community Survey data, this study investigates socioeconomic attainments of six ethnic groups of Southeast Asian Americans. Findings show that the educational attainment of Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Thai is higher than that of whites, while the educational attainment of Cambodians, Hmong, and Laotians is lower than that of whites. Regarding earnings, Southeast Asian American women are generally not disadvantaged relative to white women, but Southeast Asian American men tend to have lower earnings than white men after controlling for education and other demographic factors such as age, metropolitan residence, and region. We conclude that Cambodians, Hmong, and Laotians are the most disadvantaged groups among Southeast Asian Americans and that most Southeast Asian American male groups tend to be at least slightly disadvantaged in the labor market at least after controlling for metropolitan residence and region.     

The Joint Effects of Offender Race/Ethnicity and Sex on Sentence Length Decisions in Federal Courts

The current study examined the main and interactive effects of offender race/ethnicity and sex on sentence length decisions for drug offenders convicted in three federal courts located in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska. The additive model showed that females received shorter prison sentences than similarly situated male offenders, but there were no differences between white offenders and minority offenders. However, when the data were partitioned by sex, black males were found to receive lengthier prison terms than white males. There were no differences between white males and Hispanic males, and white females were treated no differently than either black or Hispanic females. Moreover, when the data were partitioned by race/ethnicity, white females were treated no differently than white males. However, black females received shorter sentences than black males and Hispanic females received shorter sentences than Hispanic males. Further analyses showed that black and Hispanic males also received longer sentences than white females and that black males received longer sentences than all other offenders (with the exception of Hispanic male offenders). These findings mesh with those gleaned from other sentencing studies, although they are at odds with theoretical notions that leniency at the sentencing stage is reserved only for white women.     

Race,SES, and Obesity Among Men

Over the last decade, obesity has increased significantly among men but few national studies have empirically examined racial and socioeconomic differences in obesity among men. In this paper, we utilized logistic regression to evaluate the potential associations that race and socioeconomic status may have with obesity among men in the National Survey of American Life: an in-person household survey of non-institutionalized U.S. blacks and whites who lived in communities where at least 10% of the community residents were black Americans. A greater proportion of black men were likely to be obese than white men, but no interaction among race, SES, and obesity was detected when potential confounding variables were included. There was not a relationship between SES and obesity for white men, but there was an apparent positive relationship between SES and obesity for black men that did not remain significant in adjusted models. No relationship was found between age and obesity among black men, though white men who were 55 and older were more likely than those 18–34 to be obese in confounder adjusted models. Among white men, no relationships were found between obesity and education, household income, or marital status. Black men in the lowest income category were less likely to be obese than those in the highest income category, in bivariate but not adjusted models. These findings suggest that the way racial, economic, stress and behavioral factors combine to affect obesity in black and white men may be different.     

Shehri (city) brides between Indian Punjab and the UK: transnational hypergamy,Sikh women's agency and gendered geographies of power

This paper explores Sikh transnational marriages contracted between the UK and Indian Punjab. Ethnographic and statistical studies have found that transnational marriage is less popular among UK-born Indian Sikhs than Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims. Those who marry transnationally tend to be less educated than those who marry in the UK, and there is an apparent pattern in transnational marriages wherein UK-born men are likely to marry women from India who are more educated than themselves, or shehri (city) women as they are called in Punjabi. The paper explores two shehri brides’ lived experience of marriage and explores the constraints on their agency and the forms that it takes at a number of ‘geographies’ or scales: in their relationships with their natal families, with their in-laws, husbands, the labour market and the state. The paper argues that state discourses problematising marriage migration in socio-economic and integration terms must be critiqued, not only because the shehri brides go against classed policy framings of the migrant wife but also because such framings deny the agency of all migrant women as they struggle to move on with their lives over time.     

Perceptions of Defendant Culpability in Pretrial Publicity: The Effects of Defendant Ethnicity and Participant Gender

Previous researchers have found that individuals who are exposed to negative pretrial publicity (PTP) are more likely to judge a defendant guilty than individuals exposed to little or no negative PTP. We examined whether or not minority defendants (black, Aboriginal) are differentially disadvantaged by negative PTP in comparison with white defendants within a Canadian context. Participants read an online newspaper article about a sexual assault case involving a white, black, or Aboriginal defendant and then answered questions regarding defendant culpability and their perceptions of their own abilities to be impartial jurors. The defendant’s ethnicity and the gender of the participant impacted perceptions of defendant culpability. Participants (particularly female participants) generally favored the black defendant and disadvantaged the Aboriginal defendant (in comparison with the white defendant). Despite this fact, participants generally felt they could be impartial and fair jurors. These findings suggest that current procedures for assessing—and trying to avoid—racial biases in jurors are insufficient.     

Bridging the territorial divide: immigrants’ cross-border communication and the spatial dynamics of their kin networks

The transnational perspective emphasises the persistence of immigrants’ home country connections, yet existing research adds little to our understanding of the mechanisms by which cross-border ties are maintained. We use nationally representative data of immigrants in Spain to describe changes in their kin network and study how two characteristics, migration stage (whether kin already resided in Spain at the time of emigration and whether any kin remained in the birth country (BC) at the time of interview) and relationship-specific locations of kin (children, parents, spouse, siblings), influence the frequency of cross-border communication. We find an expansion in the total number of kin largely due to childbearing and marriage. The average fraction of migrants’ immediate kin in Spain shifts from 6% to 41%. The presence of at least one kin in the BC increases the frequency of cross-border communication, but with the exception of siblings, the presence of family already in Spain at the time of emigration does not. Siblings and parents were far more likely to retain a BC presence, but they were less likely than spouses or children to be contacted daily. While these ties are generally long-lasting, communication wanes as immigrant embeddedness in the receiving country grows.     

Being Canada's national citizen: difference and the economics of multicultural nationalism

This paper examines the ambivalent positioning of difference in western multicultural nation-states in the neoliberal moment. It does so by analyzing the multiple and contradictory ways that the figure of Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese Canadian woman, was utilized in the service of Canadian nation-building. Much heralded as the first racialized minority (and second woman) to be appointed to the highest public position in the land, Clarkson was chosen to represent and define the Canadian nation to itself and to the international community because of, and not in spite of, her difference. Drawing on media and government texts, this paper highlights the narratives that shaped the meaning of Clarkson's appointment as well as the narratives that were negated. The author emphasizes how gender, in addition to class, race and ethnicity, was central to Clarkson's appointment by analyzing how the disassociation between women and Asian capital was key to her ability to speak for us as one of us. In addition to Canadian government and corporate elite courting of Asian capital, gender was also key to the other narratives that could not be spoken, Clarkson's interracial marriage and discourses of miscegenation.     

Bonding and bridging among first generation Asian migrants in Australian protestant churches

Around a third of Asian migrants to Australia self-identify as Christians, and many join churches where they meet fellow migrants and other Australians. Churches might thus be places that can foster the integration of Asian migrants into Australian society. This paper uses social network and social capital theory to examine the prevalence of bonding and bridging among 61,386 churchgoers from 2135 Protestant churches who completed the Australian National Church Life Survey in 2011. We compared levels of bonding and bridging social ties of first-generation Asian migrants (FGAM) with Australians born of Australian-born parents (ABOAP). FGAM joining congregations had fewer social ties than ABOAP, and developed bridging (but not bonding) more slowly. FGAM had lower bonding but higher bridging in MonoAnglo congregations compared with Multicultural or MonoAsian congregations. The results suggest that FGAM who are in MonoAnglo churches may be less tightly bound to their congregation, but more likely to bridge beyond it, than are FGAM in multicultural or largely Asian congregations.     

Demographic Factors Associated with Poverty among American Indians and Alaska Natives

Using data from the American Community Survey for the period 2006–2010, this study provides up-to-date demographic information about poverty among American Indians and Alaska Natives. Our analysis investigates both absolute poverty and relative poverty and distinguishes between four racial categories of American Indians and Alaska Natives including single-race American Indian; biracial white and American Indian; biracial black and American Indian; and other multirace American Indian. We also report results for thirty-seven of the largest self-reported tribal affiliations for single-race American Indians. In general, all of the American Indian and Alaska Native groups have higher levels of absolute and relative poverty rates compared to non-Hispanic whites. The problematic character of poverty among American Indian racial groups is underscored by their substantially higher odds of being poor (relative to non-Hispanic whites), even after statistically taking into account age, gender, education, metropolitan status, and region of residence. Significant variation across the thirty-seven tribal groups is evident, however, with single-race American Indians having the highest level of poverty. This variability suggests the need for future research into the various tribal affiliations and tribal economies.