Identifying race and ethnicity in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

The 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth is among the few surveys to provide multiple reports on respondents’ race and ethnicity. Respondents were initially classified as Hispanic, black, or “other” on the basis of data collected during 1978 screener interviews. Respondents subsequently self-reported their “origin or descent” in 1979, and their race and Hispanic origin in 2002; the latter questions conform to the federal standards adopted in 1997 and used in the 2000 census. We use these data to (a) assess the size and nature of the multiracial population, (b) measure the degree of consistency among these alternative race-related variables, and (c) devise a number of alternative race/ethnicity taxonomies and determine which does the best job of explaining variation in log-wages. A key finding is that the explanatory power of race and ethnicity variables improves considerably when we cross-classify respondents by race and Hispanic origin. Little information is lost when multiracial respondents are assigned to one of their reported race categories because they make up only 1.3% of the sample.

Multiracial identities,single race history: Contemporary consequences of historical race and marriage laws for racial classification

This work interrogates the role of the law as an “actor” in the spatial patterning of racial classification. Laws governing racial intermarriage represent key ways that rigid distinctions between groups were codified. Critically, there is a great deal of state variation in these laws. We draw on a unique data set that combines samples from the 1990 and 2000 Census (5 percent IPUMS) and the 2009–2011 estimates from the American Community Survey with information on state-specific legal bans against intermarriage. Results from multilevel logistic and multinomial analyses indicate that a past of legal regulation is associated with a lower likelihood of a “mixed” classification for the offspring of black-white interracial unions, particularly in the 2009–11 period. Our results provide evidence that place-specific institutional legacies are imprinted on the classification choices made even in the midst of expanding options.     

Bridging 1990 and 2000 census race data: Fractional assignment of multiracial populations

In contrast to previous censuses, Census 2000 permitted individuals to mark more than one race. Because the new race tables include both single-race and mixed-race categories, measuring change during the 1990s requires some method of bridging between the two data sets.To accomplish this bridging, we first identified biracial populations as of 1990 through the race and ancestry responses of individuals in the PUMS file. With race responses assumed to represent a person's primary race identity, we then determined the percentage of each biracial group that preferred each race as the primary identity. The same percentages can be used to assign biracial persons from Census 2000 into single-race categories. We also provide fractional assignment percentages for selected states and for the larger specific nationality groups of mixed-race Asians.Comparison of our 1990 estimates of the numbers in leading biracial groups with those reported in Census 2000 suggests that our fractional assignment values are reasonable for biracial groups other than those involving American Indians and Alaska Natives. For the latter biracial groups and for all groups representing three or more races, we recommend equal fractional assignment into the appropriate single-race categories.     

Ties on the fringes of identity

I use data on part-American Indian children in the 1990 Census 5% PUMS to assess my hypotheses that thick racial ties within the family constrain racial identification, and that structural aspects of the community (group size, inequality, and racial heterogeneity) affect racial identification when racial ties are thin within the family. American Indians present an interesting case study because their high levels of intermarriage and complex patterns of assimilation/identity retention for generations provide a varied group of people who could potentially identify their race as American Indian. Several hypotheses are supported by the data, signifying that racial identification among people with mixed-heritage is affected by the social world beyond individual psychology and racial ties within the family.     

Multiracial matters – disrupting and reinforcing the racial rubric in educational discourse

When studying matters of race and education, there seems to be an assumption that the inclusion of all monoracial populations equates to a comprehensive look at all students, particularly students of color. But what about students who identify with more than one race? How do Multiracial students identify and how are they included/excluded with respect to educational curricula, policies and climates? This growing group presents an immediate opportunity and challenge to the educational community, because while educational researchers appropriately and vigorously pay attention to matters of traditionally under-represented monoracial groups of color, it has yet to be seen where Multiracial students fall into this discourse. Based on a qualitative study of 25 Multiracially identified college students, I explore the ways in which the notion of Multiraciality muddies traditional conversations about race and education in an effort to better understand the potential impact of this ‘new’ demographic within an educational context.     

Choosing race: Multiracial ancestry and identification

Social scientists have become increasingly interested in the racial identification choices of multiracial individuals, partly as a result of the federal government’s new “check all that apply” method of racial identification. However, the majority of work to date has narrowly defined the population of multiracial individuals as the “biracial” children of single-race parents. In this article, we use the open-ended ancestry questions on the 1990 and 2000 5% samples of the US Census to identify a multiracial population that is potentially broader in its understanding of multiraciality. Relative to other studies, we find stronger historical continuity in the patterns of hypodescent and hyperdescent for part-black and part-American Indian ancestry individuals respectively, while we find that multiple-race identification is the modal category for those of part-Asian ancestry. We interpret this as evidence of a new, more flexible classification regime for groups rooted in more recent immigration. Our results suggest that future work on multiracial identification must pay closer attention to the varied histories of specific multiracial ancestry groups.