Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Latinos and the Color Line

Item

Title

Latinos and the Color Line

Author

Rodríguez, Clara E.

López, Nancy

Argeros, Grigoris

Research Area

Social Processes

Topic

Immigration

Abstract

This essay reviews the issues and current literature on how “race,” skin color, and/or phenotype operate as stratifying agents among Latinos in the United States. We review the trends and emerging issues in this area with regard to health, housing and segregation, and socioeconomic status (SES), including education and criminal justice. We do so in the context of the Census Bureau's release of its 2010 Alternative Questionnaire Experiment (AQE) study. This 5‐year study focuses on how to best ask the race question. One of the key findings of the study was that including “Hispanic/Latinos” as a race in the combined questionnaire format did not reduce the number of people identifying as Hispanic/Latino; however, it did reduce the number of Hispanics/Latinos reporting detailed information on specific national origin. The AQE also recommended further testing of the combined question format. The only time that a Hispanic origin group was included in the Census as a racial category was in 1930 when “Mexican” was included as a race. If the Census recommends the inclusion of Hispanic as a race, it would mark a significant departure from the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines and the Census' current policy of thinking of Latinos as an ethnic group, composed of many races, to a racial group similar to Whites, Blacks, or Asians in the United States. We also examine works that assess the importance of collecting data on race and ethnicity as analytically distinct concepts.

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Latinos and the Color Line
CLARA E. RODRÍGUEZ, NANCY LÓPEZ, and GRIGORIS ARGEROS

Abstract
This essay reviews the issues and current literature on how “race,” skin color,
and/or phenotype operate as stratifying agents among Latinos in the United States.
We review the trends and emerging issues in this area with regard to health, housing
and segregation, and socioeconomic status (SES), including education and criminal
justice. We do so in the context of the Census Bureau’s release of its 2010 Alternative
Questionnaire Experiment (AQE) study. This 5-year study focuses on how to best
ask the race question. One of the key findings of the study was that including
“Hispanic/Latinos” as a race in the combined questionnaire format did not reduce
the number of people identifying as Hispanic/Latino; however, it did reduce the
number of Hispanics/Latinos reporting detailed information on specific national
origin. The AQE also recommended further testing of the combined question
format. The only time that a Hispanic origin group was included in the Census
as a racial category was in 1930 when “Mexican” was included as a race. If the
Census recommends the inclusion of Hispanic as a race, it would mark a significant
departure from the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines and
the Census’ current policy of thinking of Latinos as an ethnic group, composed
of many races, to a racial group similar to Whites, Blacks, or Asians in the United
States. We also examine works that assess the importance of collecting data on race
and ethnicity as analytically distinct concepts.

INTRODUCTION
This essay reviews the issues and current literature on how “race,” skin color,
and/or phenotype operate as stratifying agents among Latinos in the United
States in terms of health, housing and segregation, and socioeconomic status
(SES) including education and criminal justice. The recent release of the Census Bureau’s 2010 Alternative Questionnaire Experiment (AQE) study (on
how to best ask the race question) has brought the issue to the fore again.
It also underscores the difficulty that both the US Census and Latinos have
had in accommodating to the two-dimensional (Black and White) US color
line. The Census’s conclusions suggest that they would advocate eliminating
the separate question in the census that asks whether a person is Hispanic
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

or Latino, and adding a Hispanic/Latino category to the race question. This
would alter the current census view of Latinos as an “ethnic group” that is
comprised of many races to a “race” group. Proponents of this change argue
that such a move would eliminate the tendency to view race as separate from
ethnicity and recognize that Latinos are a racial-ethnic group that experiences
discrimination. Others argue that conflating race with ethnicity would also
make it difficult to assess the relative importance of “race,” color, or phenotype as a stratifying variable among Latinos. Moreover, they conclude that
there is value added in maintaining an analytical distinction between race
and ethnicity among Latinos. A third perspective maintains that adding Latinos as a race would legitimize the Census’s current racial structure (which
many scholars and geneticists have rejected) and racialize Latinos. A fourth
view argues that we should eliminate the concept of “race” in the census altogether and replace it with another concept, such as national origin or ancestry.
In this essay, we focus our review of the literature on the trends and emerging
issues on racial stratification among Latinos in the United States with regard
to SES attainments, health and housing.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
In the early studies in this area, it was generally assumed that among Latinos,
“race” influenced their life chances and social position in society, that is, how
much income they might make, and what types of jobs, education, and housing they could attain. Some of the early literature focused on Puerto Ricans
and many authors predicted (or in some cases, concluded) that, given the
racial discrimination existent in the United States, those who were seen to be
white would have greater opportunities and outcomes than those who were
seen as Black. Those who could not pass for white and who did not assimilate into the Black/African American community, would have intermediate
outcomes, that is, between white and black Latinos.
The introduction in the 1980 decennial census of the Hispanic identifier, that
is, a question asking whether the person was Hispanic or not, (along with the
question asking everyone to report their “race”) enabled researchers to examine more precisely how Latinos reported themselves in terms of race. In the
2010 census, the large proportion (over 37%) of Latinos who chose the (formerly small) some other race (SOR) category was in stark contrast to the less
than 2% of non-Hispanics who chose this category. It was also in contrast to
what had been a tendency to view Latinos either as predominantly white—as
had been done in earlier census studies—or, as either Black or White. In fact,
over 37% of Latinos also chose the SOR category in the 1980, 1990, and 2000
censuses.

Latinos and the Color Line

3

The existence of this Hispanic identifier also spawned a great deal of
research examining the question of whether a Latino’s self-reported “race”
influenced the SES. This research has found a complex picture. A number of authors found support for the argument that those Latinos who
reported their race as white had higher SES attainments than those who
reported they were Black and/or SOR. Other researchers examined the
relationship between Latinos’ phenotypes and/or their skin color and
found, as Roth notes, that lighter and more European-looking Latinos
were also generally doing better than their darker counterparts. The SES
areas examined included education, employment, occupation, earnings,
household income, hourly wage, poverty, housing, self-esteem, and mental
health.
However, some studies found that higher SES in the Latino community
was not so clearly correlated with Latinos reporting their race as “white.”
Part of the reason for these mixed findings may have to do with how “race”
was measured in the studies, that is, whether it was based on how others
identified Latinos or how Latinos reported themselves on race questions.
Differences in how Latinos self-reported their race and how their race was
recorded by others have been found in numerous studies. In addition, for
some time, census re-interview studies and other descriptive studies have
also found that some Latino respondents change their racial self-classification
over time and that their response is sometimes dependent on question context. This, of course, influences how we approach and answer the question of
whether Latinos’ race is a significant stratifying variable in the United States,
for some Latinos will place themselves differently on the color line than they
would be placed by others.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
As noted earlier, the AQE study raises the question of whether Latinos
are to be seen as a race or as an ethnic group, composed of different races.
The Human Genome Project and several leading scholarly associations,
including the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the American Anthropological Association, the American Sociological Association
and the American Psychological Association have all produced statements
clarifying that race and ethnicity are both social constructions that have no
biological or genetic basis. Some argue that race is very similar to ethnicity
and that having two separate questions reinforces a biological view of race.
Others maintain that because race and ethnicity are so similar, Latinos
should have a category in the census’ race question. However, a growing
number of researchers have examined the importance of maintaining a
conceptual distinction between race and ethnicity. Leading this effort are

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

scholars of health and medicine. Using the “Reactions to “Race” Module of
the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System,” scholars have found
that one measure, that is., “socially defined race,” was more important
than self—identified “race” in terms of predicting health status, even after
controlling for socioeconomic variables such as income and educational
attainment.
In other words, Hispanics who indicated that others usually classified them
as “White” had health outcomes that were closer to non-Hispanic whites.
It is important to note that non-Hispanic whites had the best self-reported
health status of any of the racial and or ethnic groups. Given these results,
some researchers, such as Gravlee and his colleagues argue that, whenever
possible, researchers should include measures of socially defined race as a
key dimension of social stratification and that this is of particular relevance
for health outcomes. In studies of the health disparities between Black and
White Hispanics, LaVeist-Ramos and his colleagues also found that the
Black Hispanic experiences within the health care industry mirrored that
of other Blacks in the United States. This is theoretically important as we
cannot assume that Latinos/Hispanics from even the same ethnic origin,
ancestry, nationality or even family share the same racial status or what
López refers to as “lived race-gender.”
The AQE study suggests that one possible approach to a combined question in the 2020 census would be to have respondents be able to choose more
than one race category. Latinos could then choose the Latino category and
also another race category, that is, White, Black, Asian, or Native American
Indian. However, some scholars such as Hernandez argue that given the “depreciation” of nonwhite races throughout Latin America, this would result in
a larger white count, as those Latinos who chose more than one race would
most likely choose white and not any of the other races.
In education, qualitative and quantitative studies also point to the persistence of the color line and the importance of examining the intersection of
race and gender in shaping the interactions of second generation Caribbean
youth. Focusing on Dominicans, West Indians, and Haitians in urban educational settings, López finds that girls of color were succeeding at higher rates
than their male counterparts. This was due in large part to the similarity in the
racialization experiences of men who, regardless of their ethnic background,
had very similar experiences with discrimination and with being racialized
as potential criminals. Women, on the other hand, spoke about multiple experiences with racial stigma that was related to their sexuality. This research
points to the need to examine the “gendered color line” for understanding
inequalities in education and other dimensions of SES.

Latinos and the Color Line

5

KEY ISSUES: LOCAL AND NATIONAL CONTEXTS MATTER
As noted earlier, there has been a consistently high proportion of Latinos
who choose the SOR category in the census. This, despite census attempts
to discourage this SOR response. How, why, and where Latinos report
their race influences the data that is collected and analyzed by researchers.
Much research has gone into examining more closely the determinants of
Latino race reporting. At stake here is how particular variables and local
and national contexts affect (individually or in combination) the SES of
Latinos in the United States. In addition to the SES variables noted earlier
that researchers have historically investigated, others have recently been
added. These have included a person’s national origin and skin color, their
level of acculturation, and their generational status. Not surprisingly, and
in keeping with previous research, lighter skin increases the likelihood of
a “white” identification and decreases the odds of reporting as “black” or
“other.” In addition, contextual social variables, such as whether or not they
have experienced (or they perceive) racial discrimination and whether they
identify with others who have experienced actual discrimination, have also
been examined. Moreover, location, that is, where they live or go to school,
has been found to be related to how Latinos report their race. In addition,
migration, that is, whether they bring or hold alternative “racial schemas,”
has been found to influence race reporting. Acculturation and how long
Latinos have lived in the United States have also been investigated with
mixed results. Lastly, a great deal of research has focused on how the way a
question is asked influences Latino race reporting.
A key issue here is the role—or the weight—that each these variables will
have as the United States becomes more racially and ethnically heterogeneous; and, as intermarriage and multiracial identities grow. Another key
issue is whether discrimination (perceived or actual) will influence how Latinos report their race. This has implications for the question of whether Latinos’ reported “race” is related to their SES attainments. For example, if a
Latino (with high SES attainments who reports himself or herself as White)
experiences discrimination because of being a Latino, he or she may reevaluate how they see their view of their race. Likewise, even if they have not
experienced actual discrimination, the fact that they perceive other Latinos
(or nonwhites) to face a glass or concrete ceiling may also cause the Latina/o
to change their view of himself or herself as “white” and choose “SOR” or
“black.” Thus, greater experience (or acculturation) in the United States may
lead some Latinos—who arrived with high SES attainments and who saw
themselves as white within their country of origin’s racial schemas—to see
themselves as nonwhite in the United States.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

A related key issue is whether growing up in predominantly minority
schools or geographic areas influences who they identify with in society;
and, whether this changes over time. Implicit in this discussion is the
question of whether acculturation and increased time in the United States
leads to a continuance of the assimilation experience undergone by earlier
(mainly European) immigrant groups or to a racialized assimilation. Or,
if this will vary depending on the “acculturated” person’s phenotype and
clues/cues to his/her Latino ancestry.
Another important issue has to do with researchers’ awareness of the role of
“context” on Latino race reporting. Although this has been noted and studied
in the literature, researchers need to be cognizant of its role in their research.
In other words, whether a person is being asked for their race on a scholarship application or on a mortgage application may influence how they
report their race. Whether they are asked to check off their membership in
a group that lists many other racial and cultural/national origin groups or
to simply state their “race” may also influence how Latinos report their race.
And, finally residence, that is, what part of the country they live in, what
neighborhood, and their school context may also shape how Latinos identify. Accordingly, this will influence analyses that are done examining Latino
racial/ethnic stratification. Researchers must always be attentive to how situational, local, and national contexts matter for racialization and reporting
of racial identity among Latinos, as well as other groups. This is theoretically
important as we cannot assume that Latinos/Hispanics from even the same
ethnic origin, ancestry, nationality or even family share the same racial status
or what López refers to as "street race-gender" or “lived race-gender” (López,
2013a; 2013b; 2014).
Finally, demographic changes and regional dispersion of the Latino
population during the past 20 years requires that researchers take into
consideration how race influences Latino ethnic groups’ SES attainments,
residential segregation, and mobility patterns and outcomes. It is also imperative that differences in national origin, nativity status, SES, acculturation,
family/household, generational status, and homeownership (including
the metropolitan area characteristics of where Latinos reside) be taken into
account. For these may produce or reflect variations in residential segregation and mobility outcomes among Latinos, by socially defined race. For
example, studies examining residential segregation and housing outcomes
reveal that race interacts with nativity status, ethnicity, and acculturation
status to produce variations in the neighborhoods where Latinos reside,
relative to other racial/ethnic groups. Insofar as traditional models of
residential mobility have successfully captured the locational outcomes for
the majority of white European ethnic groups, nonwhite Latino residential
patterns might not follow the same linear outcomes. Furthermore, we need

Latinos and the Color Line

7

to investigate how race influences Latino locational outcomes in the new
destinations they are moving into, such as traditional and nontraditional
suburban neighborhoods, especially in the South.
REFERENCES
López, N. (2013a). Killing Two Birds With One Stone? Why We Need Two Separate
Questions on Race & Ethnicity in 2020 Census and Beyond. Latino Studies Journal,
11(3), 428–438.
López, N. (2013b). Contextualizing lived-race gender and the racialized-gendered
social determinants of health. In L. Gómez & N. López (Eds.), Mapping “race”:
Critical approaches to health disparities research (pp. 256–304). New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.
López, N. (2014). “What’s Your “Street Race-Gender”? Why We Need Separate
Questions on Hispanic Origin and Race for the 2020 Census,” — Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation Scholars Forum, Disparities, Resilience and Building a Culture of Health, Human Capital Blog, November 26th. http://www.rwjf.org/
en/blogs/human-capital-blog/2014/11/what_s_your_street.html (last accessed
11/30/14).

FURTHER READING
Note: This essay reviews issues and trends in a very broad area that has recently been
the site of much innovative research, that is, Latinos and the color line, so there are
a lot of references that could be recommended. We decided that what might be best
is to list both those that address the issue more generally and those that address
specific areas, such as health, housing and segregation, socioeconomic attainments
and crime.
General
Compton, E., Bentley, M., Ennis, S., & Rastogi, S. (2012). 2010 census race and Hispanic origin alternative questionnaire experiment. Washington DC: US Census Bureau.
Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/2010census/pdf/2010_Census_Race_
HO_AQE.pdf.
Hernandez, T. (2002). Multiracial matrix. Cornell Law Review, 87, 1094–1174.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From 1960s to 1990s
(2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Prewitt, K. (2013). What is your race? The flawed effort of the census to classify Americans.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Rodriguez, C. (2000). Changing race: Latinos, the census, and the history of ethnicity in
the United States. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Roth, W. (2012). Race migrations: Latinos and the cultural transformation of race. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Vargas-Ramos, C. (2012). Migrating race: Migration and racial identification
among Puerto Rican. Ethnic and Racial Studies, iFirst Article:, 1–22. doi:10.1080/
01419870.2012.672759
Vidal-Ortiz, S. (2004). On being a white person of color: Using auto ethnography to
understand Puerto Ricans’ racialization. Qualitative Sociology, 27, 179–203.
Crime
Steffensmeier, D., & Demuth, S. (2000). Ethnicity and sentencing outcomes in U.S.
federal courts: Who is punished more harshly? American Sociological Review, 65,
705–729.
Health
Gravlee, C. C., Dressler, W. W., & Bernard, H. R. (2005). Skin color, social classification, and blood pressure in Puerto Rico. American Journal of Public Health, 12,
2191–2197.
Jones, C., Truman, B., Elam-Evans, L., Jones, C. Y., Jiles, R., Rumisha, S., & Perry, G.
(2008). Using ‘ssocially asigned race’ to probe white advantages in health status.
Ethnicity & Disease, 18, 496–504.
LaVeist-Ramos, T., Galarraga, J., Thorpe, R., Jr., Bell, C., & Austin, C. (2011). Are black
Hispanics black or Hispanic? Exploring disparities at the intersection of race and
ethnicity. Journal of Epidemiological Community Health, 10, 1136.1–1136.5.
Housing & Segregation
Iceland, J., & Nelson, K. (2008). Hispanic segregation in metropolitan America:
Exploring the multiple forms of spatial assimilation. American Sociological Review,
73, 741–765.
Massey, D., & Denton, N. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the
American underclass. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Socioeconomic Status
Frank, R., Akresh, I. R., & Lu, B. (2010). Latino immigrants and the U.S. racial order:
How and where do they fit in? American Sociological Review, 75, 378–401.
Golash-Boza, T., & Darity, W., Jr., (2008). Latino racial choices: The effects of skin
colour and discrimination on Latinos’ and Latinas’ racial self-identifications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31, 899–934.
Itzigsohn, J., Giorguli, S., & Vazquez, O. (2005). Immigrant incorporation and racial
identity: Racial self-identification among Dominican immigrants. Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 28, 50–78.
Logan, J. (2004). How race counts for Hispanic Americans. Sage Race Relations
Abstracts, 29, 7–19.

Latinos and the Color Line

9

López, N. (2003). Hopeful girls, troubled boys: Race and gender disparity in urban education. New York, NY: Routledge.
Michael, J., & Timberlake, J. M. (2008). Are Latinos becoming white? How that works,
what it is, how to access it — determinants of Latinos’ racial self-identification
in the U.S. In C. A. Gallagher (Ed.), Racism in post-race America: New theories, new
directions (pp. 107–122). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina.
Noguera, P., Hurtado, A., & Fergus, E. (Eds.) (2012). Invisible no more: Understanding
the disenfranchisement of Latino men and boys. New York, NY: Routledge.
Portes, A., & Zhou, M. (1993). The new second generation: Segmented assimilation
and it variants. The Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
530, 74–96.
Tafoya, S. (2004). Shades of belonging (pp. 1–25). Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic
Center.
Telles, E., & Murguia, E. (1996). Phenotype and schooling among Mexican Americans. Sociology of Education, 69, 276–289.

CLARA E. RODRÍGUEZ SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Clara E. Rodríguez is a Professor of Sociology at Fordham University’s
College at Lincoln Center. She is the author of several books including Changing Race: Latinos, The Census and the History of Ethnicity in the United States and
Hispanics in the Labor Force: Issues and Policies, with Meléndez, E. and Barry
Figueroa, J. (Eds.). She is also coauthor of The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century, Stanford University Press (2007) which was translated
into Chinese. She has written numerous articles on Latinos in the United
States and on the media. In addition, she is the recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in
the Field of Latina/o Studies and her university’s Award for Distinguished
Teaching in the Social Sciences. She is currently expanding her studies of representations of Latino/as in prime time television to immigrants in Europe.
Personal webpage: http://faculty.fordham.edu/crodriguez
NANCY LÓPEZ SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Nancy López is Associate Professor of Sociology. She directs and
cofounded the Institute for the Study of “Race” & Social Justice, RWJF
Center for Health Policy, The University of New Mexico. Dr. López coedited
a volume entitled, Mapping “Race”: Critical Approaches to Health Disparities
Research (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, Critical Issues in Health
and Medicine Book Series, forthcoming in 2013). Her book Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education (New York: Routledge,
2003) focuses on Dominicans, West Indians, and Haitians to explain why
girls of color are succeeding at higher rates than their male counterparts. Her

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

current work focuses on the creation of meaningful conceptualizations of
“race” in as a dynamic multidimensional and multilevel social construction.
GRIGORIS ARGEROS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Grigoris Argeros is Assistant Professor of Sociology, and affiliate faculty
with the African-American Studies Program, at Mississippi State University.
Dr. Argeros earned a PhD in Sociology from Fordham University and an MA
in Applied Social Research from Queens College of the City University of
New York. His scholarly interests are in the areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, urban sociology, and social demography. Dr. Argeros’s work focuses
on the correlates and consequences of (i) patterns of racial/ethnic neighborhood change and (ii) changes in levels of residential segregation.
RELATED ESSAYS
A Social Psychological Approach to Racializing Wealth Inequality (Sociology), Joey Brown
Stereotype Content (Sociology), Beatrice H. Capestany and Lasana T. Harris
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
Restoring Racial Justice (Psychology), Fania E. Davis et al.
Cultural Differences in Emotions (Psychology), Jozefien De Leersnyder et al.
Resilience (Psychology), Erica D. Diminich and George A. Bonanno
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and Cydney H. Dupree
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Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine
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Gonzales and Benjamin J. Roth
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Davin L. Phoenix
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B. Drell
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Laitin and Sangick Jeon
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Jennifer Lee
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et al.
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Latinos and the Color Line

11

Understanding Risk-Taking Behavior: Insights from Evolutionary Psychology (Psychology), Karin Machluf and David F. Bjorklund
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Politics of Immigration Policy (Political Science), Jeannette Money
Why Do Governments Abuse Human Rights? (Political Science), Will H.
Moore and Ryan M. Welch
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M. Stonecash
Race in Latin America (Sociology), Edward Telles



Latinos and the Color Line
CLARA E. RODRÍGUEZ, NANCY LÓPEZ, and GRIGORIS ARGEROS

Abstract
This essay reviews the issues and current literature on how “race,” skin color,
and/or phenotype operate as stratifying agents among Latinos in the United States.
We review the trends and emerging issues in this area with regard to health, housing
and segregation, and socioeconomic status (SES), including education and criminal
justice. We do so in the context of the Census Bureau’s release of its 2010 Alternative
Questionnaire Experiment (AQE) study. This 5-year study focuses on how to best
ask the race question. One of the key findings of the study was that including
“Hispanic/Latinos” as a race in the combined questionnaire format did not reduce
the number of people identifying as Hispanic/Latino; however, it did reduce the
number of Hispanics/Latinos reporting detailed information on specific national
origin. The AQE also recommended further testing of the combined question
format. The only time that a Hispanic origin group was included in the Census
as a racial category was in 1930 when “Mexican” was included as a race. If the
Census recommends the inclusion of Hispanic as a race, it would mark a significant
departure from the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines and
the Census’ current policy of thinking of Latinos as an ethnic group, composed
of many races, to a racial group similar to Whites, Blacks, or Asians in the United
States. We also examine works that assess the importance of collecting data on race
and ethnicity as analytically distinct concepts.

INTRODUCTION
This essay reviews the issues and current literature on how “race,” skin color,
and/or phenotype operate as stratifying agents among Latinos in the United
States in terms of health, housing and segregation, and socioeconomic status
(SES) including education and criminal justice. The recent release of the Census Bureau’s 2010 Alternative Questionnaire Experiment (AQE) study (on
how to best ask the race question) has brought the issue to the fore again.
It also underscores the difficulty that both the US Census and Latinos have
had in accommodating to the two-dimensional (Black and White) US color
line. The Census’s conclusions suggest that they would advocate eliminating
the separate question in the census that asks whether a person is Hispanic
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

2

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

or Latino, and adding a Hispanic/Latino category to the race question. This
would alter the current census view of Latinos as an “ethnic group” that is
comprised of many races to a “race” group. Proponents of this change argue
that such a move would eliminate the tendency to view race as separate from
ethnicity and recognize that Latinos are a racial-ethnic group that experiences
discrimination. Others argue that conflating race with ethnicity would also
make it difficult to assess the relative importance of “race,” color, or phenotype as a stratifying variable among Latinos. Moreover, they conclude that
there is value added in maintaining an analytical distinction between race
and ethnicity among Latinos. A third perspective maintains that adding Latinos as a race would legitimize the Census’s current racial structure (which
many scholars and geneticists have rejected) and racialize Latinos. A fourth
view argues that we should eliminate the concept of “race” in the census altogether and replace it with another concept, such as national origin or ancestry.
In this essay, we focus our review of the literature on the trends and emerging
issues on racial stratification among Latinos in the United States with regard
to SES attainments, health and housing.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
In the early studies in this area, it was generally assumed that among Latinos,
“race” influenced their life chances and social position in society, that is, how
much income they might make, and what types of jobs, education, and housing they could attain. Some of the early literature focused on Puerto Ricans
and many authors predicted (or in some cases, concluded) that, given the
racial discrimination existent in the United States, those who were seen to be
white would have greater opportunities and outcomes than those who were
seen as Black. Those who could not pass for white and who did not assimilate into the Black/African American community, would have intermediate
outcomes, that is, between white and black Latinos.
The introduction in the 1980 decennial census of the Hispanic identifier, that
is, a question asking whether the person was Hispanic or not, (along with the
question asking everyone to report their “race”) enabled researchers to examine more precisely how Latinos reported themselves in terms of race. In the
2010 census, the large proportion (over 37%) of Latinos who chose the (formerly small) some other race (SOR) category was in stark contrast to the less
than 2% of non-Hispanics who chose this category. It was also in contrast to
what had been a tendency to view Latinos either as predominantly white—as
had been done in earlier census studies—or, as either Black or White. In fact,
over 37% of Latinos also chose the SOR category in the 1980, 1990, and 2000
censuses.

Latinos and the Color Line

3

The existence of this Hispanic identifier also spawned a great deal of
research examining the question of whether a Latino’s self-reported “race”
influenced the SES. This research has found a complex picture. A number of authors found support for the argument that those Latinos who
reported their race as white had higher SES attainments than those who
reported they were Black and/or SOR. Other researchers examined the
relationship between Latinos’ phenotypes and/or their skin color and
found, as Roth notes, that lighter and more European-looking Latinos
were also generally doing better than their darker counterparts. The SES
areas examined included education, employment, occupation, earnings,
household income, hourly wage, poverty, housing, self-esteem, and mental
health.
However, some studies found that higher SES in the Latino community
was not so clearly correlated with Latinos reporting their race as “white.”
Part of the reason for these mixed findings may have to do with how “race”
was measured in the studies, that is, whether it was based on how others
identified Latinos or how Latinos reported themselves on race questions.
Differences in how Latinos self-reported their race and how their race was
recorded by others have been found in numerous studies. In addition, for
some time, census re-interview studies and other descriptive studies have
also found that some Latino respondents change their racial self-classification
over time and that their response is sometimes dependent on question context. This, of course, influences how we approach and answer the question of
whether Latinos’ race is a significant stratifying variable in the United States,
for some Latinos will place themselves differently on the color line than they
would be placed by others.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
As noted earlier, the AQE study raises the question of whether Latinos
are to be seen as a race or as an ethnic group, composed of different races.
The Human Genome Project and several leading scholarly associations,
including the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the American Anthropological Association, the American Sociological Association
and the American Psychological Association have all produced statements
clarifying that race and ethnicity are both social constructions that have no
biological or genetic basis. Some argue that race is very similar to ethnicity
and that having two separate questions reinforces a biological view of race.
Others maintain that because race and ethnicity are so similar, Latinos
should have a category in the census’ race question. However, a growing
number of researchers have examined the importance of maintaining a
conceptual distinction between race and ethnicity. Leading this effort are

4

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

scholars of health and medicine. Using the “Reactions to “Race” Module of
the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System,” scholars have found
that one measure, that is., “socially defined race,” was more important
than self—identified “race” in terms of predicting health status, even after
controlling for socioeconomic variables such as income and educational
attainment.
In other words, Hispanics who indicated that others usually classified them
as “White” had health outcomes that were closer to non-Hispanic whites.
It is important to note that non-Hispanic whites had the best self-reported
health status of any of the racial and or ethnic groups. Given these results,
some researchers, such as Gravlee and his colleagues argue that, whenever
possible, researchers should include measures of socially defined race as a
key dimension of social stratification and that this is of particular relevance
for health outcomes. In studies of the health disparities between Black and
White Hispanics, LaVeist-Ramos and his colleagues also found that the
Black Hispanic experiences within the health care industry mirrored that
of other Blacks in the United States. This is theoretically important as we
cannot assume that Latinos/Hispanics from even the same ethnic origin,
ancestry, nationality or even family share the same racial status or what
López refers to as “lived race-gender.”
The AQE study suggests that one possible approach to a combined question in the 2020 census would be to have respondents be able to choose more
than one race category. Latinos could then choose the Latino category and
also another race category, that is, White, Black, Asian, or Native American
Indian. However, some scholars such as Hernandez argue that given the “depreciation” of nonwhite races throughout Latin America, this would result in
a larger white count, as those Latinos who chose more than one race would
most likely choose white and not any of the other races.
In education, qualitative and quantitative studies also point to the persistence of the color line and the importance of examining the intersection of
race and gender in shaping the interactions of second generation Caribbean
youth. Focusing on Dominicans, West Indians, and Haitians in urban educational settings, López finds that girls of color were succeeding at higher rates
than their male counterparts. This was due in large part to the similarity in the
racialization experiences of men who, regardless of their ethnic background,
had very similar experiences with discrimination and with being racialized
as potential criminals. Women, on the other hand, spoke about multiple experiences with racial stigma that was related to their sexuality. This research
points to the need to examine the “gendered color line” for understanding
inequalities in education and other dimensions of SES.

Latinos and the Color Line

5

KEY ISSUES: LOCAL AND NATIONAL CONTEXTS MATTER
As noted earlier, there has been a consistently high proportion of Latinos
who choose the SOR category in the census. This, despite census attempts
to discourage this SOR response. How, why, and where Latinos report
their race influences the data that is collected and analyzed by researchers.
Much research has gone into examining more closely the determinants of
Latino race reporting. At stake here is how particular variables and local
and national contexts affect (individually or in combination) the SES of
Latinos in the United States. In addition to the SES variables noted earlier
that researchers have historically investigated, others have recently been
added. These have included a person’s national origin and skin color, their
level of acculturation, and their generational status. Not surprisingly, and
in keeping with previous research, lighter skin increases the likelihood of
a “white” identification and decreases the odds of reporting as “black” or
“other.” In addition, contextual social variables, such as whether or not they
have experienced (or they perceive) racial discrimination and whether they
identify with others who have experienced actual discrimination, have also
been examined. Moreover, location, that is, where they live or go to school,
has been found to be related to how Latinos report their race. In addition,
migration, that is, whether they bring or hold alternative “racial schemas,”
has been found to influence race reporting. Acculturation and how long
Latinos have lived in the United States have also been investigated with
mixed results. Lastly, a great deal of research has focused on how the way a
question is asked influences Latino race reporting.
A key issue here is the role—or the weight—that each these variables will
have as the United States becomes more racially and ethnically heterogeneous; and, as intermarriage and multiracial identities grow. Another key
issue is whether discrimination (perceived or actual) will influence how Latinos report their race. This has implications for the question of whether Latinos’ reported “race” is related to their SES attainments. For example, if a
Latino (with high SES attainments who reports himself or herself as White)
experiences discrimination because of being a Latino, he or she may reevaluate how they see their view of their race. Likewise, even if they have not
experienced actual discrimination, the fact that they perceive other Latinos
(or nonwhites) to face a glass or concrete ceiling may also cause the Latina/o
to change their view of himself or herself as “white” and choose “SOR” or
“black.” Thus, greater experience (or acculturation) in the United States may
lead some Latinos—who arrived with high SES attainments and who saw
themselves as white within their country of origin’s racial schemas—to see
themselves as nonwhite in the United States.

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

A related key issue is whether growing up in predominantly minority
schools or geographic areas influences who they identify with in society;
and, whether this changes over time. Implicit in this discussion is the
question of whether acculturation and increased time in the United States
leads to a continuance of the assimilation experience undergone by earlier
(mainly European) immigrant groups or to a racialized assimilation. Or,
if this will vary depending on the “acculturated” person’s phenotype and
clues/cues to his/her Latino ancestry.
Another important issue has to do with researchers’ awareness of the role of
“context” on Latino race reporting. Although this has been noted and studied
in the literature, researchers need to be cognizant of its role in their research.
In other words, whether a person is being asked for their race on a scholarship application or on a mortgage application may influence how they
report their race. Whether they are asked to check off their membership in
a group that lists many other racial and cultural/national origin groups or
to simply state their “race” may also influence how Latinos report their race.
And, finally residence, that is, what part of the country they live in, what
neighborhood, and their school context may also shape how Latinos identify. Accordingly, this will influence analyses that are done examining Latino
racial/ethnic stratification. Researchers must always be attentive to how situational, local, and national contexts matter for racialization and reporting
of racial identity among Latinos, as well as other groups. This is theoretically
important as we cannot assume that Latinos/Hispanics from even the same
ethnic origin, ancestry, nationality or even family share the same racial status
or what López refers to as "street race-gender" or “lived race-gender” (López,
2013a; 2013b; 2014).
Finally, demographic changes and regional dispersion of the Latino
population during the past 20 years requires that researchers take into
consideration how race influences Latino ethnic groups’ SES attainments,
residential segregation, and mobility patterns and outcomes. It is also imperative that differences in national origin, nativity status, SES, acculturation,
family/household, generational status, and homeownership (including
the metropolitan area characteristics of where Latinos reside) be taken into
account. For these may produce or reflect variations in residential segregation and mobility outcomes among Latinos, by socially defined race. For
example, studies examining residential segregation and housing outcomes
reveal that race interacts with nativity status, ethnicity, and acculturation
status to produce variations in the neighborhoods where Latinos reside,
relative to other racial/ethnic groups. Insofar as traditional models of
residential mobility have successfully captured the locational outcomes for
the majority of white European ethnic groups, nonwhite Latino residential
patterns might not follow the same linear outcomes. Furthermore, we need

Latinos and the Color Line

7

to investigate how race influences Latino locational outcomes in the new
destinations they are moving into, such as traditional and nontraditional
suburban neighborhoods, especially in the South.
REFERENCES
López, N. (2013a). Killing Two Birds With One Stone? Why We Need Two Separate
Questions on Race & Ethnicity in 2020 Census and Beyond. Latino Studies Journal,
11(3), 428–438.
López, N. (2013b). Contextualizing lived-race gender and the racialized-gendered
social determinants of health. In L. Gómez & N. López (Eds.), Mapping “race”:
Critical approaches to health disparities research (pp. 256–304). New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.
López, N. (2014). “What’s Your “Street Race-Gender”? Why We Need Separate
Questions on Hispanic Origin and Race for the 2020 Census,” — Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation Scholars Forum, Disparities, Resilience and Building a Culture of Health, Human Capital Blog, November 26th. http://www.rwjf.org/
en/blogs/human-capital-blog/2014/11/what_s_your_street.html (last accessed
11/30/14).

FURTHER READING
Note: This essay reviews issues and trends in a very broad area that has recently been
the site of much innovative research, that is, Latinos and the color line, so there are
a lot of references that could be recommended. We decided that what might be best
is to list both those that address the issue more generally and those that address
specific areas, such as health, housing and segregation, socioeconomic attainments
and crime.
General
Compton, E., Bentley, M., Ennis, S., & Rastogi, S. (2012). 2010 census race and Hispanic origin alternative questionnaire experiment. Washington DC: US Census Bureau.
Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/2010census/pdf/2010_Census_Race_
HO_AQE.pdf.
Hernandez, T. (2002). Multiracial matrix. Cornell Law Review, 87, 1094–1174.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From 1960s to 1990s
(2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Prewitt, K. (2013). What is your race? The flawed effort of the census to classify Americans.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Rodriguez, C. (2000). Changing race: Latinos, the census, and the history of ethnicity in
the United States. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Roth, W. (2012). Race migrations: Latinos and the cultural transformation of race. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Vargas-Ramos, C. (2012). Migrating race: Migration and racial identification
among Puerto Rican. Ethnic and Racial Studies, iFirst Article:, 1–22. doi:10.1080/
01419870.2012.672759
Vidal-Ortiz, S. (2004). On being a white person of color: Using auto ethnography to
understand Puerto Ricans’ racialization. Qualitative Sociology, 27, 179–203.
Crime
Steffensmeier, D., & Demuth, S. (2000). Ethnicity and sentencing outcomes in U.S.
federal courts: Who is punished more harshly? American Sociological Review, 65,
705–729.
Health
Gravlee, C. C., Dressler, W. W., & Bernard, H. R. (2005). Skin color, social classification, and blood pressure in Puerto Rico. American Journal of Public Health, 12,
2191–2197.
Jones, C., Truman, B., Elam-Evans, L., Jones, C. Y., Jiles, R., Rumisha, S., & Perry, G.
(2008). Using ‘ssocially asigned race’ to probe white advantages in health status.
Ethnicity & Disease, 18, 496–504.
LaVeist-Ramos, T., Galarraga, J., Thorpe, R., Jr., Bell, C., & Austin, C. (2011). Are black
Hispanics black or Hispanic? Exploring disparities at the intersection of race and
ethnicity. Journal of Epidemiological Community Health, 10, 1136.1–1136.5.
Housing & Segregation
Iceland, J., & Nelson, K. (2008). Hispanic segregation in metropolitan America:
Exploring the multiple forms of spatial assimilation. American Sociological Review,
73, 741–765.
Massey, D., & Denton, N. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the
American underclass. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Socioeconomic Status
Frank, R., Akresh, I. R., & Lu, B. (2010). Latino immigrants and the U.S. racial order:
How and where do they fit in? American Sociological Review, 75, 378–401.
Golash-Boza, T., & Darity, W., Jr., (2008). Latino racial choices: The effects of skin
colour and discrimination on Latinos’ and Latinas’ racial self-identifications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31, 899–934.
Itzigsohn, J., Giorguli, S., & Vazquez, O. (2005). Immigrant incorporation and racial
identity: Racial self-identification among Dominican immigrants. Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 28, 50–78.
Logan, J. (2004). How race counts for Hispanic Americans. Sage Race Relations
Abstracts, 29, 7–19.

Latinos and the Color Line

9

López, N. (2003). Hopeful girls, troubled boys: Race and gender disparity in urban education. New York, NY: Routledge.
Michael, J., & Timberlake, J. M. (2008). Are Latinos becoming white? How that works,
what it is, how to access it — determinants of Latinos’ racial self-identification
in the U.S. In C. A. Gallagher (Ed.), Racism in post-race America: New theories, new
directions (pp. 107–122). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina.
Noguera, P., Hurtado, A., & Fergus, E. (Eds.) (2012). Invisible no more: Understanding
the disenfranchisement of Latino men and boys. New York, NY: Routledge.
Portes, A., & Zhou, M. (1993). The new second generation: Segmented assimilation
and it variants. The Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
530, 74–96.
Tafoya, S. (2004). Shades of belonging (pp. 1–25). Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic
Center.
Telles, E., & Murguia, E. (1996). Phenotype and schooling among Mexican Americans. Sociology of Education, 69, 276–289.

CLARA E. RODRÍGUEZ SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Clara E. Rodríguez is a Professor of Sociology at Fordham University’s
College at Lincoln Center. She is the author of several books including Changing Race: Latinos, The Census and the History of Ethnicity in the United States and
Hispanics in the Labor Force: Issues and Policies, with Meléndez, E. and Barry
Figueroa, J. (Eds.). She is also coauthor of The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century, Stanford University Press (2007) which was translated
into Chinese. She has written numerous articles on Latinos in the United
States and on the media. In addition, she is the recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in
the Field of Latina/o Studies and her university’s Award for Distinguished
Teaching in the Social Sciences. She is currently expanding her studies of representations of Latino/as in prime time television to immigrants in Europe.
Personal webpage: http://faculty.fordham.edu/crodriguez
NANCY LÓPEZ SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Nancy López is Associate Professor of Sociology. She directs and
cofounded the Institute for the Study of “Race” & Social Justice, RWJF
Center for Health Policy, The University of New Mexico. Dr. López coedited
a volume entitled, Mapping “Race”: Critical Approaches to Health Disparities
Research (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, Critical Issues in Health
and Medicine Book Series, forthcoming in 2013). Her book Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education (New York: Routledge,
2003) focuses on Dominicans, West Indians, and Haitians to explain why
girls of color are succeeding at higher rates than their male counterparts. Her

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

current work focuses on the creation of meaningful conceptualizations of
“race” in as a dynamic multidimensional and multilevel social construction.
GRIGORIS ARGEROS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Grigoris Argeros is Assistant Professor of Sociology, and affiliate faculty
with the African-American Studies Program, at Mississippi State University.
Dr. Argeros earned a PhD in Sociology from Fordham University and an MA
in Applied Social Research from Queens College of the City University of
New York. His scholarly interests are in the areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, urban sociology, and social demography. Dr. Argeros’s work focuses
on the correlates and consequences of (i) patterns of racial/ethnic neighborhood change and (ii) changes in levels of residential segregation.
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Stereotype Content (Sociology), Beatrice H. Capestany and Lasana T. Harris
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Restoring Racial Justice (Psychology), Fania E. Davis et al.
Cultural Differences in Emotions (Psychology), Jozefien De Leersnyder et al.
Resilience (Psychology), Erica D. Diminich and George A. Bonanno
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and Cydney H. Dupree
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Gonzales and Benjamin J. Roth
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Davin L. Phoenix
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B. Drell
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Latinos and the Color Line

11

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Race in Latin America (Sociology), Edward Telles


Latinos and the Color Line
CLARA E. RODRÍGUEZ, NANCY LÓPEZ, and GRIGORIS ARGEROS

Abstract
This essay reviews the issues and current literature on how “race,” skin color,
and/or phenotype operate as stratifying agents among Latinos in the United States.
We review the trends and emerging issues in this area with regard to health, housing
and segregation, and socioeconomic status (SES), including education and criminal
justice. We do so in the context of the Census Bureau’s release of its 2010 Alternative
Questionnaire Experiment (AQE) study. This 5-year study focuses on how to best
ask the race question. One of the key findings of the study was that including
“Hispanic/Latinos” as a race in the combined questionnaire format did not reduce
the number of people identifying as Hispanic/Latino; however, it did reduce the
number of Hispanics/Latinos reporting detailed information on specific national
origin. The AQE also recommended further testing of the combined question
format. The only time that a Hispanic origin group was included in the Census
as a racial category was in 1930 when “Mexican” was included as a race. If the
Census recommends the inclusion of Hispanic as a race, it would mark a significant
departure from the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines and
the Census’ current policy of thinking of Latinos as an ethnic group, composed
of many races, to a racial group similar to Whites, Blacks, or Asians in the United
States. We also examine works that assess the importance of collecting data on race
and ethnicity as analytically distinct concepts.

INTRODUCTION
This essay reviews the issues and current literature on how “race,” skin color,
and/or phenotype operate as stratifying agents among Latinos in the United
States in terms of health, housing and segregation, and socioeconomic status
(SES) including education and criminal justice. The recent release of the Census Bureau’s 2010 Alternative Questionnaire Experiment (AQE) study (on
how to best ask the race question) has brought the issue to the fore again.
It also underscores the difficulty that both the US Census and Latinos have
had in accommodating to the two-dimensional (Black and White) US color
line. The Census’s conclusions suggest that they would advocate eliminating
the separate question in the census that asks whether a person is Hispanic
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

2

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

or Latino, and adding a Hispanic/Latino category to the race question. This
would alter the current census view of Latinos as an “ethnic group” that is
comprised of many races to a “race” group. Proponents of this change argue
that such a move would eliminate the tendency to view race as separate from
ethnicity and recognize that Latinos are a racial-ethnic group that experiences
discrimination. Others argue that conflating race with ethnicity would also
make it difficult to assess the relative importance of “race,” color, or phenotype as a stratifying variable among Latinos. Moreover, they conclude that
there is value added in maintaining an analytical distinction between race
and ethnicity among Latinos. A third perspective maintains that adding Latinos as a race would legitimize the Census’s current racial structure (which
many scholars and geneticists have rejected) and racialize Latinos. A fourth
view argues that we should eliminate the concept of “race” in the census altogether and replace it with another concept, such as national origin or ancestry.
In this essay, we focus our review of the literature on the trends and emerging
issues on racial stratification among Latinos in the United States with regard
to SES attainments, health and housing.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
In the early studies in this area, it was generally assumed that among Latinos,
“race” influenced their life chances and social position in society, that is, how
much income they might make, and what types of jobs, education, and housing they could attain. Some of the early literature focused on Puerto Ricans
and many authors predicted (or in some cases, concluded) that, given the
racial discrimination existent in the United States, those who were seen to be
white would have greater opportunities and outcomes than those who were
seen as Black. Those who could not pass for white and who did not assimilate into the Black/African American community, would have intermediate
outcomes, that is, between white and black Latinos.
The introduction in the 1980 decennial census of the Hispanic identifier, that
is, a question asking whether the person was Hispanic or not, (along with the
question asking everyone to report their “race”) enabled researchers to examine more precisely how Latinos reported themselves in terms of race. In the
2010 census, the large proportion (over 37%) of Latinos who chose the (formerly small) some other race (SOR) category was in stark contrast to the less
than 2% of non-Hispanics who chose this category. It was also in contrast to
what had been a tendency to view Latinos either as predominantly white—as
had been done in earlier census studies—or, as either Black or White. In fact,
over 37% of Latinos also chose the SOR category in the 1980, 1990, and 2000
censuses.

Latinos and the Color Line

3

The existence of this Hispanic identifier also spawned a great deal of
research examining the question of whether a Latino’s self-reported “race”
influenced the SES. This research has found a complex picture. A number of authors found support for the argument that those Latinos who
reported their race as white had higher SES attainments than those who
reported they were Black and/or SOR. Other researchers examined the
relationship between Latinos’ phenotypes and/or their skin color and
found, as Roth notes, that lighter and more European-looking Latinos
were also generally doing better than their darker counterparts. The SES
areas examined included education, employment, occupation, earnings,
household income, hourly wage, poverty, housing, self-esteem, and mental
health.
However, some studies found that higher SES in the Latino community
was not so clearly correlated with Latinos reporting their race as “white.”
Part of the reason for these mixed findings may have to do with how “race”
was measured in the studies, that is, whether it was based on how others
identified Latinos or how Latinos reported themselves on race questions.
Differences in how Latinos self-reported their race and how their race was
recorded by others have been found in numerous studies. In addition, for
some time, census re-interview studies and other descriptive studies have
also found that some Latino respondents change their racial self-classification
over time and that their response is sometimes dependent on question context. This, of course, influences how we approach and answer the question of
whether Latinos’ race is a significant stratifying variable in the United States,
for some Latinos will place themselves differently on the color line than they
would be placed by others.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
As noted earlier, the AQE study raises the question of whether Latinos
are to be seen as a race or as an ethnic group, composed of different races.
The Human Genome Project and several leading scholarly associations,
including the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the American Anthropological Association, the American Sociological Association
and the American Psychological Association have all produced statements
clarifying that race and ethnicity are both social constructions that have no
biological or genetic basis. Some argue that race is very similar to ethnicity
and that having two separate questions reinforces a biological view of race.
Others maintain that because race and ethnicity are so similar, Latinos
should have a category in the census’ race question. However, a growing
number of researchers have examined the importance of maintaining a
conceptual distinction between race and ethnicity. Leading this effort are

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

scholars of health and medicine. Using the “Reactions to “Race” Module of
the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System,” scholars have found
that one measure, that is., “socially defined race,” was more important
than self—identified “race” in terms of predicting health status, even after
controlling for socioeconomic variables such as income and educational
attainment.
In other words, Hispanics who indicated that others usually classified them
as “White” had health outcomes that were closer to non-Hispanic whites.
It is important to note that non-Hispanic whites had the best self-reported
health status of any of the racial and or ethnic groups. Given these results,
some researchers, such as Gravlee and his colleagues argue that, whenever
possible, researchers should include measures of socially defined race as a
key dimension of social stratification and that this is of particular relevance
for health outcomes. In studies of the health disparities between Black and
White Hispanics, LaVeist-Ramos and his colleagues also found that the
Black Hispanic experiences within the health care industry mirrored that
of other Blacks in the United States. This is theoretically important as we
cannot assume that Latinos/Hispanics from even the same ethnic origin,
ancestry, nationality or even family share the same racial status or what
López refers to as “lived race-gender.”
The AQE study suggests that one possible approach to a combined question in the 2020 census would be to have respondents be able to choose more
than one race category. Latinos could then choose the Latino category and
also another race category, that is, White, Black, Asian, or Native American
Indian. However, some scholars such as Hernandez argue that given the “depreciation” of nonwhite races throughout Latin America, this would result in
a larger white count, as those Latinos who chose more than one race would
most likely choose white and not any of the other races.
In education, qualitative and quantitative studies also point to the persistence of the color line and the importance of examining the intersection of
race and gender in shaping the interactions of second generation Caribbean
youth. Focusing on Dominicans, West Indians, and Haitians in urban educational settings, López finds that girls of color were succeeding at higher rates
than their male counterparts. This was due in large part to the similarity in the
racialization experiences of men who, regardless of their ethnic background,
had very similar experiences with discrimination and with being racialized
as potential criminals. Women, on the other hand, spoke about multiple experiences with racial stigma that was related to their sexuality. This research
points to the need to examine the “gendered color line” for understanding
inequalities in education and other dimensions of SES.

Latinos and the Color Line

5

KEY ISSUES: LOCAL AND NATIONAL CONTEXTS MATTER
As noted earlier, there has been a consistently high proportion of Latinos
who choose the SOR category in the census. This, despite census attempts
to discourage this SOR response. How, why, and where Latinos report
their race influences the data that is collected and analyzed by researchers.
Much research has gone into examining more closely the determinants of
Latino race reporting. At stake here is how particular variables and local
and national contexts affect (individually or in combination) the SES of
Latinos in the United States. In addition to the SES variables noted earlier
that researchers have historically investigated, others have recently been
added. These have included a person’s national origin and skin color, their
level of acculturation, and their generational status. Not surprisingly, and
in keeping with previous research, lighter skin increases the likelihood of
a “white” identification and decreases the odds of reporting as “black” or
“other.” In addition, contextual social variables, such as whether or not they
have experienced (or they perceive) racial discrimination and whether they
identify with others who have experienced actual discrimination, have also
been examined. Moreover, location, that is, where they live or go to school,
has been found to be related to how Latinos report their race. In addition,
migration, that is, whether they bring or hold alternative “racial schemas,”
has been found to influence race reporting. Acculturation and how long
Latinos have lived in the United States have also been investigated with
mixed results. Lastly, a great deal of research has focused on how the way a
question is asked influences Latino race reporting.
A key issue here is the role—or the weight—that each these variables will
have as the United States becomes more racially and ethnically heterogeneous; and, as intermarriage and multiracial identities grow. Another key
issue is whether discrimination (perceived or actual) will influence how Latinos report their race. This has implications for the question of whether Latinos’ reported “race” is related to their SES attainments. For example, if a
Latino (with high SES attainments who reports himself or herself as White)
experiences discrimination because of being a Latino, he or she may reevaluate how they see their view of their race. Likewise, even if they have not
experienced actual discrimination, the fact that they perceive other Latinos
(or nonwhites) to face a glass or concrete ceiling may also cause the Latina/o
to change their view of himself or herself as “white” and choose “SOR” or
“black.” Thus, greater experience (or acculturation) in the United States may
lead some Latinos—who arrived with high SES attainments and who saw
themselves as white within their country of origin’s racial schemas—to see
themselves as nonwhite in the United States.

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

A related key issue is whether growing up in predominantly minority
schools or geographic areas influences who they identify with in society;
and, whether this changes over time. Implicit in this discussion is the
question of whether acculturation and increased time in the United States
leads to a continuance of the assimilation experience undergone by earlier
(mainly European) immigrant groups or to a racialized assimilation. Or,
if this will vary depending on the “acculturated” person’s phenotype and
clues/cues to his/her Latino ancestry.
Another important issue has to do with researchers’ awareness of the role of
“context” on Latino race reporting. Although this has been noted and studied
in the literature, researchers need to be cognizant of its role in their research.
In other words, whether a person is being asked for their race on a scholarship application or on a mortgage application may influence how they
report their race. Whether they are asked to check off their membership in
a group that lists many other racial and cultural/national origin groups or
to simply state their “race” may also influence how Latinos report their race.
And, finally residence, that is, what part of the country they live in, what
neighborhood, and their school context may also shape how Latinos identify. Accordingly, this will influence analyses that are done examining Latino
racial/ethnic stratification. Researchers must always be attentive to how situational, local, and national contexts matter for racialization and reporting
of racial identity among Latinos, as well as other groups. This is theoretically
important as we cannot assume that Latinos/Hispanics from even the same
ethnic origin, ancestry, nationality or even family share the same racial status
or what López refers to as "street race-gender" or “lived race-gender” (López,
2013a; 2013b; 2014).
Finally, demographic changes and regional dispersion of the Latino
population during the past 20 years requires that researchers take into
consideration how race influences Latino ethnic groups’ SES attainments,
residential segregation, and mobility patterns and outcomes. It is also imperative that differences in national origin, nativity status, SES, acculturation,
family/household, generational status, and homeownership (including
the metropolitan area characteristics of where Latinos reside) be taken into
account. For these may produce or reflect variations in residential segregation and mobility outcomes among Latinos, by socially defined race. For
example, studies examining residential segregation and housing outcomes
reveal that race interacts with nativity status, ethnicity, and acculturation
status to produce variations in the neighborhoods where Latinos reside,
relative to other racial/ethnic groups. Insofar as traditional models of
residential mobility have successfully captured the locational outcomes for
the majority of white European ethnic groups, nonwhite Latino residential
patterns might not follow the same linear outcomes. Furthermore, we need

Latinos and the Color Line

7

to investigate how race influences Latino locational outcomes in the new
destinations they are moving into, such as traditional and nontraditional
suburban neighborhoods, especially in the South.
REFERENCES
López, N. (2013a). Killing Two Birds With One Stone? Why We Need Two Separate
Questions on Race & Ethnicity in 2020 Census and Beyond. Latino Studies Journal,
11(3), 428–438.
López, N. (2013b). Contextualizing lived-race gender and the racialized-gendered
social determinants of health. In L. Gómez & N. López (Eds.), Mapping “race”:
Critical approaches to health disparities research (pp. 256–304). New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.
López, N. (2014). “What’s Your “Street Race-Gender”? Why We Need Separate
Questions on Hispanic Origin and Race for the 2020 Census,” — Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation Scholars Forum, Disparities, Resilience and Building a Culture of Health, Human Capital Blog, November 26th. http://www.rwjf.org/
en/blogs/human-capital-blog/2014/11/what_s_your_street.html (last accessed
11/30/14).

FURTHER READING
Note: This essay reviews issues and trends in a very broad area that has recently been
the site of much innovative research, that is, Latinos and the color line, so there are
a lot of references that could be recommended. We decided that what might be best
is to list both those that address the issue more generally and those that address
specific areas, such as health, housing and segregation, socioeconomic attainments
and crime.
General
Compton, E., Bentley, M., Ennis, S., & Rastogi, S. (2012). 2010 census race and Hispanic origin alternative questionnaire experiment. Washington DC: US Census Bureau.
Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/2010census/pdf/2010_Census_Race_
HO_AQE.pdf.
Hernandez, T. (2002). Multiracial matrix. Cornell Law Review, 87, 1094–1174.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From 1960s to 1990s
(2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Prewitt, K. (2013). What is your race? The flawed effort of the census to classify Americans.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Rodriguez, C. (2000). Changing race: Latinos, the census, and the history of ethnicity in
the United States. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Roth, W. (2012). Race migrations: Latinos and the cultural transformation of race. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Vargas-Ramos, C. (2012). Migrating race: Migration and racial identification
among Puerto Rican. Ethnic and Racial Studies, iFirst Article:, 1–22. doi:10.1080/
01419870.2012.672759
Vidal-Ortiz, S. (2004). On being a white person of color: Using auto ethnography to
understand Puerto Ricans’ racialization. Qualitative Sociology, 27, 179–203.
Crime
Steffensmeier, D., & Demuth, S. (2000). Ethnicity and sentencing outcomes in U.S.
federal courts: Who is punished more harshly? American Sociological Review, 65,
705–729.
Health
Gravlee, C. C., Dressler, W. W., & Bernard, H. R. (2005). Skin color, social classification, and blood pressure in Puerto Rico. American Journal of Public Health, 12,
2191–2197.
Jones, C., Truman, B., Elam-Evans, L., Jones, C. Y., Jiles, R., Rumisha, S., & Perry, G.
(2008). Using ‘ssocially asigned race’ to probe white advantages in health status.
Ethnicity & Disease, 18, 496–504.
LaVeist-Ramos, T., Galarraga, J., Thorpe, R., Jr., Bell, C., & Austin, C. (2011). Are black
Hispanics black or Hispanic? Exploring disparities at the intersection of race and
ethnicity. Journal of Epidemiological Community Health, 10, 1136.1–1136.5.
Housing & Segregation
Iceland, J., & Nelson, K. (2008). Hispanic segregation in metropolitan America:
Exploring the multiple forms of spatial assimilation. American Sociological Review,
73, 741–765.
Massey, D., & Denton, N. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the
American underclass. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Socioeconomic Status
Frank, R., Akresh, I. R., & Lu, B. (2010). Latino immigrants and the U.S. racial order:
How and where do they fit in? American Sociological Review, 75, 378–401.
Golash-Boza, T., & Darity, W., Jr., (2008). Latino racial choices: The effects of skin
colour and discrimination on Latinos’ and Latinas’ racial self-identifications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31, 899–934.
Itzigsohn, J., Giorguli, S., & Vazquez, O. (2005). Immigrant incorporation and racial
identity: Racial self-identification among Dominican immigrants. Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 28, 50–78.
Logan, J. (2004). How race counts for Hispanic Americans. Sage Race Relations
Abstracts, 29, 7–19.

Latinos and the Color Line

9

López, N. (2003). Hopeful girls, troubled boys: Race and gender disparity in urban education. New York, NY: Routledge.
Michael, J., & Timberlake, J. M. (2008). Are Latinos becoming white? How that works,
what it is, how to access it — determinants of Latinos’ racial self-identification
in the U.S. In C. A. Gallagher (Ed.), Racism in post-race America: New theories, new
directions (pp. 107–122). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina.
Noguera, P., Hurtado, A., & Fergus, E. (Eds.) (2012). Invisible no more: Understanding
the disenfranchisement of Latino men and boys. New York, NY: Routledge.
Portes, A., & Zhou, M. (1993). The new second generation: Segmented assimilation
and it variants. The Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
530, 74–96.
Tafoya, S. (2004). Shades of belonging (pp. 1–25). Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic
Center.
Telles, E., & Murguia, E. (1996). Phenotype and schooling among Mexican Americans. Sociology of Education, 69, 276–289.

CLARA E. RODRÍGUEZ SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Clara E. Rodríguez is a Professor of Sociology at Fordham University’s
College at Lincoln Center. She is the author of several books including Changing Race: Latinos, The Census and the History of Ethnicity in the United States and
Hispanics in the Labor Force: Issues and Policies, with Meléndez, E. and Barry
Figueroa, J. (Eds.). She is also coauthor of The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century, Stanford University Press (2007) which was translated
into Chinese. She has written numerous articles on Latinos in the United
States and on the media. In addition, she is the recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in
the Field of Latina/o Studies and her university’s Award for Distinguished
Teaching in the Social Sciences. She is currently expanding her studies of representations of Latino/as in prime time television to immigrants in Europe.
Personal webpage: http://faculty.fordham.edu/crodriguez
NANCY LÓPEZ SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Nancy López is Associate Professor of Sociology. She directs and
cofounded the Institute for the Study of “Race” & Social Justice, RWJF
Center for Health Policy, The University of New Mexico. Dr. López coedited
a volume entitled, Mapping “Race”: Critical Approaches to Health Disparities
Research (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, Critical Issues in Health
and Medicine Book Series, forthcoming in 2013). Her book Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education (New York: Routledge,
2003) focuses on Dominicans, West Indians, and Haitians to explain why
girls of color are succeeding at higher rates than their male counterparts. Her

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

current work focuses on the creation of meaningful conceptualizations of
“race” in as a dynamic multidimensional and multilevel social construction.
GRIGORIS ARGEROS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Grigoris Argeros is Assistant Professor of Sociology, and affiliate faculty
with the African-American Studies Program, at Mississippi State University.
Dr. Argeros earned a PhD in Sociology from Fordham University and an MA
in Applied Social Research from Queens College of the City University of
New York. His scholarly interests are in the areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, urban sociology, and social demography. Dr. Argeros’s work focuses
on the correlates and consequences of (i) patterns of racial/ethnic neighborhood change and (ii) changes in levels of residential segregation.
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Latinos and the Color Line