How do Latino immigrants in the United States understand existing racial categories? And how does the existing U.S. racial order influence this understanding? Using data from the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), our analysis points to changes in how the U.S. racial order might operate in the future. We find that most Latino immigrants recognize the advantages of a White racial designation when asked to self-identify, but wider society is not often accepting of this White expansion. Our findings suggest that relatively darker-skinned Latino immigrants experience skin-color-based discrimination in the realm of annual income. Furthermore, Latinos who are most integrated into the United States are the most likely to opt out of the existing U.S. racial categorization scheme. We predict that a racial boundary is forming around some Latino immigrants: those with darker skin and those who have more experience in the U.S. racial stratification system.

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Latino Immigrants and the U.S. Racial Order How and Where Do They Fit In

The literature on assimilation and ethnic identity formation largely assumes that the durability of ethnic boundaries is a function of the assimilation measures that sociologists commonly employ. But this literature fails to account adequately for the role of immigration patterns in explaining the durability and nature of ethnic boundaries. Using 123 in-depth interviews with later-generation Mexican Americans, this article shows that Mexican immigrant replenishment shapes ethnic boundaries and ethnic identity formation. The sizable immigrant population sharpens intergroup boundaries through the indirect effects of nativism and by contributing to the continuing significance of race in the lives of later-generation Mexican Americans. The presence of a large immigrant population also creates intragroup boundaries that run through the Mexican-origin population and that are animated by expectations about ethnic authenticity. The article illustrates the importance of immigrant replenishment to processes of assimilation and ethnic identity formation.

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Mexican immigrant replenishment and the continuing significance of ethnicity and race.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) revolutionized how we investigate race in education. Centralizing counter-stories from people of color becomes essential for decentralizing white normative discourse—a process we refer to as realities within the Black imagination. Yet, few studies examine how whites respond to centering the Black imagination, especially since their white imagination goes unrecognized. We propose utilizing Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) to support CRT to aid in deconstructing the dimensions of white imaginations. Our findings describe how the white imagination operates inside the minds of white teacher candidates, namely through their (a) emotional disinvestment, (b) lack of critical understanding of race, (c) resurgence of white guilt, and (d) recycling of hegemonic whiteness, all of which negatively impact their role in anti-racist teaching in urban schools.

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“What is Critical Whiteness Doing in OUR Nice Field like Critical Race Theory?” Applying CRT and CWS to Understand the White Imaginations of White Teacher Candidates

This article was presented as the 2008 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City. It argues that, to generate robust and generative theories of human learning and development, researchers must address the range of diversity within human cultural communities. The argument is warranted on implications from brain science regarding human adaptability and on core findings with regard to relations between cognition, perceptions, and emotions, all influenced by broad ecological contexts that influence human functioning. Implications for education are discussed, with examples of research that address fundamental questions of learning through examinations of practices within communities of color.

2008 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture—The Centrality of Culture to the Scientific Study of Learning and Development: How an Ecological Framework in Education Research Facilitates Civic Responsibility

Segregation by Design draws on more than 100 years of quantitative and qualitative data from thousands of American cities to explore how local governments generate race and class segregation. Starting in the early twentieth century, cities have used their power of land use control to determine the location and availability of housing, amenities (such as parks), and negative land uses (such as garbage dumps). The result has been segregation - first within cities and more recently between them. Documenting changing patterns of segregation and their political mechanisms, Trounstine argues that city governments have pursued these policies to enhance the wealth and resources of white property owners at the expense of people of color and the poor. Contrary to leading theories of urban politics, local democracy has not functioned to represent all residents. The result is unequal access to fundamental local services - from schools, to safe neighborhoods, to clean water.

Gary Gerstle

Papers

Working toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White; The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs