Abstract
“Part-Latinos” or the offspring of Latino/non-Latino unions account for half of all mixed births in the United States. Yet very little is known about their demographic makeup due to conceptual and methodological challenges to identifying people of partial Latino ancestry in large surveys. In this study, I adopt an “ancestry approach” to capture part-Latinos in the American Community Survey and examine the demographic profiles of six part-Latino groups. Moreover, I assess the placement of Latino/White people, Latino/Black people, and Latino/Asians on the US color line by drawing on color line theories and comparing their demographic and socioeconomic profiles with Latinos and their non-Latino counterparts. Findings reveal significant variations in demographic makeup across part-Latino groups, underlying their diverse experiences and social conditions. Results also show that Latino/White people and Latino/Black people resemble their non-Latino groups, while Latino/Asians occupy a status between Latinos and Asians. Implications of findings are discussed.
Resumen
Las personas “en parte latinas” o producto de la unión de una persona latina y una no latina, representan la mitad de todos los nacimientos mixtos en los Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, poco se conoce sobre su composición demográfica debido a las dificultades conceptuales y metodológicas que surgen al tratar de identificar a las personas de ascendencia latina parcial en las grandes encuestas. En este estudio adoptamos un “enfoque de ascendencia” para captar a las personas de ascendencia parcialmente latina en la Encuesta sobre la Comunidad Estadounidense (American Community Survey) y examinar los perfiles demográficos de seis grupos de personas de ascendencia latina parcial. Además, evaluamos la colocación de personas latinas/blancas, latinas/negras y latinas/asiáticas en la línea de color de los Estados Unidos partiendo de las teorías de las líneas de color y comparando sus perfiles demográficos y socioeconómicos con los latinos y sus homólogos no latinos. Los hallazgos revelan variaciones significativas en la composición demográfica de todos los grupos de personas en parte latinas subyacentes a sus diversas experiencias y condiciones sociales. Los resultados también muestran que las personas latinas/blancas y latinas/negras se parecen a sus grupos no latinos, mientras que las latinas/asiáticas ocupan un estatus entre latinas y asiáticas. Se discuten las implicaciones de estos hallazgos.
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Notes
For clarity’s sake, I refer to non-Latino White people, Black people, and so on as simply White people, Black people, and so on unless specified otherwise. This is not to “essentialize” categories or population groups, but rather make it easier for the readers to follow.
When discussing different part-Latino groups, the slash represents the marker describing their specific mixed heritage. For instance, Latino/Asian refers to part-Latinos who are the offspring of Latino and non-Latino Asian unions.
By Latino/Black people, I am referring to part-Latinos who are the offspring of Latino and non-Latino Black unions, and not “Afro-Latinos” or Latinos of African descent. The data analyzed in this study are not intended to capture the social conditions of Afro-Latino experiences. For more on recent scholarship pertaining to Afro-Latinos, see Garcia-Louis and Cortes (2023), Gonzalez-Barrera (2022), Hernandez (2022), and Hordge-Freeman and Veras (2020).
For example, US born, English-dominant, and highly educated Latinos who report “Hispanic” in the Hispanic origin question and “White” in the race question.
For instance, Latino/Black responses are broken into three categories of Latino monoracial (i.e., reporting “Latino” in the Hispanic origin question, “non-Black” in the race question), Latino-Black biracial (i.e., reporting “Latino” in the Hispanic origin question, “Black” in the race question), and Black monoracial (i.e., reporting “non-Latino” in the Hispanic origin question, “Black” in the race question).
For example, one respondent may have reported “No, not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” and “Yes, Puerto Rican” in the Hispanic origin question in the 2000 census. Ultimately, these responses were blanketed and allocated (approximately fifty–fifty proportionally) by the US Census Bureau to a single category of “Hispanic” or “Non-Hispanic” (Ramirez 2005).
While this restriction excludes foreign born part-Latinos, preliminary analysis of the 2013–2017 ACS revealed that over ninety-four percent of those reporting Latino and non-Latino origins in the ancestry question were US born.
Currently people of Middle Eastern and North African descent are racially classified as “White” in the census and ACS (Mathews et al. 2017).
For residential status, I rely on measures for homeownership and metropolitan status in the ACS. Following Alba (2020), I combine homeownership status with “In central/principal city” and “Central/principal city status unknown” to create the category “Owner, suburban.” For the “Renter, urban” category, I merge renter status with “In central/principal city” and “Central/principal city status unknown.” I construct the “Non-metropolitan area” category by using “Not in metropolitan area,” regardless of homeownership status.
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Miyawaki, M.H. Who are part-Latinos? A demographic portrait of people of partial Latino ancestry. Lat Stud (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-023-00432-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-023-00432-4