The Abandoned Promise of Civil Rights

Fifty years after the civil rights movement, ethnic and racial disparities persist and have even widened across a number of socioeconomic indicators. When compared against whites, nonwhites today fare about the same or worse than their counterparts of the past in educational and occupational attainment, income and earnings, wealth, unemployment and underemployment. How can we understand the failure of racial and ethnic minority groups to attain socioeconomic parity with non-Hispanic whites following one of the most progressive eras of American race relations? Contemporary economic and political approaches are often considered separately and offer different explanations. What they share in common, however, is a tendency to downplay the salience of race as a significant factor that conditions the life chances of nonwhites in the post-civil rights era. This article introduces a critical race perspective to redirect this conversation. This approach starts from the premise that the social structure of the United States is highly stratified by race, which conditions racially unequal outcomes. In the post-civil rights era, color-blind racism is the hegemonic ideology, discourse, and practice, which justifies persistent racial inequality. The development of a color-blind ideology reflects this historical moment and the larger political and economic context; thus, its development is consistent with the political shift toward neoconservatism and the economic transition to neoliberalism. Taken together, these social forces foster the reproduction of a racialized social system characterized by persistent racial inequality that is observed in the post-civil rights era

Mixed marriages and transnational families in the intercultural context : a case study of African-Spanish couples in Catalonia, Spain

Premi a l'excel·lència investigadora. Àmbit de les Ciències Socials. 2008One of the consequences of international migration and the permanent settlement of immigrants in southern EU countries is the growing number of inter-country marriages and the formation of transnational families. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, this article examines patterns of endogamy and exogamy (i.e. marriage within/outside a particular group or category) among African immigrants in Catalonia, focusing on bi-national Senegalese- and Gambian-Spanish couples. Socio-demographic profiles, transnationality, the dynamics of cultural change or retention, and the formation of transcultural identities are explored. The evidence presented suggests that social-class factors are more important than cultural origins in patterns of endogamy and exogamy, in the dynamics of living together and in the bringing-up of children of mixed unions. Such a conclusion negates culturalists' explanations of endogamy and exogamy while, at the same time, emphasising the role of social actors as active subjects in these processes. I further argue that mixed couples and their offspring deal-to a greater or lesser extent-with multiple localisations and cultural backgrounds (i.e. here and there), rather than experiencing a 'clash between two cultures'. Therefore, it would be a mistake to pretend that multicultural links do not exist and that they cannot be revitalised and functional. The paper starts and ends by addressing the complexities of processes of interculturalism, resisting an interpretation of hybridity and segregation as contradictory or exclusive realities

Ethnic Label Use in Adolescents from Traditional and Non-Traditional Immigrant Communities

Understanding adolescents’ use of ethnic labels is a key developmental issue, particularly given the practical significance of identity and self-definition in adolescents’ lives. Ethnic labeling was examined among adolescents in the traditional immigrant receiving area of Los Angeles (Asian n = 258, Latino n = 279) and the non-traditional immigrant receiving area of North Carolina (Asian n = 165, Latino n = 239). Logistic regressions showed that adolescents from different geographic settings use different ethnic labels, with youth from NC preferring heritage and panethnic labels and youth from LA preferring hyphenated American labels. Second generation youth were more likely than first generation youth to use hyphenated American labels, and less likely to use heritage or panethnic labels. Greater ethnic centrality increased the odds of heritage label use, and greater English proficiency increased the odds of heritage-American label use. These associations significantly mediated the initial effects of setting. Further results examine ethnic differences as well as links between labels and self-esteem. The discussion highlights implications of ethnic labeling and context

Developmental Trajectories of Acculturation: Links With Family Functioning and Mental Health in Recent‐Immigrant Hispanic Adolescents

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111772/1/cdev12341.pd

Methodological Issues in Ethnic and Racial Identity Research With Ethnic Minority Populations: Theoretical Precision, Measurement Issues, and Research Designs

This article takes stock of research methods employed in the study of racial and ethnic identity with ethnic minority populations. The article is presented in three parts. The first section reviews theories, conceptualizations, and measurement of ethnic and racial identity (ERI) development. The second section reviews theories, conceptualizations, and measurement of ERI content. The final section reviews key methodological and analytic principles that are important to consider for both ERI development and content. The article concludes with suggestions for future research addressing key methodological limitations when studying ERI