Beyond Panethnicity: The Politics of Latinx Racial Identities

• In Event: Immigrants, Ethnic Identity and Political Participation

Abstract

Latinos’ racial identities pose an important puzzle. On the one hand, Latinos are a phenotypically diverse population, including individuals who might be categorized by observers, for example, as Black, White, Asian, or ambiguously Multiracial. On the other hand, existing data suggests that racial identities beyond panethnicity or national origin are not salient for Latinos. In the U.S. Census, over 90 percent of Latinos identify as White, “Some other race,” or both of these. The prevailing consensus in the literature on this topic suggests that Latinos primarily view themselves racially as Hispanic, Latino, or as a national origin group such as Mexican (Itzigsohn and Dore-Cabral 2000; Hitlin, Brown, and Elder 2007; Roth 2012; cf Irizarry, Monk, and Cobb 2022). These findings should only be more puzzling when we consider the significance of racial difference among Latinos for socioeconomic status and health (Telles and Murguia 1990; Massey and Denton 1992; Chavez-Dueñas, Adames, and Organista 2014) and the importance of racial identity for understanding the politics of non-Latino groups (Dawson 1994; Jardina 2019). Why is this the case?

In this paper, I argue that existing ways of measuring or understanding race for Latinos are insufficient. Drawing upon original survey data and in-depth interviews, I find that many Latinos attach meaning to labels such as White, Black or Afro-Latine, or Mixed. Adapting the group consciousness scale to racial differences among Latinos (Miller et al. 1981), I show that Latinos generally see their within-group racial identities as important to them and display in-group bias – preferring their Latino racial group to others. Latinos’ self-classification choices on their own are significant predictors of party ID, with White Latinos being on average more Republican than Black, Multiracial, or Indigenous Latinos. However, going beyond self-classification choices, racial group consciousness is a strong predictor of party ID and immigration attitudes, taking into account other social and psychological variables. Among White-identifying Latinos, going from 0 to 1 in racial group consciousness is associated with a rightward shift in party ID of 54% of the full scale. My findings suggest that racial identities beyond panethnicity or national origin are an important but overlooked element of Latinx political attitudes. Racial differences among Latinos may be pivotal in the future of racial boundaries, assimilation, and politics in the U.S.

Author

• Chris Flores, Stanford