Racial self-identification among Puerto Ricans in the US and on the island

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White, Black, or Puerto Rican? Racial Self-Identification among
Mainland and Island Puerto
Ricans
Author(s): Nancy S. Landale and R.S. Oropesa
Source: Social Forces, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Sep., 2002), pp. 231-
254
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3086533
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White, Black, or Puerto Rican?
Racial Self-Identification among Mainland
and Island Puerto Ricans*
NANCY S. LANDALE, Pennsylvania State University
R.S. OROPESA, Pennsylvania State University
Abstract
Recent studies have examined the implications of exposure to
U.S. race relations for the
racial and ethnic identities of migrants to the U.S. Most
investigations are based
exclusively on U.S. data. There arefew, if any, comparisons of
the identities of migrants
and their offspring to those of nonmigrants in their country of
origin. Using data from
a survey of Puerto Rican mothers in the U.S. and Puerto Rico,
this study provides such
a comparison. Responses to an open-ended race question show
that mainland and island
Puerto Ricans most often designate their "race" as Puerto Rican,
but responses of women
who do not self-identify as Puerto Rican diverge between the
U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Island women primarily identify themselves as white, black, or
triguefa, while mainland
women identify themselves as Hispanic/Latina, Hispanic
American, or American.
Mainland-island differences cannot be explained by parental

ethnicity, skin tone,
demographic factors, and socioeconomic status. The findings
suggest that mainland
Puerto Ricans more strongly reject the conventional U.S. notion
of race than do their
island counterparts.
During the last several years, both the meaning and the
measurement of race have
resurfaced as important academic and policy concerns. The
growing diversity of
the U.S. population and an increase in the number of mixed-race
individuals have
stimulated a reconsideration of the complexities of racial self-
identification and
racial classification systems (Hirschman, Alba & Farley 2000;
Rodriguez 2000).
* The research reported in this article was supported by the
National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development, the Maternal and Child Health
Bureau, and the Centers for Disease
Control. Support services were provided by the Population
Research Institute, Pennsylvania
State University. Direct correspondence to Nancy S. Landale,
Population Research Institute,
601 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail:
[email protected]
? The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces,
September 2002, 81 ( 1):231-254
2015 20:00:29 UTC

232 / Social Forces 81:1, September 2002
Indeed, the U.S. government instituted significant changes in its
racial classification
system in 1997, when the Office of Management and Budget
issued revised federal
standards for the collection of data on race and ethnicity. A
fundamental revision
to the standards is that individuals are now allowed to select
more than one racial
category to identify their racial identity.
A group that figures prominently in debates about the
measurement of race is
the Hispanic population. Most data collection systems include
separate items on
race and Hispanic ethnicity. For example, the 2000 U.S. census
designated six major
racial categories (white, black or African American, Asian,
American Indian or
Alaskan native, native Hawaiian or other Pacific islander, and
some "other" race)
and two ethnic categories (Hispanic and non-Hispanic).
Although Hispanics were
allowed to self-identify with any racial group, including
multiple groups if they
desired, about 42% of Hispanics rejected the conventional race
categories and
instead selected "other" to represent their race
(http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/
www/2001/cb01cn61.html). It is commonly argued that this
pattern reflects the

fact that race has a different meaning for Hispanics than it does
for other ethnic
groups (Rodriguez 2000).
In this article, we focus on racial self-identification among
Puerto Ricans, a
Caribbean Hispanic group with a complex ancestry and
considerable phenotypic
variation. Using data collected from a representative sample of
Puerto Rican
mothers in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, we address several
questions: What terms do
Puerto Rican women use to describe their racial identities? How
closely do these
terms correspond to standard racial categories? What is the role
of skin color in
racial identity? What other personal attributes and achievements
structure racial
self-identification? As each of these questions is considered, a
major focus is the
difference between Puerto Rican women in the U.S. and Puerto
Rico.
Background
Although the census and other federal data collection systems
specify racial
categories other than black and white (i.e., Asian, American
Indian or Alaskan
native, native Hawaiian or other Pacific islander), very few
Hispanics fall into such
groups. Thus, when Hispanics select their racial identity from
closed-ended

questions modeled after the census, their choice set reduces to
black, white, and
other. The fact that Hispanics frequently select "other" indicates
the inadequacy of
existing classificatory schemes for describing the racial
identities of those who trace
their origins to Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean
(Denton & Massey 1989;
Rodriguez 2000).
The lack of fit between a black-white conception of race and the
views of
Hispanics is at least partially attributable to race relations in
their countries of
origin (Safa 1998). In Latin America and the Spanish
Caribbean, a long history of
2015 20:00:29 UTC
Mainland and Island Puerto Ricans / 233
intermarriage between indigenous populations, Spanish
colonizers, and African-
origin slaves produced a racially mixed population. As a result,
race is typically
regarded as a multicategory spectrum on which black and white

represent end-
points (Denton & Massey 1989; Fitzpatrick 1971; Mintz 1974;
Rodriguez 2000;
Wade 1997). Skin color influences social position in Latin
American and
Caribbean societies; however, individuals of mixed racial
origins are not
automatically assigned to the subordinate group in a
dichotomous classification,
as typically occurs in U.S. society. As noted by Winn (1992),
Compared to Latin America and the Caribbean, the United
States is not just racist,
but color-blind: people are either black or white. In the other
Americas, a more
complex consciousness of color sees black and white, but also
recognizes many
shades in between. Nor do the differences stop there. In the
United States, any
degree of African ancestry makes a person black, while in Latin
America and the
Caribbean any degree of non-African ancestry means that a
person is not black.
(277)
In addition, factors other than skin color influence racial
classification in Latin
America and the Caribbean. In particular, social class is based
on skin tone, and
other physical and social characteristics (e.g., facial features,
hair texture, language
use, demeanor) play a role (Duany 1985; Fitzpatrick 1971;
Mintz 1971; Rodriguez

2000; Torres 1998). Thus, definitions of race are more flexible
and ambiguous than
is the case in the U.S.
Like other Latin American and Caribbean groups, Puerto Rico's
population has
a complex ancestry and a wide range of physical characteristics.
Intermediate racial
categories are recognized, as indicated by terms such as trigueio
and moreno
(Fitzpatrick 1971; Rodriguez 2000; Rogler 1944).3 At the same
time, Puerto Rican
islanders often view race as equivalent to nationality, culture,
or birthplace (Mills,
Senior & Goldsen 1950; Rodriguez 2000). The mismatch
between the way race is
viewed in Puerto Rico and the closed-ended categories typically
used in the U.S. is
evident in the exclusion of race questions in the U.S. census for
Puerto Rico from
1950 through 1990 (Rivera-Batiz & Santiago 1996).
MIGRATION AND RACIAL IDENTITY
A number of scholars maintain that the construction of a racial
and ethnic identity
is an ongoing process that involves negotiation between an
individual and others
(Omi & Winant 1994; Portes & Rumbaut 2001; Rodriguez &
Cordero-Guzman
1992; Rodriguez 2000; Waters 1999). Self-definitions shift over
time and across
social contexts. Waters (1999) notes the situational flexibility
of identities: In the

course of their everyday lives, individuals may emphasize a
certain identity in one
situation and a different identity in another. In addition, racial
and ethnic identities
may be challenged when individuals change their place of
residence. In particular,
2015 20:00:29 UTC
migrants often encounter different definitions of their racial
identities in origin
and destination locales.
The influence of social context on identity is especially salient
for Puerto
Ricans because of the frequency of migration between Puerto
Rico and the U.S.
During the latter half of the twentieth century, Puerto Rico
experienced a very high
rate of outmigration, and most outmigrants settled in the U.S.
(Rivera-Batiz &
Santiago 1996). As a result, roughly 40% of mainland Puerto
Ricans were born in
Puerto Rico.
One of many adjustments required of Puerto Rican migrants to

the mainland
is finding their place in the U.S. system of race relations. Not
only must migrants
adapt to a change in their status from majority group member to
minority group
member; they also face pressure to redefine themselves in terms
of the black-white
dichotomy that delineates race relations in the U.S. (Denton &
Massey 1989;
Fitzpatrick 1971). In many encounters, relatively dark-skinned
Puerto Ricans are
regarded as black because of their mixed racial origins. Yet they
are often reluctant
to assume a black identity because they recognize that black
people are stigmatized
in the U.S.
Puerto Rican migrants frequently respond to this dilemma by
rejecting the U.S.
racial dichotomy altogether. Consistent with the way race is
often conceptualized
in Puerto Rico, many migrants emphasize a national identity as
their "race"; that
is, they define their race as Puerto Rican. Others develop a
Hispanic/Latino identity
as they recognize the similarities between their social position
and that of other
U.S. Hispanic subgroups (Nelson & Tienda 1985; Portes &
Rumbaut 1990). As
stated by Rodriguez (2000), "Latinos' choice of an ethnic
descriptor, as opposed to
a racial descriptor, reflects the disinclination of many Hispanics
to identify as black"

(148).
ASSIMILATION AND RACIAL IDENTITY
Like Puerto Ricans, immigrants from a variety of countries
define themselves
primarily in terms of their national origins (Portes & Rumbaut
2001; Rodriguez
2000; Waters 1999). In contrast, their U.S.-born offspring have
more variable racial
identities that depend on how they are incorporated into U.S.
society (Portes &
Rumbaut 2001). Second-generation residents who are oriented
toward their origin
culture and well integrated into ethnic communities are more
likely to retain a
national identity than are second-generation residents who are
more assimilated
into U.S. society. At the same time, the implications of
assimilation are not
straightforward. Migrants to the U.S. encounter different
contexts of reception. After
considering factors such as their skin color, their socioeconomic
resources, and
the strength of their ethnic communities, they may assimilate
into various segments
of the U.S. social structure. This, in turn, defines the social
context in which racial
identities develop and change.
2015 20:00:29 UTC

Among Puerto Ricans, several factors critical to the assimilation
process are
likely to influence racial self-identification. First is their mixed
racial heritage,
reflected in skin tones that range from very light to very dark.
Skin tone is important
for racial self-identification because it is the most salient
feature that others use to
define race (Brown, Dane & Durham 1998). Puerto Ricans with
relatively dark
skin are more likely than their light-skinned counterparts to be
defined by others
as black. Skin tone is also important because of its implications
for socioeconomic
assimilation. Numerous recent studies show that skin tone has
an influence on
socioeconomic outcomes, net of socioeconomic background
(Hughes & Hertel
1990; Hunter 1998; Keith & Herring 1991). While most of this
research focuses
on African Americans, similar findings have been reported for
Mexican Americans
(Murguia & Telles 1996; Telles & Murguia 1990). Thus, it is
likely that Puerto Ricans
with dark skin face greater barriers to socioeconomic mobility
than those with light
skin.

The other key factor that shapes the assimilation process is the
relatively small
human and financial capital of Puerto Rican migrants (Bean &
Tienda 1987;
Rivera-Batiz & Santiago 1996). Because they have few
economic resources, Puerto
Rican migrants frequently settle in central-city areas where they
encounter
inadequate employment opportunities, discrimination, and other
disadvantaged
minority groups. Both their struggle with difficult conditions
and their exposure
to other groups that have experienced discrimination may erode
the optimism of
Puerto Rican migrants (Portes & Rumbaut 2001). While
members of the first
generation are often partially protected by their strong coethnic
ties and national
identity, their U.S.-born offspring are less inclined to use the
origin country as a
frame of reference and more inclined to interact extensively
with African
Americans and other minority groups. Thus, the U.S.-born more
often develop
what has been called an "adversarial stance" toward the
dominant white society
(Portes & Zhou 1993; Waters 1999). Their racial identity,
shaped by this perspective,
becomes a way of rejecting the black or white identity imposed
by others. For some,
this entails adoption of a panethnic identity (e.g., Hispanic,
Latino), while for others
it entails rejection of the notion of race.

PREDICTORS OF RACIAL IDENTITY
The foregoing discussion suggests that place of residence and
birthplace will be
key predictors of racial identity. Puerto Ricans living in the
U.S. should be less
likely than their counterparts in Puerto Rico to identify their
race as Puerto Rican.
Moreover, U.S.-born mainland Puerto Ricans should be the most
likely to move
away from a Puerto Rican racial identity toward a panethnic or
American identity.
In addition, parental ethnicity may influence an individual's
racial identity.
Identification with Puerto Rico should be stronger among those
with two Puerto
Rican parents than among those with a mixed ethnic
background.
2015 20:00:29 UTC
Another critical factor in racial self-identification is the color
of one's skin.
Relatively dark-skinned Puerto Ricans should be more likely

than light-skinned
Puerto Ricans to reject standard racial categories because
acceptance would imply
adopting a black identity. In addition, because those with dark
skin assimilate less
readily than those with light skin, the former group should be
less likely to identify
as American than the latter. Their rejection of a black identity
and their experience
with discrimination may instead encourage dark-skinned
individuals to retain a
national identity or to adopt a panethnic identity (Portes &
Rumbaut 2001).
Racial identities also may be influenced by individuals' skills
and economic
resources. In particular, those with relatively high educational
attainment and family
income are unlikely to base their racial identities on
renunciation of the dominant
society and its conceptions of race. Accordingly, they should be
less inclined to
identify as Hispanic or Latino and more likely to identify as
white than others.
Furthermore, language skills may be related to the racial
identities of mainland
Puerto Ricans. Portes and Rumbaut (2001) indicate that
Spanish-dominant
individuals are more likely to retain a national identity than are
English-dominant
or bilingual individuals. English-dominant persons generally
interact more

extensively outside their ethnic communities than those who use
Spanish most of
the time. Because they are more assimilated, the English-
dominant are more likely
to take on an Americanized identity. Coethnic ties should also
influence racial
identity: Mainland Puerto Ricans who associate extensively
with Puerto Ricans or
other Hispanics should be more likely to adopt a national or
panethnic identity
and less likely to adopt an American identity than those with
fewer associations
with Hispanics.
RESEARCH ISSUES
Recent studies have contributed greatly to our knowledge of
how non-European
immigrant groups adapt to the U.S. racial classification system
(Portes & Rumbaut
2001; Waters 1999). However, none has compared the racial
identities of U.S.
migrants to those of nonmigrants in their origin country. Such a
comparison is
pivotal for understanding how self-definitions change with
exposure to race
relations in the U.S. To address this research gap, we
investigate the racial identities
of Puerto Rican women in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
As noted earlier, we focus on several key issues. We first
examine the way race
is viewed by the women themselves. This topic is addressed

using data from an
open-ended survey item on racial identity. We provide
descriptive information on
responses to the open-ended item and compare those responses
to women's
classifications on a standard closed-ended race question. In
addition, because of
the centrality of physical appearance to racial classifications,
we investigate the
relationship between skin tone and racial self-identification.
2015 20:00:29 UTC
Throughout the descriptive analysis, we emphasize comparisons
between Puerto
Rican women in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Such comparisons
are central to
understanding how the social context of race relations affects
women's racial self-
identification. Differences between the mainland and the island
are further
addressed in a multivariate analysis that also evaluates the role
of personal attributes
and achievements in racial self-identification. Among the
characteristics considered

are birthplace, parental ethnicity, skin tone, and socioeconomic
status.
A final set of issues pertains to the implications of the
assimilation process for
racial self-identification among mainland Puerto Ricans.
Previous research
suggests that women's identities will vary with generational
status, language use,
and the extent to which they are embedded in a coethnic
community. The role of
these factors in the racial identities of Puerto Rican women in
the U.S. is assessed.
Data, Measures, and Methods
DATA
Our analysis is based on data from the Puerto Rican Maternal
and Infant Health
Study (PRMIHS), a study of maternal and infant health
outcomes among Puerto
Ricans in the U.S. and Puerto Rico (Landale, Oropesa & Davila
2000).4 In-person
interviews were conducted with 2,763 mothers of infants
sampled from the 1994
and 1995 birth and infant death records of six U.S. vital
statistics reporting areas
(Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York
City, and
Pennsylvania5) and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Roughly
two-thirds of the
interviews were with mothers of infants sampled from the
computerized birth

certificate files maintained by the states indicated and Puerto
Rico. The present
analysis is restricted to the birth sample.6
Infants in the U.S. were eligible for inclusion in the birth
sample if the Hispanic
ethnicity of the mother was designated as Puerto Rican on the
birth certificate.
Information on ethnicity is not included on birth certificates in
Puerto Rico
because an extremely high percentage of island residents are of
Puerto Rican
descent. To avoid inclusion of non-Puerto Rican infants in the
study, a question
on whether the focal infant was of Puerto Rican descent was
included to screen for
eligibility. Mothers who answered that their infant was not of
Puerto Rican descent
were excluded from the study. This screening question was used
in both Puerto
Rico and in the U.S. states.
Mothers of the sampled infants were located from the address
information
provided on the vital records and were asked to participate in a
computer-assisted
personal interview (CAPI). All PRMIHS interviewers were
bilingual, and the
questionnaire was available in both Spanish and English. The
response rate for the
birth sample was 79.8%. Sample selection bias due to
nonresponse was minimal:
Nonrespondents did not differ from respondents on a variety of
socioeconomic

2015 20:00:29 UTC
characteristics (Oropesa & Landale 2002). The weighted birth
sample therefore can
be considered representative of 1994-95 births to Puerto Rican
women residing
in the study areas. By extension, the birth sample represents
Puerto Rican mothers
of infants born in the specified areas and period of time.7
MEASURES
Race
Two measures of race are examined. As noted above, the
PRMIHS sample was
drawn from a complete listing of birth certificates in the study
areas. Information
from the birth certificate, including the mother's reported race,
is included in the
PRMIHS data set. The measure of race from the birth certificate
is a closed-ended
item that reflects the response of an informant, usually the
mother (U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services 1999). Possible response
categories included white,
black, five different Asian groups, American Indian, and other.
Because all but
one of the Puerto Rican women in our sample selected white,
black, or other, we

consider only those categories in our analysis.8
The PRMIHS survey included an open-ended question on race:
"What race do
you consider yourself?" Interviewers were instructed not to
provide any
interpretation or help on this question. The responses given by
the women were
coded into the following categories: white, black, trigueia,
Puerto Rican, Hispanic,
Latina, Spanish, Hispanic American, American, and "other."
Information on the
full set of categories is presented in the descriptive analysis. A
collapsed set of
categories is used in the multivariate analysis: white,
black/triguefia, Hispanic/
Latina/Spanish, American/Hispanic American, and other.9
Place of Residence and Birthplace
The respondent's place of residence at the time of the survey is
of central interest
in our study. Women living in the U.S. (coded as 1) are
contrasted with women
living in Puerto Rico (coded as 0). In addition, women who
were born in the U.S.
(coded as 1) are compared with women who were born in Puerto
Rico (coded as 0).
In preliminary models, we tested the interaction between place
of residence and
birthplace. Because the interaction was nonsignificant in all

models, it was not
included in the final analysis.
Parental Ethnicity
In separate questions, respondents were asked to indicate
whether their father and
their mother were of Puerto Rican ancestry. Women with two
Puerto Rican parents
(coded 1) are contrasted with women with only one Puerto
Rican parent (coded 0).
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Skin Tone
Consistent with a number of recent investigations of the
influence of skin color
on the socioeconomic outcomes of Hispanics (e.g., Murguia &
Telles 1996; Telles
& Murguia 1990), our measure of skin tone is based on the
interviewer's rating of
whether the respondent's skin was very light, light brown,
medium brown, dark
brown, or very dark brown. In the multivariate analysis, the skin
tone variable is
coded from 1 (very light) to 5 (very dark brown).
Socioeconomic and Demographic Characteristics

Socioeconomic and demographic variables include the mother's
age, union status,
education, family income, and employment status. With the
exception of family
income, these variables reflect the mother's status at the time of
the interview, when
her racial self-identity was measured. Maternal age is measured
in completed years.
Union status includes three categories: single, cohabiting, and
married. Educational
attainment is measured as the highest grade of school completed
by the respondent.
To measure family income, we asked women to indicate which
of 13 categories
best represented their total household income around the time
the focal baby was
born. The categories were recoded to their midpoints and
income is treated as a
continuous variable. Finally, a dichotomous measure indicates
whether the
respondent was employed (1 = yes; 0 = no).10
Language Use Index
The language use index is an additive index constructed from
three questions
regarding the respondent's use of English versus Spanish at
home, with friends,
and when watching TV. The responses to each question (English
most of the time;
Spanish and English about equally; Spanish most of the time)
were coded from
one to three, with three indicating Spanish dominance. The
resulting index ranges

from three to nine.
Latino Friends and Neighbors
We include separate measures of the ethnic composition of the
respondents' friends
and neighborhoods. Responses range from 1 to 5, with 1
indicating"all non-Latinos"
and five indicating "all Latinos.""
SAMPLE DESIGN AND MISSING DATA
The PRMIHS was based on a complex sample design that
involved stratification
by state, month, and birth outcome. Consequently, our analysis
was conducted
with SUDAAN, which adjusts coefficients and standard errors
to take the sampling
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TABLE 1: Racial Classification of Puerto Rican Mothers in the
United States
and Puerto Rico
United Puerto
States Rico
Race of mother from birth certificate

White 88.3 93.9*
Black 3.2 5.9*
Races other than white or black 8.5 .2*
100.0 100.0
"What race do you consider yourself?"
White 2.0 17.2*
Black 1.0 5.5*
Triguefia .2 7.2*
Puerto Rican 56.6 52.5
Hispanic 20.5 3.7*
Latina 7.3 5.2
Spanish 3.6 .7*
American 4.2 2.7
Hispanic American 1.1 .6
Other 3.5 4.7
100.0 100.0
Unweighted N 1,256 669
*
Percentage significantly different from that for Puerto Rican
women in the U.S., p < .05
design into account. All models are based on weighted data,
using the final birth
sample weights. The weights were adjusted to retain the original
sample size.
Cases with missing data are not excluded from the analysis to

avoid erroneous
inferences that can stem from the rejection of cases in which
data are not missing
completely at random. Instead, we employed Bayesian
procedures for the multiple
imputation of missing data (Schafer 1997, 1998). Five
imputations were made to
generate plausible values for missing data, and the five imputed
data sets were
analyzed with standard complete-data methods. The results were
combined to yield
estimates, standard errors, and p-values that incorporate
uncertainty about missing
data.
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TABLE 2: Cross-classification of Race As Reported on Birth
Certificate and in
Open-ended Survey Question, Puerto Rican Mothers in the
United
States and Puerto Rico
United States Puerto Rico
Race of Mother Race of Mother

from Birth Certificate from Birth Certificatea
White Black Other White Black
"What race do you
consider yourself?"
White 2.2 0.0 .2 18.2 .9
Black .8 8.3 0.0 4.5 20.4
Triguefia .2 0.0 0.0 7.0 10.2
Puerto Rican 57.4 41.0 53.9 52.2 50.8
Hispanic 19.6 24.8 28.4 3.6 5.4
Latina 6.9 16.4 8.0 5.2 5.5
Spanish 4.1 0.0 .3 .7 1.0
American 4.2 0.0 5.8 2.8 0.0
Hispanic American 1.3 0.0 0.0 .6 0.0
Other 3.3 9.7 3.4 5.1 5.8
100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Unweighted N 1,098 53 105 621 47
a Too few women identified themselves as "other" in Puerto
Rico to allow for analysis.
Findings
How Do PUERTO RICANS DESCRIBE THEIR RACIAL
IDENTITIES?
Table 1 provides descriptive information on responses to the
closed-ended race

question on the birth certificate and the open-ended race
question on the PRMIHS
survey. Separate distributions are presented for women in the
U.S. and Puerto Rico.
The majority of Puerto Rican women in the U.S. and Puerto
Rico are classified
as white on the birth certificate. About 88% of mainland Puerto
Ricans and 94%
of Puerto Rican islanders are identified as white. A notable
difference between
mainland and island respondents is that the mainlanders are
more likely to be
classified as other (8%) than the islanders (.2%).
In contrast to responses to the closed-ended question, only a
minority of
mainland and island Puerto Ricans report their race as white on
the open-ended
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TABLE 3: Cross-classification of Race and Skin Tone, Puerto
Rican Mothers
in the United States and Puerto Rico
United States Puerto Rico
Interviewer-Recorded Skin Tone Interviewer-Recorded Skin

Tone
Very Very
Light Light Medium Dark Light Light Medium Dark
"What race do you
consider yourself?"
White 2.8 .9 2.4 0.0 31.0 14.7 .4 11.3
Black 0.0 2.3 1.6 .6 .7 3.7 10.2 16.4
Triguefia .2 .4 0.0 0.0 2.0 13.8 6.0 6.4
Puerto Rican 57.3 56.8 56.8 47.5 52.1 48.9 62.3 47.6
Hispanic 19.8 19.2 25.3 21.8 3.2 4.5 2.8 4.3
Latina 6.3 7.3 6.9 18.8 5.1 5.7 4.6 5.4
Spanish 2.3 6.2 2.3 4.1 0.0 2.0 .4 0.0
American 5.9 3.2 1.6 2.1 .9 4.3 3.0 2.7
Hispanic American 1.3 .8 1.5 0.0 .8 0.0 1.5 0.0
Other 4.2 2.9 1.8 5.1 4.1 2.3 8.9 5.9
100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Unweighted N 581 403 205 67 217 223 152 77
question. However, there is a large difference between the
percentage of respondents
reporting themselves as white in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Only
2% of mainland
women report their race to be white, compared to 17% of island
women. Similarly,
mainland women are less likely than island women to report
their race as black
(1% vs. 6%). It is apparent that mainland Puerto Rican women

are disinclined to
define themselves in terms of the black-white dichotomy that
predominates in the
U.S. In addition, mainland women are unlikely to use the
intermediate racial
category of triguefia. Less than 1% of mainland women
classified themselves as
triguefia, compared to 7% of island women.
Mainland Puerto Ricans are slightly more likely than island
Puerto Ricans to
indicate that their race is Puerto Rican (57% vs. 52%), although
the difference is
not statistically significant and Puerto Rican is the modal
category for both groups.
The groups diverge more with respect to the percentage
reporting their racial identity
to be Hispanic. About 20% of mainland Puerto Rican women
report their race to
be Hispanic, compared to 4% of women in Puerto Rico. Other
differences between
the groups are relatively slight.
Overall, it is clear that Puerto Rican women in the U.S. do not
identify with the
categories typically used to define race. Instead, they define
themselves in terms of
their national origins or panethnic categories such as Hispanic
or Latina. Islanders
also frequently adopt a national racial identity, but they are less
prone to reject the
usual U.S. conceptualization of race.

2015 20:00:29 UTC
How ARE RESPONSES TO THE Two RACE QUESTIONS
RELATED?
Table 2 shows the cross-classification of the two race variables.
Within each location,
the racial identities of women defined as white on the birth
certificate parallel those
for the overall sample. This is to be expected because of the
predominance of white
respondents. Mainland women defined as other on the birth
certificate provided
responses to the open-ended question that are roughly similar to
those of whites,
except that a higher percentage of women defined as other
classify themselves as
Hispanic (28% vs. 20%). In both the U.S. and Puerto Rico, the
pattern for women
classified as black on the birth certificate diverges most from
that for the overall
sample.
In the U.S., only 8% of women defined as black on the birth
certificate report
their race as black on the open-ended question. Instead, blacks

are more likely to
identify their race as Puerto Rican (41%), Hispanic (25%), or
Latina (16%).
Interestingly, mainland women who are classified as black on
the birth certificate
are considerably more likely to report themselves to be Latina
on the open-ended
question than mainland women who are classified as white on
the birth certificate
(16% vs. 7%). In addition, a nontrivial percentage (10%) of
mainland women
defined as black on the birth certificate provided answers to the
open-ended
question that could only be classified as other. Typically, these
responses indicated
a mixed racial/ethnic background. For example, several
respondents wrote that they
were half black and half Puerto Rican, and another respondent
indicated that she
was multiethnic.
In Puerto Rico, women defined as black on the birth certificate
are more likely
than their U.S. counterparts to self-identify as black (20% vs.
8%) and less likely
to self-identify as Hispanic (5% vs. 25%) or Latina (6% vs.
16%). In addition,
about 10% of islanders classified as black on the birth
certificate self-identify as
triguefia.
On the whole, there is a striking lack of correspondence
between the way Puerto
Rican women define their race and their classifications on the
standard race
question included on the birth certificate. This finding

corresponds to the general
conclusions of other researchers regarding the inadequacy of the
standard race
question for Hispanics (Denton & Massey 1989; Rivera-Batiz &
Santiago 1996;
Rodriguez 2000), but our study goes beyond prior research in
providing detailed
responses to an open-ended question on race.
DOES SKIN COLOR INFLUENCE RACIAL SELF-
IDENTIFICATION?
A key issue in the study of racial self-identification is the
extent to which individuals'
self-identities are influenced by the color of their skin. In Table
3, we cross-classify
the open-ended race question by respondent skin tone. In the
U.S., women with
very light skin, light skin, or medium skin have similar
responses to the race
question. A noteworthy exception to this generalization is that
medium-skinned
2015 20:00:29 UTC
TABLE 4: Odds Ratios from Multinomial Logit Models of
Racial Identity,
Puerto Rican Mothers in the United States and Puerto Rico

Black/ Hispanic/
White Triguefia Latina American Other
vs. vs. vs. vs. vs.
Puerto Puerto Puerto Puerto Puerto
Rican Rican Rican Rican Rican
Model 1
U.S. resident .12*** .11*** 3.20*** .74 .62
U.S. born .70 .60 .88 4.45*** 1.28
Model 2
U.S. resident .06*** .08*** 3.47*** .88 .47
U.S. born .56 .47 .79 3.79*** .83
Both parents Puerto Rican .08*** .05*** .32* .20** .06***
Skin tone .52** 1.50** 1.18 .98 1.21
Age 1.03 1.00 1.00 .99 1.02
Union status
Single - -
Cohabiting .65 .67 .97 1.39 .39
Married .51 .50 1.15 1.04 .53
Education 1.05 1.10 1.08* 1.20 1.20**
Family income 1.02* 1.01 1.00 .99 1.01
Employed 1.19 .77 1.08 1.15 .91
(N= 1,925)
*
p < .05

**
p < .01
***
p < .001
women are more likely to identify as Hispanic than the two
groups of lighter-
skinned women. In addition, there is a monotonic decline in the
percentage
identifying their race as American as we move from very light
skin to medium
skin tone.
Dark-skinned mainland women are less likely to self-identify as
Puerto Rican
than the other groups (48% compared to 57% for each other
group). A relatively
high percentage of dark-skinned mainland women designate
their race as Latina,
19% compared to 6-7% for the lighter-skinned groups. The
distinction between
Hispanic and Latina is noteworthy. Although the two terms are
frequently used
interchangeably, they may have a somewhat different meaning
for the women
themselves.'4 It is also significant that less that 1% of the
darkest-skinned mainland
women indicate that their race is black.
2015 20:00:29 UTC

In Puerto Rico, a very different pattern is evident. First, there is
a monotonic
increase in the percentage identifying their race as black as skin
tone becomes
darker. While less than 1% of very light-skinned island women
self-identify as
black, fully 16% of the darkest-skinned women do so. There is
also a decline in
the percentage self-identifying as white as skin tone darkens,
but the pattern is
somewhat irregular. Additionally, light-skinned island women
are the most likely
to identify their race as triguefia.
In summary, the descriptive results in Tables 1 through 3
indicate that race is
often viewed differently by Puerto Rican women in the U.S. and
Puerto Rico.
Slightly more than half the women in each setting consider their
race to be Puerto
Rican. However, the distribution of the remaining women varies
greatly between
the two locations. In the U.S., a very small share of Puerto
Rican women (3%)
identify their race as white, black, or triguefia, while in Puerto
Rico roughly 30%
do so. Instead, mainland women are likely to adopt a panethnic
identity: About
30% indicate that they are Hispanic, Latina, or Spanish,
compared to 10% in Puerto

Rico. Among mainland women, the likelihood of self-
identification as white, black,
or triguefia varies little by skin tone; however, the tendency to
adopt a panethnic
identity is greatest among those with the darkest skin. In
contrast, in Puerto Rico,
dark-skinned women are considerably less likely than light-
skinned women to
identify as white and considerably more likely to identify as
black.
WHAT PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS STRUCTURE
RACIAL SELF-IDENTIFICATION?
Pooled Mainland and Island Samples
We further examine mainland- island differences in racial self-
identification in a
multivariate framework in Table 4. Multinomial logistic
regression models are used
to estimate the odds of self-identification as (1) white, (2)
black/triguefia,
(3) Hispanic/Latina/Spanish, (4) American/Hispanic American,
or (5) other versus
Puerto Rican. We assess whether the differences by place of
residence shown in the
descriptive tables can be explained in terms of respondent skin
tone, parental
ethnicity, demographic characteristics (age, union status), and
socioeconomic status
(education, family income, and employment status).
Model 1 in Table 4 includes only place of residence and
birthplace as predictors.

It is apparent that place of residence is generally more
important for racial self-
identification than birthplace. The odds of self-identification as
white versus Puerto
Rican are only 12% as high for mainland women as for island
women. A similar
odds ratio is observed for the comparison between
black/triguefia and Puerto Rican.
In contrast, the odds of self-identification as Hispanic/Latina
versus Puerto Rican
are three times as high for mainland women as for island
women. The only
contrast in which birthplace is a significant predictor is that
between American/
Hispanic American and Puerto Rican. U.S.-born women are
more than four times
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TABLE 5: Odds Ratios from Multinomial Logit Models of
Racial Identity,
Puerto Rican Mothers in the United States
American/
Hispanic Hispanic
Latina American Other
vs. vs. vs.
Puerto Puerto Puerto

Rican Rican Rican
Model 1
U.S. born .96 6.23** 2.49*
Model 2
U.S. born .95 4.27* 1.85
Both parents Puerto Rican .39* .19** .12***
Skin tone 1.19 .71 1.00
Age 1.01 1.05 1.05
Union status
Single
Cohabiting .68 1.10 .25**
Married 1.00 .87 .14**
Education 1.01 1.10 1.09
Familyincome 1.01 .99 1.02
Employed 1.03 1.15 .80
Language use index 1.10 .80* 1.06
Latino friends .84 1.12 .97
Latino neighbors .87 1.32 .91
(N = 1,256)
*
p <.05 **p < .01
*** p < .001
as likely to self-identify as American or Hispanic American as
women born in
Puerto Rico.
Differences between mainland- and island-resident women are
strengthened

with the inclusion of the full set of predictors in model 2. Net of
the included
predictors, the odds of self-identification as white or
black/triguefia versus Puerto
Rican are only 6-8% as high for U.S.-resident women as for
women in Puerto
Rico. In addition, having two Puerto Rican parents substantially
reduces the
likelihood of identification as white or black/triguefia (vs.
Puerto Rican). Skin tone
is also a significant predictor. The darker the skin tone, the less
likely a women is
to consider her race to be white and the more likely she is to
consider her race to
be black or triguefia. None of the other covariates is
significantly related to the
contrast between black/trigueia and Puerto Rican. However,
family income is
positively related to taking on a white identity.
2015 20:00:29 UTC
As noted earlier, U.S.-resident women are more than three times
as likely to
identify their race as Hispanic/Latina versus Puerto Rican as
women living in Puerto

Rico. This pattern remains in the full model. Again, we see that
women with two
Puerto Rican parents are less likely to depart from a national
"racial" identity than
others. They are about a third as likely as women with only one
Puerto Rican parent
to self-identify as Hispanic/Latina. Skin tone is a marginally
significant (p = .08)
positive predictor of self-identification as Hispanic/Latina. The
only other significant
predictor of taking on a panethnic identity is educational
attainment. The higher
the education, the more likely a woman is to designate her race
as Hispanic or
Latina.
The importance of birthplace for taking on an American or
Hispanic American
identity (vs. a Puerto Rican identity) is indicated by the
significant odds ratio of
almost four for U.S. birth. As with the other racial contrasts,
having both a Puerto
Rican mother and a Puerto Rican father decreases the odds of
self-identifying as
American or Hispanic American versus Puerto Rican. Neither
the demographic
nor the socioeconomic characteristics included in the model are
related to self-
identification as American or Hispanic American
Overall, it is apparent that the differences between the racial
identities of Puerto
Rican women in the U.S. and Puerto Rico cannot be explained
in terms of
differences in parental ethnicity, skin tone, demographic

characteristics, or
socioeconomic status. Controls for the complete set of
predictors strengthen rather
than attenuate the relationship between place of residence and
racial identity.
Clearly, there are differences in the social construction of racial
identity that go
beyond the individual-level variables in our models.
MAINLAND SAMPLE ALONE
Although comparisons of the racial identities of migrant groups
to those of
nonmigrants in their country of origin are rare, a number of
studies have examined
the implications of the assimilation process for racial/ethnic
identity among
immigrant groups in the U.S. (e.g., Portes & Rumbaut 2001;
Waters 1999). These
studies suggest that key factors for understanding racial/ethnic
identity within
immigrant groups are nativity and indicators of assimilation,
such as language use
and the extent to which interactions are confined to a coethnic
community. In
Table 5, we present an analysis restricted to mainland Puerto
Rican women. The
analysis is similar to that presented in Table 4 except that place
of residence is
omitted and three indicators of the degree of assimilation are
added: the language
use index and measures of the extent of interaction with Latino
friends and

neighbors. It should be noted that the racial identity variable
was recoded into four
categories for this analysis because there was an insufficient
number of whites and
blacks/triguefias to analyze as separate categories. Thus, those
groups are combined
with the "other" category for the mainland analysis. Although
results for the "other"
2015 20:00:29 UTC
category are shown, they are not discussed because the category
is too diverse to be
substantively meaningful.
Model 1 in Table 5 shows that U.S. birth is unrelated to self-
identification as
Hispanic or Latina (versus Puerto Rican), but the odds of taking
on an American
or Hispanic American identity are six times as high for Puerto
Rican women born
in the U.S. as for those born in Puerto Rico. This pattern
persists in Model 2,
although the odds ratio is reduced from about six to about four
with controls for

the included predictors.
In model 2, the only variable that is significantly related to
taking on a Hispanic/
Latina identity versus a Puerto Rican identity is the ethnicity of
the respondent's
parents. The odds of identifying as Hispanic or Latina are only
about 40% as high
for women with two Puerto Rican parents as for other women.
An even stronger
relationship between parental ethnicity and identity is found for
the contrast
between American/Hispanic American and Puerto Rican. The
odds of identifying
as American or Hispanic American are less than one-fifth as
high for respondents
with two Puerto Rican parents as for respondents with a non-
Puerto Rican mother
or father.
One other variable is related to taking on an American or
Hispanic American
racial identity - the language use index. The greater the use of
Spanish versus
English, the less likely a woman will self-identify as American
or Hispanic American
instead of Puerto Rican. Language use may both shape and
reflect an individual's
identity. Puerto Rican women who use Spanish most of the time
are probably more
immersed in interactions with ethnically similar individuals
than Puerto Rican
women who primarily use English. Such interactions are likely
to reinforce their

Puerto Rican identity. The fact that the ethnic composition of
the respondents'
friends and neighbors is unrelated to self-identification as
American/Hispanic
American versus Puerto Rican may have to do with the wording
of the survey
questions. The questions asked respondents about the
proportions of their friends
and neighbors who were Latino and did not distinguish between
Latinos of Puerto
Rican descent and those with other national origins.
Conclusion
The concept of race has become increasingly difficult to
delineate and measure in
a straightforward fashion. While distinctions between racial
groups were once
thought of as biologically determined, it is now widely
recognized that racial
categories are socially constructed and differ across social
settings (Etzioni 2001;
Omi & Winant 1994). Moreover, the concept of race is often
inseparable from the
concept of ethnicity. Although sociologists have generally used
race to refer to
distinctions based on physical appearance and ethnicity to refer
to distinctions based
on culture, language, or descent (Hirschman, Alba & Farley
2000), these concepts
are increasingly blurred in the self-definitions of individuals.
Hispanics provide

2015 20:00:29 UTC
the classic example of this phenomenon. When asked to select
their race from the
standard response categories, Hispanic individuals frequently
select "other." If given
the option to elaborate, many Hispanics provide a national
origin or a panethnic
descriptor.
The present study analyzed racial self-identification among
Puerto Rican
women. Several features of the study are noteworthy. First,
responses to an open-
ended question on racial self-identification allowed us to
examine how the women
themselves view race. Second, the sample included respondents
from both the U.S.
and Puerto Rico, allowing us to investigate how the women's
social context
influences racial identity. Third, we collected data on skin
color, one of the major
observable characteristics used by others to define one's race.
Finally, we were able
to compare responses from the open-ended question to those
from a closed-ended
race item drawn from the birth certificate for a recent birth of
the respondent. This

comparison provided useful information on the adequacy of
closed-ended questions
for capturing the meaning of race among Puerto Ricans.
Among mainland and island Puerto Ricans, the most common
response to
the open-ended race question is Puerto Rican. Slightly more
than half of each group
provided a national racial identity. At the same time, the
responses of the women
who did not choose Puerto Rican diverged dramatically across
locales. Though the
majority of the women in Puerto Rico who did not self-identify
as Puerto Rican
identified as white, black, or triguefia, almost none of the
mainlanders did so.
Instead, mainland women were most likely to select a panethnic
identity (Hispanic
or Latina), followed by an American or Hispanic American
identity. We cannot
explain the island-mainland differences in terms of the
individual-level
characteristics in our data. In fact, differences between
mainland and island women
were strengthened when we controlled for parental ethnicity,
skin tone,
demographic factors, and socioeconomic status.
Recent studies suggest that the racial and ethnic identities
adopted by
contemporary immigrants depend in part on their experiences
with discrimination.
Groups that encounter significant discrimination are the most

likely to reject the
traditional concept of race and adopt a national or panethnic
racial identity. Our
data do not include direct measures of discrimination.
Nonetheless, the
discrimination argument suggests that the darkest-skinned
Puerto Rican women
might be the least likely to self-identify as white, black, or
triguefia. Though there
are very slight differences in our cross-tabulations for mainland
women that are
consistent with this idea, what is most striking is that almost all
mainland women
reject the traditional black-white conceptualization of race. This
is true of both the
lightest-skinned women and darkest-skinned women. Indeed,
there are so few
mainland respondents in the white and black/triguefia categories
that it was not
possible to examine those groups within a multivariate
framework in the mainland-
only analysis.
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Several explanations can be offered for mainland Puerto Ricans'
disinclination
to use standard racial categories when describing their racial
identities. First, the
widespread use of the terms Hispanic and Latino may play a
role in Puerto Ricans'
self-conceptions. In particular, it is increasingly common for
the U.S. population
to be described in terms of a five-category scheme that mixes
race and ethnicity:
non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, non-Hispanic Asian,
non-Hispanic
Indian, and Hispanic (Hirschman, Alba & Farley 2000). This
practice may
contribute to a perception that the panethnic label Hispanic
represents a "racial"
group. Thus, the greater tendency of mainland Puerto Ricans,
relative to island
Puerto Ricans, to define their race as Hispanic or Latino may to
some extent reflect
labeling by the mainstream society. A second explanation
emphasizes a more active
role for individuals in the construction of their racial identities.
It is not necessarily
antithetical to the former perspective in that it recognizes that
racial categories are
learned and identities are formed in interaction. However, it
suggests that
individuals actively create and manage their identities as they
respond to the

exigencies of the social context.
We think that the second explanation more accurately reflects
the situation of
Puerto Ricans than the first does. In Puerto Rico, racial
classifications are more
complex and more flexible than in the mainland U.S. Many
racial categories are
recognized, and physical characteristics that suggest a mixed
heritage do not
generally result in placement at the bottom of the racial
hierarchy (Rodriguez 2000;
Rodriguez & Cordero-Guzman 1992). Puerto Rican migrants to
the U.S. face a
very different racial climate. From their perspective, they are
neither black nor white,
but they are living in a society in which race traditionally has
been conceived as a
black-white dichotomy. They must grapple with redefining their
racial identity in
a social context that is relatively intolerant of nonwhites. It is
not surprising that
mainland Puerto Ricans, even those with dark skin, are highly
unlikely to identify
as black. However, the fact that very few mainland women
identify as white - and
the fact that mainland women are strikingly less likely to do so
than island women
- suggest that mainland Puerto Ricans are opting out of the U.S.
racial dichotomy
because it does not fit with their conceptual framework and is
less affirming than

an emphasis on nationality or panethnicity.
These results have implications for recent discussions of the
emergence of a
new racial dualism. Some scholars argue that the growth of the
Hispanic and Asian
populations may stimulate a shift in the U.S. racial hierarchy
from a black-white
dichotomy to a black-nonblack dichotomy. Specifically, Gans
(1999) argues that
the current racial hierarchy could be replaced by"a dual or
bimodal one consisting
of'nonblack' and 'black' population categories, with a third,
'residual' category for
the groups that do not, or do not yet, fit into the basic dualism"
(371). He further
suggests that Caribbean blacks and dark-skinned Hispanics are
likely to be classified
with American blacks in the new racial system, especially given
the disadvantaged
socioeconomic circumstances shared by these groups. Gans's
provocative discussion
2015 20:00:29 UTC
acknowledges that the reconstruction of the racial hierarchy is a

"work in progress"
that may take a generation to resolve itself. During that time,
the practice of
regarding nonblack Hispanics as a quasi racial-ethnic group may
continue.
Although discussions of the new racial dualism typically
emphasize the racial
definitions imposed by the dominant population, our study of
Puerto Ricans' racial
identities sheds light on the perceptions of those who occupy an
ambiguous racial
status. Mainland Puerto Rican women's reluctance to identify
themselves as white
or black suggests that they are ill at ease with features of both
the old dualism and
the new dualism. This reluctance is evident regardless of skin
tone and suggests
that dark-skinned Puerto Ricans are likely to continue to resist
being placed in
the same category as American blacks. While both light-skinned
and dark-skinned
Puerto Ricans may be willing to think of themselves as
nonblack, it is an open
question whether those with dark skin will be regarded as such
by other members
of society. Our findings strongly indicate that Puerto Ricans
continue to emphasize
their national and ethnic origins. This suggests that multifaceted
constructions of
race that combine "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions are likely to
remain a part of
the identities of Puerto Ricans for some time to come.
In closing, we return to the practical implications of our

findings. We
underscore that there is almost no correspondence between
Puerto Rican women's
racial classifications on the birth certificates and their responses
to our open-ended
survey question on race. This is especially the case for mainland
women. The lack
of concurrence between the race items raises questions about
the meaning of
traditional closed-ended race classifications for this population.
Hispanics have
been voicing the lack of fit between the usual racial categories
and their racial
identities for many years by selecting the "other" category on
standard race questions.
Our study reinforces this message by demonstrating that Puerto
Ricans think of
race much more in terms of their national origins or ties with
other Hispanic groups
than they do in terms of the color of their skin. Accordingly, we
recommend that
closed-ended race questions be disregarded or used very
cautiously for the Puerto
Rican population.
Notes
1. A summary of the implications of the revised federal
standards for the racial and
ethnic classifications used in the 2000 U.S. Census can be found
at http://www.census.gov/
population/www/socdemo/race/racefactcb.html.
2. Individuals who indicated that they were Hispanic also were
asked to designate their
specific Hispanic origin. The options provided were (1)

Mexican, Mexican American,
Chicano; (2) Puerto Rican; (3) Cuban; and (4) other, with a
space to write in the name
of the other origin group.
3. The terms trigueno and moreno are used to describe mixed-
race individuals. In general,
trigueio refers to individuals with bronze- or wheat-colored skin
and moreno refers to
individuals who are dark-skinned (Rodriguez 2000). However,
Rogler (1944) notes that
2015 20:00:29 UTC
the term trigueno is used to describe mixed-race individuals
who have a wide range of
skin tones.
4. The data were collected by the Institute for Survey Research
at Temple University under
a subcontract from the Population Research Institute,
Pennsylvania State University.
5. The U.S. states included in the PRMIHS are those with the
greatest number of births
to Puerto Rican women each year. In 1994 and 1995, 72% of all
births to mainland
Puerto Rican women occurred in these six states. The state of
New York is divided into

two separate vital statistics reporting areas, New York City and
the remainder of the
state. New York City granted permission to conduct the survey,
but permission could
not be obtained from the state of New York. New York cases
are therefore restricted to
births and deaths occurring in New York City.
6. Twenty-one of the 1,946 cases in the birth sample were
excluded from the present
analysis because the mother was born outside the U.S. and
Puerto Rico.
7. Because our study is based on a sample of mothers, our
findings cannot be generalized
to all Puerto Rican women. However, we do not have any reason
to suspect that self-
selection into motherhood is related to racial self-identification.
8. One respondent's race was classified as American Indian on
the birth certificate. This
case was recoded as other.
9. Although it would be desirable to retain the full set of
uncollapsed categories in the
multivariate analysis, it was not possible to do so because of the
small number of
respondents in some groups. For example, women who
identified their race as triguefna
were combined with those who identified their race as black
because only 2-3% of cases
were in each separate category. Among U.S. residents, less than
1% considered themselves
to be trigueia and only 1% identified their race as black.
Additionally, Hispanic Americans
could not be analyzed as a separate category because they

compose less than 1% of
cases. Whether the Hispanic Americans should be combined
with Hispanics or with
Americans is an open question. All analyses were conducted
both ways. The results are
not sensitive to our decision to combine Hispanic Americans
with Americans rather than
with Hispanics.
10. Age, education, and income are treated as continuous rather
than categorical variables.
In preliminary analyses, alternative specifications of these
variables were examined. The
findings were very similar to those shown.
11. The language use index and the measures of Latino friends
and neighbors are included
only in the analysis restricted to mainland Puerto Ricans. Given
that Spanish language
use and association with Latinos are universal in Puerto Rico,
these variables are not
applicable to island women.
12. None of the variables had missing values for more than 5%
of the cases. Fewer than
1 percent of cases were missing on the primary dependent
variable, the open-ended survey
question on race.
13. Dark brown and very dark brown are combined into the
category "dark" in Table 2
because of the relatively small number of cases in each of the
categories.
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14. Some (e.g., Ellison 2001) have noted that the term Latino
refers to persons whose
ancestors came from the central and southern parts of the
Western Hemisphere
(i.e., Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic,
Central and South America),
while the term Hispanic is more inclusive and also refers to
persons from Spain. Murguia
(1991) argues that the term Hispanic is more integrationist,
while the term Latino implies
a greater commitment to cultural pluralism.
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Contentsp. [231]p. 232p. 233p. 234p. 235p. 236p. 237p. 238p.
239p. 240p. 241p. 242p. 243p. 244p. 245p. 246p. 247p. 248p.
249p. 250p. 251p. 252p. 253p. 254Issue Table of
ContentsSocial Forces, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Sep., 2002), pp. 1-
380Front Matter [pp. 86-350]What Do We Learn about
Difference from the Scholarship on Gender? [pp. 1-24]The
Importance of Relationship Timing for Diffusion [pp. 25-
56]Creating Collective Attention in the Public Domain: Human
Interest Narratives and the Rescue of Floyd Collins [pp. 57-
85]The Effects of Local Stressors on Neighborhood Attachment
[pp. 87-116]Why Does It Take a Village? The Mediation of
Neighborhood Effects on Educational Achievement [pp. 117-
152]How Economic Segregation Affects Children's Educational
Attainment [pp. 153-176]The Civil Rights Movement's Struggle
for Fair Employment: A "Dramatic Events-Conventional
Politics" Model [pp. 177-206]Highbrow Cultural Consumption
and Class Distinction in Italy, Israel, West Germany, Sweden,
and the United States [pp. 207-229]White, Black, or Puerto
Rican? Racial Self-Identification among Mainland and Island

Puerto Ricans [pp. 231-254]Does Ethnic Concentration
Influence Employees' Access to Authority? An Examination of
Contemporary Urban Labor Markets [pp. 255-279]Asian
Immigrants' Reliance on Social Ties in a Multiethnic Labor
Market [pp. 281-314]Parenthood and Health: The Pivotal and
Optimal Age at First Birth [pp. 315-349]Book ReviewsReview:
untitled [pp. 351-352]Review: untitled [pp. 352-354]Review:
untitled [pp. 376-378]Review: untitled [pp. 378-380]Back
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Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2000. 26:169-85
Copyright ? 2000 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
RACE AND RACE THEORY
Howard Winant
Department of Sociology, Temple University, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania 19104;
e-mail: [email protected] temple. edu
Key Words racism, racial formation, racial politics
* Abstract Race has always been a significant sociological
theme, from the found-
ing of the field and the formulation of classical theoretical
statements to the present.
Since the nineteenth century, sociological perspectives on race

have developed and
changed, always reflecting shifts in large-scale political
processes. In the classical pe-
riod, colonialism and biologistic racism held sway. As the
twentieth century dawned,
sociology came to be dominated by US-based figures. DuBois
and the Chicago School
presented the first notable challenges to the field's racist
assumptions. In the aftermath
of World War II, with the destruction of European colonialism,
the rise of the civil
rights movement, and the surge in migration on a world scale,
the sociology of race
became a central topic. The field moved toward a more critical,
more egalitarian aware-
ness of race, focused particularly on the overcoming of
prejudice and discrimination.
Although the recognition of these problems increased and
political reforms made some
headway in combatting them, racial injustice and inequality
were not surmounted. As
the global and domestic politics of race entered a new period of
crisis and uncertainty,
so too has the field of sociology. To tackle the themes of race
and racism once again
in the new millennium, sociology must develop more effective
racial theory. Racial
formation approaches can offer a starting point here. The key
tasks will be the formu-
lation of a more adequate comparative historical sociology of
race, the development
of a deeper understanding of the micro-macro linkages that
shape racial issues, and
the recognition of the pervasiveness of racial politics in
contemporary society. This is
a challenging but also exciting agenda. The field must not

shrink from addressing it.
INTRODUCTION
As the world lurches forward into the twenty-first century,
widespread confusion
and anxiety exist about the political significance and even the
meaning, of race.
This uncertain situation extends into the field of sociology,
which has since its
founding devoted great attention to racial themes.
The extent of the literature on the race concept alone, not to
mention the moun-
tains of empirical studies that focus on racial issues, presents
difficulties for any
attempt at theoretical overview and synthesis. A wide range of
concepts from
both the classical and moder traditions can readily be applied to
racial matters.
0360-0572/00/0815-0169$14.00 169
2015 20:02:26 UTC
170 WINANT
Variations among national and cultural understandings of the
meaning of race cry
out for comparative appproaches. World history has, arguably,
been racialized at

least since the rise of the moder world system; racial hierarchy
remains global
even in the postcolonial present; and popular concepts of race,
however variegated,
remain in general everyday use almost everywhere. Thus, any
effective sociolog-
ical theory of race seems to require, at a minimum, comparative
historical and
political components, some sort of sociology of culture or
knowledge, and an
adequate microsociological account.
Over the past few decades, interest in racial matters, and the
pace at which
racial dynamics have been changing worldwide, have both
increased dramatically.
Controversy over the meaning and significance of race was
greatly heightened after
World War II. The war itself had significant racial dimensions
and left a legacy
of revulsion at racism and genocide. The social movements and
revolutionary
upsurges that succeeded the war and brought the colonial era to
an end also raised
the problematic of race to a new level of prominence. The civil
rights movement
in the United States and the anti-apartheid mobilization in South
Africa are but the
most prominent examples of this. As it gained its independence,
the postcolonial
world was quickly embroiled in the competition of the Cold
War, a situation
that placed not only the legacy of imperial rule but also the
racial policies of
the superpowers (especially those of the United States) under
additional scrutiny.

Another consequence of the war was enormous migratory flows
from the world's
rural South to its metropolitan North; in these demographic
shifts the empire
struck back, pluralizing the former mother countries (Centre for
Contemporary
Cultural Studies 1982). All these developments raised
significant questions about
the meaning of race.
SOCIOLOGY'S RACIAL ODYSSEY
In this article I survey the theoretical dimensions of race as the
new century (and
new millennium) commences. I begin with an account of the
origins of the race
concept. Here I consider how the theme of race, though
prefigured in earlier ages,
only took on its present range of meanings with the rise of
modernity. The deep
interconnection between the development of the modern world
system-of capi-
talism, seaborne empire, and slavery-and the exfoliation of a
worldwide process
of racialization is not in doubt.
Next I examine how sociological theory has addressed the
linkage between
modernity and race. I argue that, not surprisingly, the
sociological study of race
has been shaped by large-scale political processes. The
founding statements of
sociological theory, the so-called classics, were above all
concerned to explain
the emergence of modernity in Europe. Whether they understood

this to mean the
dawn of capitalism, the advent of "disenchanted" forms of
social organization, or
the generation of complex dynamics of social integration and
solidarity, they could
hardly escape some reckoning with the problem of the Other,
however s/he was
2015 20:02:26 UTC
RACE AND RACE THEORY 171
defined: as plundered and exploited laborer, as "primitive" or
"uncivilized," or as
"traditional" or mechanically solidaristic.
After sociology's center of gravity migrated across the Atlantic,
racial themes
became more central. Dealing with social problems such as
crime, poverty, and
disease; addressing urbanization, stratification, and
underdevelopment; and con-
fronting social psychological issues as well, analysts again and
again had recourse
to racial themes.
Contemporary approaches to the race concept have by and large
parted with
the biologism of the past, although some vestigial viewpoints of
this type can still
be detected (such as those of The Bell Curve authors). The

sociology of race was
vastly stimulated by the political, cultural, and demographic
shifts that took shape
in the postwar decades.
But as we begin the twenty-first century, sociological theory is
confronted with
the obsolescence of the Big Political Processes, such as
decolonization and civil
rights, that drove the theoretical vehicle forward from the war's
end. So now,
racial theory finds itself in a new quandary. Empires have been
ended and Jim
Crow and apartheid abolished (at least officially). How then is
continuing racial
inequality and bias to be explained? Some would argue that
since racial injustice is
at least tendentially diminishing, the race concept is finally
being obviated: In the
globalized twenty-first century, world society and transnational
culture will finally
attain a state of colorblindness and racial (or better, ethnic)
pluralism. Others note
that this new situation-of multiculturalism or diversification-
provides a much
prettier fig leaf for policies of laissez-faire vis-a-vis continuing
racial exclusion
and inequality than any intransigent white supremacy could ever
have offered. But
whatever political disagreements underlie the ongoing
difficulties of racial theory,
there can be little doubt that these difficulties persist.
In the final section of this paper, I offer some notes toward a
new racial theory.
Any such account must take seriously the reformed present

situation: postcolonial,
postsegregationist (or at least post-official segregation), and
racially heterogeneous
(if not "integrated"). It must also note the continuing presence
of racial signification
and racial identity, as well as the ongoing social structural
salience of race. Racial
theory must now demonstrate comparative and historical
capabilities, as well as
addressing the formidable problem of the micro-macro linkage
that inheres in racial
dynamics. As this already suggests, such a theory would also
incorporate elements
(let us call them revisionist elements) of recent political
sociology: process models
of politics, new social movement theory, and constitution
theories of society. Over
the past two decades, racial formation theory has made the most
serious attempt
to fulfill this mission.
This is obviously no small assignment; only the contours of
such a new theo-
retical approach to race can be outlined here. But I am confident
that these notes,
however elliptical, will facilitate access to a substantial body of
work already un-
derway, not only on race, but on the great multitude of issues,
both substantive and
conceptual, that it intersects. After all, the theme of race is
situated where meaning
meets social structure, where identity frames inequality.
2015 20:02:26 UTC

172 WINANT
ORIGINS OF THE RACE CONCEPT
Can any subject be more central or more controversial in
sociological thought
than that of race? The concept is essentially a modem one,
although prefigured in
various ways by ethnocentrism, and taking preliminary form in
ancient concepts
of civilization and barbarity (Snowden 1983), citizen (or zoon
politikon) and out-
sider/slave (Hannaford 1996, Finley 1983). Yes, the Crusades
and the Inquisition
and the Mediterranean slave trade were important rehearsals for
modem systems
of racial differentiation, but in terms of scale and inexorability
the race concept
only began to attain its familiar meanings at the end of the
middle ages.
At this point it would be useful to say what I mean by "race." At
its most basic
level, race can be defined as a concept that signifies and
symbolizes sociopolitical
conflicts and interests in reference to different types of human
bodies. Although the
concept of race appeals to biologically based human
characteristics (phenotypes),
selection of these particular human features for purposes of
racial signification is

always and necessarily a social and historical process. There is
no biological basis
for distinguishing human groups along the lines of race, and the
sociohistorical cat-
egories employed to differentiate among these groups reveal
themselves, upon seri-
ous examination, to be imprecise if not completely arbitrary
(Omi & Winant 1994).
The idea of race began to take shape with the rise of a world
political econ-
omy. The onset of global economic integration, the dawn of
seaborne empire, the
conquest of the Americas, and the rise of the Atlantic slave
trade were all key
elements in the genealogy of race. The concept emerged over
time as a kind of
world-historical bricolage, an accretive process that was in part
theoretical,1 but
much more centrally practical. Though intimated throughout the
world in innu-
merable ways, racial categorization of human beings was a
European invention.
It was an outcome of the same world-historical processes that
created European
nation-states and empires, built the dark satanic mills of Britain
(and the even more
dark and satanic sugar mills of the Brazilian Reconcavo and the
Caribbean), and
explained it all by means of Enlightenment rationality.
But this is not to say that the European attainment of imperial
and world-
encompassing power gave rise to race. Indeed it is just as easy
to argue the opposite:

that the modern concept of race gave rise to, or at least
facilitated the creation of,
an integrated sociopolitical world, a modem authoritarian state,
the structures of
an international economy, and the emergence over time of a
global culture. We
must recognize all these issues as deeply racialized matters.
'Religious, philosophical, literary/artistic, political, and
scientific discourses all were di-
rected in a never ending flood of ink and image to the themes of
"the Other"; variations in
human nature; and the corporeal, mental, spiritual, sexual, and
"natural historical" differ-
ences among "men." To the extent that this discussion addressed
itself to the problem of
patterns of human difference/identity and human variability, it
may be fairly characterized
as about race. To cite some valuable texts among a virtual
infinity: Hannaford 1996, Gossett
1965, Todorov 1985, 1993, Kiernan 1969, Montagu 1997
[1942], Banton 1987.
2015 20:02:26 UTC
THE SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF RACE HAS BEEN
SHAPED BY LARGE-SCALE POLITICAL PROCESSES
The "Classics"

When we look at the treatment of racial matters in sociological
theory, we find the
concept present from the beginning, though often in an
inchoate, undertheorized, or
taken-for-granted form. Herbert Spencer, the usual example
cited as the ur-socio-
logist, reads as a biological determinist today, preoccupied as
he is with human
evolution and the ranking of groups according to their "natural"
characteristics.2
Marx's orientation to themes we would now consider racial was
complex. His
denunciation in Capital of the depredation, despoliation, and
plunder of the non-
European world in pursuit of primitive accumulation,3 and his
ferocious opposition
to slavery, both commend him. But his insistence that the
colonized pre-capitalist
societies would ultimately benefit from their enmeshment in the
brutal clutches of
the European powers hints to present-day readers that he was
not entirely immune
to the hierarchization of the world that characterized the
imperial Europe of his day.
Weber's treatment of the concept of ethnie under the rubric of
"status" (a re-
lational category based on "honor") presages a social
constructionist approach to
race; but in Weber's voluminous output there is no serious
consideration of the mod-
em imperial phenomenon, there are numerous instances of
European chauvinism,4
and there is an occasional indulgence in-let us call it-racialist

meditation.5
Durkheim too ranks the world eurocentrically, distinguishing
rather absolutely
2Early treatments of the race concept in Europe and the United
States combined supposedly
biologistic or natural history-based conceptions of race with a
high degree of arbitrariness,
if not outright incoherence, in their application. Numerous
groups qualified as "races":
national origin (the Irish) and religion (Jews) as well as the
more familiar criteria of color
were frequently invoked as signs of racial otherness. Although
this fungibility has been
somewhat reduced and regularized over recent decades, it still
remains in effect and indeed
can never be supplanted by "objective" criteria. See the
discussion of racial formation below.
3"The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation,
enslavement, and entomb-
ment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the
conquest and looting of the
East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the
commercial hunting of blackskins,
signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.
These idyllic proceedings
are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels
treads the commercial
war of the European nations with the globe for a theater. It
begins with the revolt of the
Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England's
AntiJacobin War, and is
still going on in the opium wars with China, etc." (Marx
1967:351).
4Especially during the World War I years, when Weber was
seriously afflicted with German

nationalism.
5In fairness, Weber also recognizes racism, notably anti-black
racism in the United States.
See his remarks on U.S. racial attitudes in Gerth & Mills
1958:405-6. Weber's sensitivity
to U.S. racial matters may be attributed, at least in part, to the
orientation provided him by
Du Bois. See Lewis 1993:225, 277.
2015 20:02:26 UTC
174 WINANT
between "primitive" and "civilized" peoples based on the
limited ethnology avail-
able to him; he also muses somewhat racialistically.6
It is not my purpose to chide these masters. Far from it: They
acquit themselves
well when compared to the rank-and-file pundits and even the
bien philosophes
who were their contemporaries. They can hardly be expected to
have remained
totally immune from the racial ideology of their times. But that
is precisely the
point: Sociological thought arose in an imperialist, eurocentric,
and indeed racist
era, both in Europe and in the United States. In its classical

early statements, it
was racially marked by the time and place of its birth.
Across the Atlantic
It was largely in the United States that the early sociology of
race first forsook the
library for the streets, partaking in the great empirical
effloresence that marked
the field's establishment in that country. There was an
inescapable association
between the discipline's development in this period (the early
twentieth century),
and the rise of pragmatism in US philosophy and progressivism
in US politics
during the same epoch. Nor is it hard to understand why race
was promoted to a
more central sociological concern as the discipline acquired its
foothold-indeed
its headquarters-in the United States. This was, after all, a
country where African
slavery was still an artifact of living memory, where the frontier
had only recently
been declared closed, where immigration was a flood stage, and
where debates over
the propriety of imperial activity (in the Phillipines, for
example) were still current.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a nearly
comprehensive view of the
race concept still located it at the biological level. On this
account, races were "nat-
ural": their characteristics were essential and given, immutable.
Over the centuries

such approaches had accomplished a wide range of explanatory
work. Both the
defense of slavery and its critique (abolitionism) had appealed
to "natural" criteria
in support of their views. In a similar vein the holocaust visited
upon indigenous
peoples, as well as the absorption of large numbers of former
Mexican, Spanish,
and Asian subjects through war and coercive immigration
policies, had been jus-
tified as "natural," inevitable forms of human progress.7 Even
after emancipation
and the "closing of the frontier" in the United States, scientific
arguments still
summoned "natural causes" to the defense of hierarchical
concepts of race. In the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the impact of
social Darwinism was
6Racial categories are employed as "social types" in Suicide,
for example. See Fenton 1980.
7The Chicago theorists, particularly Park, proposed a
deterministic version of this argument
in the form of a "race relations cycle" through which
macrosocial encounters between
"peoples" were argued to pass. The four stages of the "cycle"
were held to succeed each
other more or less inevitably: first contact, then conflict,
succeeded by accommodation, and
finally assimilation. Residues of the "natural history" logic of
race can be detected here,
to be sure, but there is also something of a social

constructionism at work. For example,
Park suggests that alternative power dynamics among racially
defined groups are possible
at each of the cycle's phases.
2015 20:02:26 UTC
enormous (not merely on Herbert Spencer), and the arguments
of eugenics also
acquired great support.
But the world racial system underwent significant shifts in the
early twentieth
century. As labor demands grew more complex and the agenda
of democratization
gradually assumed greater importance, biologistic racial
theories became increas-
ingly obsolete. The resurgence of anticolonial movements in
Africa and Asia (a
century after the success of such movements in the Americas),
the spreading of
democratic demands to countries considered "backward" and
"uncivilized," and
the increased mobility (both geographic and economic) of ex-
slaves and former
peasants during and after World War I, all motivated the
gradual but inexorable
development of a more sophisticated social scientific approach
to race.

The two early twentieth century examples of pathbreaking racial
theorizing that
require mention here are the pioneering study by W.E.B. Du
Bois of black life in
Philadelphia (Du Bois 1998 [1899]), and the extensive body of
work on racial
matters that formed a crucial component of the Chicago School
of sociology. Both
these pioneers were oriented by the pragmatism that was the
most original, and
remains the most important, contribution of North American
sociological theory.
Du Bois's The Philadelphia Negro8 sought both to make a
significant advance
over previous knowledge (overwhelmingly ignorant and
stereotyped) about black
life and US racial dynamics; and to build, upon a solid base of
empirical data,
a powerful and strategic argument for the democratization of
race relations in
turn-of-the-century America. Though slightly marred by
concessions demanded
of Du Bois by his patrons (or perhaps imagined necessary by
him) the work
still stands, an entire century later, as a magisterial survey of
the unique racial
dementia of the United States: the country's foundational
involvement with African
enslavement and the permanent consequences of that
involvement. In addition to
his pathbreaking approach to racial theory, particularly evident
in his concept of
"the veil" and his understanding of racial dualism (Du Bois
1989 [1903]), Du Bois's

early work is notable for its relentless empirical commitments
and independent
application of pragmatist philosophy (West 1989) to the
sociological enterprise,
both theoretical and practical. As Elijah Anderson points out in
his introduction
to the centennial reissue of The Philadelphia Negro (1996
[1899]), the tendency
8One should cite much more of Du Bois's contributions to the
foundations of US sociology,
and indeed to democratic theory and practice in respect to race:
the Atlanta studies, the
historical sociology (most notably Black Reconstruction in
America (1977 [1935]), and
an astounding wealth of other work (see Lewis 1995 for a good
selection of materials).
While Du Bois was not entirely ignored by the "mainstream" of
the field, he was hardly
given his due recognition either. As noted, Du Bois was
associated with Weber, whom he
had come to know in Berlin. The complex set of influences
shaping Du Bois's intellectual
and political development has been much explored in recent
scholarship: He combined
a high German philosophical, historical, and social scientific
training with solid roots in
American pragmatism (notably his work with William James),
and a deep engagement with
the popular African-American traditions he first met as a
college student in the South (see
Du Bois 1989 [1903]), Du Bois 1991 [1940]), Lewis 1993, West
1989, Marable 1986).
2015 20:02:26 UTC

176 WINANT
to attribute these innovations to more "mainstream" sociologists
for many years
banished Du Bois from his rightful place in the disciplinary
canon.
The large body of work on race produced by the researchers of
the Chicago
School also demonstrates the influence of pragmatism and
progressivism. Ori-
ented by a social problems approach and consciously viewing
the city of Chicago
as a sociological laboratory, the Chicago sociologists authored a
group of studies
focusing on crime, poverty, "slums," etc., all problems that
were frequently seen
racially. The approaches that developed in Chicago were
notable for their atten-
tiveness to their empirical subjects, and for their intrinsically
democratic orienta-
tion. Moving from the preliminary work of Burgess, through the
great creativity
and comprehensiveness of Thomas & Znaniecki's massive
study9 the Chicago
engagement with the problematic of race culminated in the work
of Robert E.
Park on the macro-dimensions of race (Park 1950).10 There was
also an im-
portant micro-side of the Chicago tradition, which proceeded

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