I investigate the extent of ambiguity in racial classification using a national representative survey of Brazilian urban areas. Ambiguity is operationalized as the lack of consistency between racial classification by interviewers (categorization) and respondents (identification) using the categories, white, brown, and black. Racial classifications are consistent in 79 percent of the study sample. However, persons at the light end of the color continuum tend to be consistently classified while ambiguity is especially great for those at the darker end. Using statistical estimation techniques, the findings also reveal that consistency varies from 20 to 100 percent depending on one’s education, age, and sex and the racial composition of local urban areas. For example, only 20 percent of high educated females that self-classified as black were classified as black by interviewers while classification as white was nearly always consistent in predominately white urban areas. Also, the direction of the inconsistencies to lighter or darker categories depends on these variables and whether the reference is intervie wer or respondent classification. For example, interviewers "whitened" the classification of higher educated persons who identified themselves as brown, especially when such persons resided in mostly nonwhite cities. Finally, I discuss the role of the Brazilian state in constructing race, and understandings of race and racial groups and comparative studies of race relations.

Latin America's problems of underdevelopment most adversely affect the region's indigenous, black and mulatto citizens. This paper argues that Latin American governments should thus incorporate race and ethnicity in their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which seek to reduce social exclusion in the region by 2015. However, most Latin American countries do not collect race and ethnic data or do so inappropriately and thus there is an urgent need for census and national survey systems to begin collecting such data. This paper describes the data that currently exist and proposes how to improve data collection so that equitable development can be properly monitored. This article is based on a 'concept paper' that was prepared in 2004 for the Inter-Interagency Consultation on Race and presented at the World Bank in February 2006. It was later presented at the 'International Seminar on the Construction and Use of Ethnic Variables in Public Statistics' in Mexico City in October 2006.

This article examines the naming practices of Hispanic parents who gave birth to children in Los Angeles County in 1995. The authors find that greater exposure to U.S. culture increases the chances of naming a child in English. However, they find that by giving children English names that are translatable into Spanish, U.S.-born Hispanic parents are able simultaneously to assimilate while maintaining a connection to their ethnic origins. In addition, the authors find that attitudes favoring assimilation are particularly great when naming daughters. Immigrant Hispanic couples tend to give sons Spanish names, but they often give daughters English names without Spanish referents. These gender differences persist even among U.S.-born Hispanics paired with non-Hispanics. Among intermarried couples, father’s ethnicity has a disproportionately large influence in naming, especially for sons’ names. These findings have implications for how the assimilation process is gendered

This study explores the incorporation processes of adolescent arrivlas who migrated to the United States prior to the presidential election of 2016, the majority from Mexico. Adolescent arrivals are immigrant youth between the ages of 13 and 18 referred to in the literature as members of the 1.25-generation. I conducted ethnographic work with 30 adolescent arrivals both documented and undocumented in a community in California’s central coast region. This study interrogates notions of belonging by examining how the current political and social contexts of white supremacy, anti-immigrant discourses and policies, and nativist rhetoric, influence the integration of adolescent arrivals in the United States. As immigrants and as English Language Learners, these students confront many obstacles both in their academic and personal journeys in the host society, particularly today. The election of Donald Trump brought upon a climate of trepidation and anxiety among these students, who constantly express fears of deportation, racism, and hate crimes. Through the concept I term negotiating liminality—the meaning-making process by which adolescent arrivals adhere to as they make sense, understand, and ultimately respond to political tactics aimed directly at dismantling their communities, I examine their experiences. My analysis reveals adolescent arrivals are not passive individuals that see themselves as victims but instead are active agents negotiating the consequences of being immigrants, English Language Learners, and people with precarious citizenship status, among many other factors that limit their opportunities in the United States.

Latin America had held an extensive reputation as a racial democracy due to the region’s history of interracial relations between Europeans, Africans, and Indigenous populations. However, this reputation has been criticized for ignoring the region’s ethno-racial hierarchies and the presence of distinct ethno-racial groups such as Afro-descendants and indigenous groups. Using data from the AmericasBarometer and the Project on Race and Ethnicity and Latin America (PERLA), this research project examines how national pride varies by ethno-racial group and skin color in Latin America. Brazil, Colombia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, and the United States serve as my case studies. Ordinary least squares and logistic regressions are utilized for my analysis. My findings show few racial or skin-color effects on national pride in Latin America, with the exception of Brazil and Bolivia. However, perceived ethnic respect is related to national pride. Notably, those who disagreed that their country respected their ethnic identity showed lower levels of national pride compared to those who agreed. Thus, rather than simply identifying as an ethno-racial minority, actually experiencing a lack of ethnic respect may influence national pride attitudes. These findings challenge the assumption of social dominance theory in which being an ethno-racial minority should automatically result in less national pride. This research highlights the necessity to analyze perceived respect by ethnic groups when predicting senses of pride in the nation rather than rely on ethno-racial and skin color categorization.