Efrén O. Pérez - Diversitys Child: People of Color and the Politics of Identity

EFRN O. PREZ

The University of Chicago Press

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Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN -13: 978-0-226-79976-6 (cloth)

ISBN -13: 978-0-226-80013-4 (paper)

ISBN -13: 978-0-226-79993-3 (e-book)

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226799933.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Prez, Efrn Osvaldo, 1977 author.

Title: Diversitys child : people of color and the politics of identity / Efrn O. Prez.

Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020054612 | ISBN 9780226799766 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226800134 (paperback) | ISBN 9780226799933 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : MinoritiesUnited StatesAttitudes. | Group identityUnited StatesPublic opinion. | Group identityUnited States. | Group identityPolitical aspectsUnited States. | Identity politicsUnited States. | Political psychologyUnited States. | United StatesEthnic relationsPolitical aspects.

Classification: LCC E 184. A 1 P 388 2021 | DDC 305.800973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054612

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z 39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Although 2000 has come and gone, Marables prediction remains as prescient as ever. The US continues to diversify rapidly. When the renowned professor of African American Studies first wrote these words, he envisioned that demographic growth would be followed by greater solidarity among diverse minority communities. The latest estimates from the Census Bureau (2018) reveal that the first half of his vision has been fulfilled, with Blacks, Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans now constituting 38.3% of the US populationa share that continues to rise. In fact, new figures suggest people of color will soon demographically overtake Whites, transforming the US into a majority-minority nation (Pew Research Center 2015).

This palpable sense of profound and imminent transformation hangs heavily in the air. Indeed, dispatches from several intellectual circlesMarables includedalert us to some of the consequences this demographic reality has already produced. In particular, social scientists are discovering a White population that is hunkering down and lashing out against the growth of PoC (Craig and Richeson 2014; Danbold and Huo 2015; Jardina 2019). As the lone dominant racial group since the inception of the US, many Whites have grown accustomed to a relatively higher station in life that is attended by greater access to power, resources, and status (Carter and Prez 2015; Sidanius et al. 1997; Sidanius and Pratto 1999). Yet the tide of PoC washing over America signals to Whites, in the starkest terms possible, that their privileged foothold is loosening, and fast (Jardina 2019)hence, the resistance of some Whites to multicultural initiatives (cf. Danbold and Huo 2015; Prez, Deichert, and Engelhardt 2019), the rightward shift of a substantial proportion of Whites toward conservativism and Republican allegiance (Abrajano and Hajnal 2015; Craig and Richeson 2014a, b); the resistance of many Whites to minority candidates for elected office (Fraga 2018; Hajnal 2007); the White opposition to Latino, Asian, and Muslim immigrants (Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014; Malhotra, Margalit, and Mo 2012; Newman 2012; Newman and Malhotra 2019; Oskooii, Lajevardi, and Collingwood 2019; Prez 2016; Reny, Valenzuela, and Collingwood 2019); and some Whites support for punitive policies that incarcerate unequal numbers of African Americans and Latinos (Ramirez 2013a, b; Weaver and Lerman 2010).

However, although people of color are profoundly shaping what Whites think of a shifting US society, research on what people of color themselves think about this sea change and how they are reacting to it is nearly absent. This omission is odd given the diversity of demographic trends among racial and ethnic minorities themselves. In the aggregate, African Americans (13.4%) and Latinos (18.3%) comprise the largest segments of non-Whites; whereas Blacks have held this distinction since times of slavery, Latinos have only assumed this role in the past 50 years, mainly due to immigration and robust fertility rates. In contrast, Native Americans (1.3%) and Asian Americans (6.1%) comprise smaller segments of the total US population. In addition, while demographic growth among Blacks has been anemic, Latinos are now considered the fastest-growing racial minority (Frey 2018; US Census Bureau 2018). This heterogeneity in population trends is further matched by the fractious political histories, goals, and aspirations of these groups, which many times weakly overlap with one another (Dawson 1994; Garca 2012; Kim 2003; Masuoka and Junn 2013; McClain and Johnson Carew 2017; Nagel 1996; Omi and Winant 1986; Vaca 2004; Wilkins and Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark 2018).

The very assumption, then, that racial and ethnic minorities see themselves as Marable called themas people of coloris just that: mere assertion, speculation, and supposition, but not an established fact proper. In fact, many scholars (not a few of them minorities themselves) have threaded a rich tapestry of findings that teach us how and why distinct non-White groups, such as African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and others, sometimes see themselves as economic and political competitors rather than allies (e.g., Benjamin 2017; Cutaia Wilkinson 2015; McClain et al. 2005; McClain and Karnig 1990). In many major cities across the US, groups such as African Americans and Latinoswho often share neighborhoods, schools, labor markets, and lower social statusdisplay extremely hostile attitudes toward each other (Gay 2006; Telles, Sawyer, and Rivera-Salgado 2011; Vaca 2004; Zou and Cheryan 2017). Yet whether various minority groups can sometimes share a common identity and sense of solidarity as people of color is a lingering question that has largely escaped researchers attention.

This is a mistake, I think, and one I hope to rectify in the subsequent chapters of this book. Accordingly, I aim to convince you that despite their unique identities as Black, Asian American, Latino, and so on, members of these distinct minority groups often share an identity as people of color, or what I call PoC ID. Although the precise origins of the label people of color remain largely shrouded in mystery (Yuen 1997), a close reading of the historical record suggests that Black Americans struggle with slavery and its aftermath is a key source (Carter 2019; Franklin 1947). In the US republics early days, for example,