Why are Hispanics identifying as white?

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Why are Hispanics identifying as white?

By Eric Liu

updated 11:53 AM EDT, Thu May 29, 2014

The 2010 official US Census form.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Eric Liu: Pew study of census data shows many Hispanics now identifying as white
• Liu: It could have implications in national politics, but mainly tells us about our views on race
• He says longer Hispanics had been in U.S., more likely they were to check "white"
• Liu: Danger in treating whiteness as ideal social baseline; America is and should be colorful

Editor's note: Eric Liu is the founder of Citizen University and the author of several books, including "The Gardens of Democracy" and "The Accidental Asian." He served as a White House speechwriter and policy adviser for President Bill Clinton. Follow him on Twitter@ericpliu. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- For all the complexity of our national complexion, Americans still too often think that white makes right.

Consider a new study of census returns released by the Pew Research Center, which reportedly showed significant numbers of Hispanics are now identifying as white.

Some news reports suggested that Hispanics, rather than solidifying a distinct ethnic identity and becoming the driving force of a "majority-minority" future, might instead try to be just the latest group of immigrants, such as Italians or Jews, to "become white."

Eric Liu

Such a shift, if it's real, has potentially big implications.

Think about national politics, where the Republican Party plays to a shrinking, aging and increasingly anxious base of white voters. If large numbers of Hispanics were to start thinking of themselves as white, that could alter the calculations and rhetoric of the GOP.

But it turns out such scenarios are at best premature. What the Pew study really reveals, when you read it closely, is just how confused we continue to be about race -- and how, even amidst this confusion, whiteness remains a dangerously malleable idea that Americans must deal with more candidly.

Let's start with the three points of confusion that the Pew study revealed.

First, and most basic, is a statement that has been repeated yet ignored so often that it's like the fine print in an ad: "Hispanics can be of any race."

That means there are black, white, even Asian Hispanics. The label "Hispanic" -- meaning, "with origins or heritage in Spanish-speaking countries" -- was intended by the census to be a category of linguistic and ethnic heritage, not an official "race" of its own.

Yet in recent decades, Hispanics or Latinos have indeed begun to forge a cross-cutting identity that can feel like a racial category (shorthanded as "brown") and is sometimes set beside the other major blocs of America's racial color grid. So Hispanics can be at once a race and not a race. It's no wonder that media coverage of Hispanics can be muddled.

The second point of confusion is that the Pew study did not in fact find a Hispanic flight to whiteness.

What it found was that growing numbers of Hispanics, when told by government forms that they were not a race unto themselves and that they had to choose a race, chose the category called "white." As the study authors noted, this reflected the convolutions and limits of the census forms (which are to change in 2020) at least as much any underlying yearning among Hispanics to be white.

Will racism end when old guys die?

Florida could top New York in population

Fewer Americans uninsured

But this brings us to the third point of confusion, which is that to the extent that some Hispanics did in fact want to be seen as white rather than Hispanic, they were using the clumsy language of color to express the subtle reality of class.

The Pew report indicated that the longer their families had been in America, the more likely Hispanics were to check the "white" box. This suggests that the way Americans say "upward mobility for immigrants" or "mainstream integration" is still too often "becoming white."

Indeed, sometimes our national discourse on race proceeds as if it were all about groups of color vying to be acknowledged, while white people sit back and watch. The invention of panethnic categories such as "Latino" or "Asian American," categories that take on a racial life of their own, is in part a reaction to the white-norming of politics and pop culture. But it's also a time-tested, all-American tradition. For proof, look no further than the invention of the white race itself.

The great waves of immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries -- to say nothing of the baroque rules of racial categorization in the slaveholding South -- showed that Americanshave always been deviously flexible about deciding who gets to be white. At first the Irish weren't, then they were. Same with the Italians and Jews.

In more recent times, Asian Americans who've achieved in visible ways have been granted "honorary white" status (wanted or not), while some people of color seeking middle-class success have been accused by their co-ethnics of "acting white" (whether they thought of it that way or not).

The great risk, underscored by the reactions to the Pew study, is that we go on unthinkingly treating whiteness as the ideal and social baseline of American life.

That's harmful because it subordinates people whose backgrounds aren't "white" and because it stunts the capacity of all people -- not least poor and working-class whites -- to name and reckon with class divides and inequality.

I propose a better way of talking about what third- or fourth-generation Hispanics, or ambitious new arrivals in Chinatown, or resilient African American first-in-the-family college students are all doing. They're not becoming white. They're becoming American.

And to become American is now a more colorful, complex and class-bound undertaking than it has ever been. Let's learn to see it that way.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/29/opinion/liu-study-hispanics-favor-whiteness/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

The 2010 census was the first time I have ever had to put more than two seconds of thought into the race/ethnicity questions.

So the "Race" box had the following options:

White

Black

Native American

Asian (various Asian: Chinese, Japanese, etc)

Native Hawaiian

Pacific Islander (several listed)

That is it... My wife looks about the same as me with a decent tan.. The question is not optional. if I put the pen in your hand what box do you select for her? Does it really lend any clues as to how she and other Latinos self identify?

A second part to the question asks "If Hispanic what is your origin?"

Maxican

Cuban

Puerto Rico

etc...

So she identified as white because it was the closest option then answered the second question (or reverse - I don't remember the order of the questions).

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Race can get tricky. I remember my husband and I's first discussion about race. I told him I was black. He said no you are white. I said no I am black. He says no you are not black, I am black. I said no you are brown. He said, so you are a light color brown? I said no I am black and you are a brown Asian. He says no you are brown and I am a black Asian.

I said, no this is not correct. He asks why not? I said because I have African ancestry this makes me black.

My husband's response, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. How does having African blood make you black and you are lighter than me?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Race can get tricky. I remember my husband and I's first discussion about race. I told him I was black. He said no you are white. I said no I am black. He says no you are not black, I am black. I said no you are brown. He said, so you are a light color brown? I said no I am black and you are a brown Asian. He says no you are brown and I am a black Asian.

I said, no this is not correct. He asks why not? I said because I have African ancestry this makes me black.

My husband's response, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. How does having African blood make you black and you are lighter than me?

Well we have been trying to figure that out about our President for many years now

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Well we have been trying to figure that out about our President for many years now

Exactly! I have a hard time calling him "black" or the first "African American" president. The dude is half white.

How about we make a new census?

Please circle all that apply to you.

A. Your family landed in America on a flying saucer

B. You have origins in Venus

C. You can change shapes

Or let people really identify themselves by their skin tone instead of basing it off of racial ancestry.

A. Mocha

B. White

C. Milk Chocolate

D. Vanilla

Isn't this much better?

[Dakine10 5,452]

Race can get tricky. I remember my husband and I's first discussion about race. I told him I was black. He said no you are white. I said no I am black. He says no you are not black, I am black. I said no you are brown. He said, so you are a light color brown? I said no I am black and you are a brown Asian. He says no you are brown and I am a black Asian.

Damn. That made me spit out my coffee.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Damn. That made me spit out my coffee.

I know right? That is why when I go to Sri Lanka I get happy after I get some sun, so I don't have to have discussions about my race with people there. They just don't get it.

I was at my husband's brother in law's mother's house this Christmas. The topic of what am I came up. I tried as best I could. She said, you are black, like Obama right? She could not phanthom equating me to Michelle. So that means you are half - white, right? I said no, I am not, I am black.

You should have seen the question mark on her face. She said, but you are lighter than Obama. sigh.....

I changed the discussion to curry, rice and fish.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

I'm Hispanic and white. BFD. It's not an issue of self-selecting a race to gain an advantage -- I'm white, was raised by a dad who identified as white (as did his parents, and their parents) and a mom who was indubitably white. I was raised in New England as part of a big Irish-American family. I went to prep school. I played field hockey. I lived for over a decade in the Land That Invented White People (aka England). I speak no Spanish but I know dirty Latin poems. I am the epitome of Honkidom, yet my skin is a little tawny. So that means I'm not white, or that I'm rejecting my culture, or I'm seeking the benefits of being Anglo? Hogwash, and so ridiculously generalizing about the numerous nationalities and ethnicities of Hispanic people in America. My American experience is clearly different from a new immigrant's, but does that somehow obliterate the fact that I am Hispanic?

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

This article need a a dose of history.

I have read that in CA in the 30s, the Mexicans were considered white because they were worried about Asians as different. Then when more hispanics came they decided that they were not white, because the white people started to worry about them.

Race is not a real thing, and is a cultural construct. The article talks of groups "becoming white" in popular culture but nothing of groups becoming "non white." Bad job.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Well we have been trying to figure that out about our President for many years now

'We' would be you and who exactly? Not me, for sure.

[eieio 1,594]

They need to coin a new term for people such as the president.

Could be Blite or Blate or Whick or Whack.

I go with Whack. Obama is our first whack president.

.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

They need to coin a new term for people such as the president.

Could be Blite or Blate or Whick or Whack.

I go with Whack. Obama is our first whack president.

.

Ow that was a darn good one.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I'm Hispanic and white. BFD. It's not an issue of self-selecting a race to gain an advantage -- I'm white, was raised by a dad who identified as white (as did his parents, and their parents) and a mom who was indubitably white. I was raised in New England as part of a big Irish-American family. I went to prep school. I played field hockey. I lived for over a decade in the Land That Invented White People (aka England). I speak no Spanish but I know dirty Latin poems. I am the epitome of Honkidom, yet my skin is a little tawny. So that means I'm not white, or that I'm rejecting my culture, or I'm seeking the benefits of being Anglo? Hogwash, and so ridiculously generalizing about the numerous nationalities and ethnicities of Hispanic people in America. My American experience is clearly different from a new immigrant's, but does that somehow obliterate the fact that I am Hispanic?

Once again I thought you were Canadian. Please make up your mind