Doctoral Dissertation Research: Racial Identity at Home and Abroad: Its Impact on Puerto Ricans' and Dominicans' Social Networks and Economic Mobility

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation compares the process of racial identification among first generation Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrants in New York with racial identification among these groups in their countries of origin. Latin Americans tend to see race as a continuum with many more categories than are accepted in the United States. For immigrants from these racially heterogeneous countries, racial identification should be affected by cultural contexts in both the U.S. and their countries of origin. In depth interviews will ask about attitudes toward race, the perceptions of how their group is viewed by others, and the respondents' systems of racial classification. Changes in racial identification because of immigration should be related to the respondents' social networks and economic outcomes.