Doctoral Dissertation Research: Situating Multiethnic Racial Identity in Neighborhood and Household Contexts

University Of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, Athens GA

Investigators

Abstract

Multiethnic and mixed-race household partnerships between Latinos of varied racial origin and non-Latino Whites are becoming ever more common in U.S. urban areas, yet researchers know almost nothing about these households beyond their demographic and geographic rates of occurrence. Social scientists understand little about how multi-ethnic, mixed-race households comprehend and enact racial and ethnic identity or about how they select and interact with their residential neighborhoods. Decisions about "Where to Live?" rank among the most important issues that confront mixed-race families because they must select residential locations from among a set of neighborhoods that are typically marked in terms of single racial categories. Neighborhoods shape potential social interactions and thus influence the formation and enactment of ethnic and racial identities within mixed-race households. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine one type of mixed-race household, couples including a non-Latino White (hereafter referred to as "White") and a Latino of Mexican heritage (hereafter referred to as "Mexican") in one metropolis, the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The doctoral student will examine the multi-scalar interactions of family and family members' racial and ethnic identity formation processes with household and neighborhood contexts. The study will employ a rigorous combination of tabular and cartographic quantitative analysis of geographically detailed confidential census data with qualitative analysis of residential history interviews with Mexican mothers and adult multiracial children from White-Mexican (WM) households. The project will (1) examine the residential distribution of WM households relative to other L.A. area households and characterize the racial identification of multiracial children in WM households relative to household demographic structure and neighborhood racial composition, (2) assess WM family-level perceptions and residential decisions related to the racial and ethnic socialization of children, and (3) evaluate the dual impacts of WM household and neighborhood contexts on the formation and expression of racial and ethnic identity among WM multiracial offspring. This project will enhance understanding of racial and ethnic identity development by examining two of the multiple social settings (households and neighborhoods) that impact identity formation. This project conceives of the household as both a contextual social setting that affects individual identity and as a subjective unit of collective identity assertion, negotiation, and enactment. Similar analyses are largely absent in academia because of substantive foci upon individuals rather than households. Broader scientific impacts arise from the study's focus on WM households; a mixed-race household type that is far more common that other multiethnic and multiracial partnerships but that is also nearly ignored by researchers. WM households might retain elements of both partners' racial and ethnic identifications and the household's complex racial, and ethnic identity might manifest itself in family residential decisions that are similar to but quite distinct from those of most same-race White or Latino households. WM households might not gravitate towards residential neighborhoods that are dominated by members of either partner's racial group. This research will address the manner with which Latino cultures and racial identities blend into and/or alter those of White America and offer crucial empirical information about where mixed-race households settle within large metropolitan areas. Finally, as research funded by a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award, this implementation of this project will facilitate the establishment of a solid independent research program for a promising young scholar.