A look at How Hispanics See Themselves

Study finds notable regional differences

WASHINGTON (By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, LATimes) December 7, 2004 - Hispanics who view themselves as white are more likely to be better educated, earn more, register to vote, and vote Republican, according to a national study released yesterday on how Hispanics identify racially.

The study by the Pew Hispanic Center also found some notable regional differences not yet fully understood. For example, in California, only 42 percent of US-born Mexican-Americans identified themselves as white, compared with 63 percent of their ethnic counterparts in Texas.

The analysis of census data and recent surveys is perhaps the most detailed yet in a relatively new field of research on how Hispanics adapt to rigid racial categories in the United States. It is the first to probe the differences between Hispanics who consider themselves white and those who say they are of some other race.

In many Latin American countries, race is a flexible concept and can change with a person's status in society. Historical and contemporary evidence shows that a Latin American strain of racism favors lighter-skinned over darker-skinned people, but as an old Caribbean proverb says, ''Money bleaches."

In the United States, Hispanics are an ethnic group made up of people of different races, often mixed, and from a variety of ancestral homelands. In the 2000 Census, they mainly selected two racial categories to describe themselves. Forty-eight percent identified themselves as white, and 42 percent chose ''some other race."

Hispanics who perceive themselves as white appear to feel that their place in American society is more secure, the report found.

''Hispanics are taking a broader view of race, one that extends beyond physical features and also encompasses degrees of achievement, belonging, and inclusion," said demographer Sonya M. Tafoya, the report's author.

The Pew Hispanic Center is a nonpartisan research organization based in Washington that studies the US Hispanic population, focusing on public opinion as well as social and economic issues.

The report reinforced earlier research that found surprising variations in racial self-identification according to where Hispanics live in the United States. Apart from the distinction between Mexican-Americans in California and Texas, regional variations prevail among other Hispanic groups as well.

For instance, 81 percent of Puerto Ricans living on the island identified themselves as white in the 2000 Census, while only 46 percent of those living on the US mainland did so. And among Cubans, those living in Florida were much more likely to say they were white than those living in California.

The study found that Hispanics who said they were white were more likely to describe themselves as American than those who said they were of some other race.

When given the choice of identifying themselves as American on the one hand or Hispanic, Mexican, or some other national origin identifier on the other, 55 percent of the Hispanics who said they were white picked ''American." Among the rest, only 36 percent did so.

One-quarter of Hispanics who said they were white saw discrimination as a major problem, compared with one-third who said they were of some other race. They were also less likely to be high school dropouts, live in poverty, and be unemployed.

Among US-born Hispanics, 85 percent of those who said they were white were registered voters, compared with 67 percent of those who said they were of some other race. And 22 percent of those who said they were white also said they were Republicans, compared with 13 percent among Hispanics of some other race.

''The growing Hispanic population may compel a reassessment of the common view of a racial or ethnic group as a readily identifiable category of people who share a common fate and a common identity," the report said.