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The Racial Self-Identification of South Asians in the United States

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The Racial Self-Identification of South Asians in the United States Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol.27, No. 1: 61± 79 January 2001 Theracial self-identi® cation of SouthAsians in the United States Ann Morning Abstract Theracial identity of South Asians haslong been asubject ofcontroversyin theUnited States. Theirinchoate racial status translates into avarietyof racial descriptorsbeing chosen byand for South Asians. Thispaper uses 1990census datato examinethe socio-economic anddemographic correlates ofthe racial self-identi® cation choicesmade by household heads of Asian Indianorigin, both foreign- and US-born. The results ofmultinomial logit analysis show that respondentswho are more acculturated to theUnited States aremore likelyto describethemselves as `Black’ or` White’ thanare thosewith less familiarity with American society.However, higher socio-economic levels areassociated with a greaterlikelihood of self-identi® cation asSouth Asian on thecensus race question. Finally,comparison with a sampleof Asian Indianchildren reveals the latter’s greatertendency to be identi®ed with a race otherthan South Asian,due both to theirmore extensivemixed ancestry andtheir larger share of US-born respondents. KEYWORDS: RACIAL SELF-IDENTIFICATION; SOUTH ASIANS; INDIANS; UNITED STATES; LOGITANALYSIS; CENSUS Introduction Americans in generalseem to havedif® culty accepting complexity andambiguity. I’ m either Indianor American, white orblack ¼ Ican’t bebothand neither. (KavithaMediratta) Thegreat thing about being Indian is thateverybody thinks you’re one of them (Amit K. Misra).1 The racialidentity ofSouth Asianshas long been asubject ofsomecontroversy in the United States. 2 In the early yearsof the twentiethcentury, when whiteness (orAfrican ancestry) was a prerequisite fornaturalisation, American courts vacillatedon the questionof whether AsianIndians were white ornot. In contrastto Mexicans and Armenians, who were deemed white forthe purposes ofcitizenship acquisition, and Japanese, Chinese, andFilipino applicantswho were not,the verdicton the racialclassi® cation of Indianschanged fromcase to case(Haney LoÂpez 1995).American uncertainty over South Asianracial identity hasalso been mirroredin the CensusBureau’s frequent changesin its classi®cation of this group. Overthe courseof the lastcentury, respondentsof South Asianorigin have been classi®ed variouslyas `Hindu’, `White’,`Other’, and` Asian’(Lee 1993). South Asiannewcomers are not alone, however, in confrontingan American raciallandscape that at ® rstseems to have no clear place forthem. Not only does the diversityof the United States’contemporary immigrant pool ensure asteady in¯ux ofpeople whodo not® teasilyinto the traditionalblack/ white dichotomy ISSN1369-183X print/ ISSN1469-9451 online/ 01/010061-19 Ó 2001Taylor & FrancisLtd DOI: 10.1080/13691830020024867 CarfaxPublishing 62 A. Morning (Bashiand McDaniel 1997;Mazumdar 1989), but in the pastas well, immigrants tested,stretched and molded the nation’sconceptions of racialcategories. As Ignatiev (1995)has shown, Irish immigrants were notconsidered white until well aftertheir arrivalin the United States,and this was true ofotherEuropean groupsas well (Jacobson1998; Sacks 1994). Similarly, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, andFilipino Americanswere notalways considered to constitute a pan-ethnic Asianrace (Espiritu 1992;Takaki 1989). Butunlike the Irishwho have already become white,or the Chinese and Japanese whoare now Asian, the racialclassi® cation of South Asiansin the United Statesis still in ¯ux.Although they nowseem ®rmlyensconced in the census` Asian’category, this is a fairly recent development andone thatcame aboutonly afterconsiderable debate (Espiritu 1992).Moreover, several writers havedescribed anuneasy alliancebetween South Asiansand East Asians under the pan-ethnic `Asian’ rubric (see the contributionsin Shankarand Srikanth 1998a).Finally, otherAmericans seem unsure asto their racialstatus. F. James Davis(1991: 162) ® ndsevidence thatsome blacks consider Indians to be blackas well, andRosemary Marangoly George (1997)reports a widespreadconcern amongIndian Americansin Californiaover being takenfor Mexican orblack. More broadly,Nazli Kibria (1996;1998) maintains that South Asiansare seen as `ambiguous non-whites’ in the United States. Given their inchoateracial status, South AsianAmericans may offer unusual insightinto the processof racialformation. De® ned by Omiand Winant (1994: 55)as `the socio-historicalprocess by which racialcategories are created, inhabited, transformed,and destroyed’, racial formation is both macro-level processand the culminationof myriadindividual encounters.It is constituted by `racialprojects large and small’ (Omi andWinant 1994: 61). This paper seeks to explore individual-level adoptionof someracial labels andresistance to others. The diversityof opinionsregarding their `appropriate’ racialclassi® cation leadsSouth Asiansto choose an array of labelson the censusform, even when censusinstructions explicitly directthem to one checkbox category.I use 1990 censusdata to examine the socio-economicand demographic correlates of the racialself-identi® cationchoices made by respondentsof AsianIndian origin,US- andforeign-born, whomake up the majorityof the South Asianpopulation of the United States. In the next section,I review the literatureregarding racialand ethnic identity in general andSouth Asianracial self-conception in particular.I then develop a seriesof hypotheses tobe tested,using dataand methods described in the third partof the paper. The lasttwo sections are devoted to analysis of the dataand discussionof the results. SouthAsians and racial formation Theoriesof racial formation and of ethnicity Many branchesof race and ethnicity theorylend themselvesto the exploration ofhow South AsianAmericans come to view themselvesin racialterms, but centralto this investigation is Michael Omiand Howard Winant’s racial forma- tiontheory. In the ®rstedition of RacialFormation intheUnited States (1986:61± 2), they present their paradigmin the following terms: Themeaning of race is de® nedand contested throughoutsociety, in bothcollective and Theracial self-identi® cation ofSouth Asians 63 personal practice. Inthe process, racial categories themselves areformed, transformed, destroyedand reformed. We use the term racial formation to refer to the process bywhich social, economic andpolitical forces determine the content andimportance of racial categories, andby which theyare in turn shapedby racial meanings. Thuswe canthink ofthe South Asianexperience in the United Statesas acase studyof the processby which racialcategories are formed and transformed. More speci® cally,it provides an example ofwhatOmi and Winant call racialisa- tion:`the extensionof racialmeaning toa previously unclassi®ed relationship, socialpractice or group’ (1986:64). Much ofthe literatureon racial formation privileges the broadsocial and politicalforces, historical and contemporary, which shape the development and spreadof racial schema (e.g. Davis1991; Jacobson 1998; Marx 1998). Students of racialformation writ large, however, often ignore the individual-level actions andencounters that shape racialisationon the ground.Instead, theories of ethnicity ±asopposed to race ± havedelved deeper intothe murky waters of personalidentity. Joane Nagel (1998:237) describes a prevailing paradigmof ethnicity that,in itsemphasis on volition, situational contingency, and social interactionwithin communities, places the individual atthe heartof the ethnic identi® cationprocess: According to this constructionist view, the origin,content, andform of ethnicity re¯ect the creative choices of individuals andgroups as they de® ne themselves andothers in ethnic ways¼ Thelocation andmeaning of particular ethnic boundariesare continuously negoti- ated,revised, andrevitalized, bothby ethnic groupmembers themselves aswell asby outside observers. Thissociological perspective alsodraws attention to the interplay of intern- ally-chosenand externally-imposed de® nition,or as Nagel putsit, ` what you think yourethnicity is,versus what they think yourethnicity is’ (1998:240). In doing so,it draws attention to what is perhaps the mostcrucial distinction between processesof racialand of ethnic formation,namely the varyingdegrees ofexternal versus internal de® nitionthat they incorporate. 3 Banton(1983: 10) contendsthat ` Membership in anethnic group isusually voluntary;membership in aracialgroup isnot.’ Moreover, there isa powerful element of hierarchy embodied in the notionof racethat is not inherent toethnicity: while `ethnic’ social relations arenot necessarily hierarchical, exploitative andcon¯ ictual, `race relations’ certainly appearto be.Although ethnic boundariesinvolve relations of power, andsocial categorizationis inherent to the internal± external dialectic of ethnic identi® cation, hierarchial difference is not de® nitive of ethnic relations ¼`Race’,however, unlike ethnicity, seems to bemuch more amatter of social categorizationthan of group identi® cation (althoughstill amatter of both).(Jenkins 1997: 74± 5) Although the spectrumof internalversus external de® nitionencompasses both the processesof ethnic andracial identi® cation,they fall atdecidedly different pointson thisscale. Thus the `ethnic options’and ` twilightof ethnicity’ respect- ively revealed by Waters(1990) and Alba (1985)to characterise contemporary European Americansappear much lessplausible forthose whose lives are constrainedby race. South Asians inracial terms Boththe volitionalaspect associated with ethnicity andthe externally imposed
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