University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2019 Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, And The Emotional Politics Of Race And Blackness In The U.s. Shantee Rosado University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the American Studies Commons, Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Rosado, Shantee, "Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, And The Emotional Politics Of Race And Blackness In The U.s." (2019). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 3479. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3479 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3479 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, And The Emotional Politics Of Race And Blackness In The U.s. Abstract Latinos are a large and growing population in the United States, which has prompted race and immigration scholars to theorize about Latinos’ chances at integration as well as their place in the U.S. racial hierarchy. Several researchers have argued that Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and other Latinos are reshaping or changing how race is understood in the country by rejecting common understandings of race in the U.S. I argue that by focusing on racial self-identification atherr than on racial beliefs, these claims oversell the ability of Latinos to affect the U.S. racial hierarchy. Instead, I examine Latinos’ racial ideologies, which may be more indicative of a group’s impact on racial stratification, and how these ideologies are shaped by collective emotions in the U.S. In the following dissertation, I examine how collective emotions regarding space and race, language practices, Blackness, and immigration, shape the racial ideologies of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Data for the study are comprised of 42 semi- structured, in-depth interviews with Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in Central Florida. The interviews addressed respondents’ history of migration, knowledge of racialized terms in Spanish, and emotions concerning racially charged events in U.S. news, such as the Black Lives matter Movement and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The findings show that Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, far from changing how race operates in the country, adopt collective emotions that are detrimental to marginalized groups, such as anger toward Black protestors in cases of alleged or confirmed police brutality. While respondents were more sympathetic to immigrants, there was a subset of respondents who aligned their feelings with those of collective fear and anxiety regarding immigration. These findings suggest that future research on race should analyze individuals’ racial ideologies, in addition to their racial self- identification. Further, these findings suggest future research should examine how, and under what conditions, racial and ethnic minorities propagate beliefs that perpetuate white dominance in the United States. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Sociology First Advisor Emilio Parrado Keywords Blackness, Collective Emotions, Latinos, Politics, Race and Ethnicity, Racial Ideologies Subject Categories American Studies | Latin American Languages and Societies | Latin American Studies | Sociology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3479 PUERTO RICANS, DOMINICANS, AND THE EMOTIONAL POLITICS OF RACE AND BLACKNESS IN THE U.S. Shantee Rosado A DISSERTATION in Sociology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 Supervisor of Dissertation Emilio Parrado Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor, Department of Sociology Graduate Group Chairperson Jason Schnittker Professor, Department of Sociology Dissertation Committee Emilio Parrado Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor, Department of Sociology Grace Kao IBM Professor, Department of Sociology (Yale University) Onoso Imoagene Assistant Professor, Sociology Department PUERTO RICANS, DOMINICANS, AND THE EMOTIONAL POLITICS OF RACE AND BLACKNESS IN THE U.S. COPYRIGHT 2019 Shantee Lorraine Rosado This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ To my mother. Thank you for fueling and supporting my love of education. Pa’lante como el elefante. Pa’tras ni pa’ coger impulso. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to thank my research participants, without whom I would not have been able to complete this project. I appreciate your honesty and your vulnerability. Thank you for welcoming me into your homes and for your kindness and generosity. I would like to express deep gratitude to my committee members, Emilio Parrado, Grace Kao, and Onoso Imoagene. Thank you for your generosity and your continued support over the years. It has been a long journey, but your words of encouragement got me to the finish line. Many thanks to the administrative team in McNeil, with a special thanks to Audra Rodgers and Katee Paone-Mankins. Your support over these years has been so important and special to me. Thank you for your guidance and love along the way. There are many friends I would like to acknowledge here, therefore I will do so by groups. To my sociology graduate student friends, I am so grateful to have shared this journey with you. Phoebe and Tina, I owe you a special thank you for, well, everything. Thank you to my non-sociology Penn friends, particularly Rosanna, Eram, and Jeremy. You helped me to stay focused throughout this process and offered a beautiful model for me follow at Penn. I love you all. To my Macalester College friends and mentors, thank you for your ongoing friendship. I am so happy I recently got to celebrate this milestone with you. Lastly, a big thanks to the writing group at Williams College. You make Williamstown a bright and joyous place, and for that I am so grateful. I would like to acknowledge my partner for his emotional support over the past several years. Your support means everything to me. Thank you! I would also like to thank my family for their continued support and love. Mom, I owe you a special thank you for allowing me to stay with you during my data collection. Te amo! I love you, Eddie and Cindy. Finally, I want to thank the countless other people on whom I leaned for support over the entirety of my time at Penn. I would not have gotten this far without your belief in me. Gracias. iv ABSTRACT PUERTO RICANS, DOMINICANS, AND THE EMOTIONAL POLITICS OF RACE AND BLACKNESS IN THE U.S. Shantee Rosado Emilio Parrado Latinos are a large and growing population in the United States, which has prompted race and immigration scholars to theorize about Latinos’ chances at integration as well as their place in the U.S. racial hierarchy. Several researchers have argued that Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and other Latinos are reshaping or changing how race is understood in the country by rejecting common understandings of race in the U.S. I argue that by focusing on racial self-identification rather than on racial beliefs, these claims oversell the ability of Latinos to affect the U.S. racial hierarchy. Instead, I examine Latinos’ racial ideologies, which may be more indicative of a group’s impact on racial stratification, and how these ideologies are shaped by collective emotions in the U.S. In the following dissertation, I examine how collective emotions regarding space and race, language practices, Blackness, and immigration, shape the racial ideologies of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Data for the study are comprised of 42 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in Central Florida. The interviews addressed respondents’ history of migration, knowledge of racialized terms in Spanish, and emotions concerning racially charged events in U.S. news, such as the Black Lives matter Movement and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The findings show that Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, far from changing how race operates in the country, adopt collective emotions that are detrimental to marginalized groups, such as anger v toward Black protestors in cases of alleged or confirmed police brutality. While respondents were more sympathetic to immigrants, there was a subset of respondents who aligned their feelings with those of collective fear and anxiety regarding immigration. These findings suggest that future research on race should analyze individuals’ racial ideologies, in addition to their racial self-identification. Further, these findings suggest future research should examine how, and under what conditions, racial and ethnic minorities propagate beliefs that perpetuate white dominance in the United States. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT.................................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ v List of Tables ................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................