ASRXXX10.1177/0003122415623286American Sociological ReviewDavenport 6232862015 American Sociological Review 2016, Vol. 81(1) 57 –84 The Role of Gender, Class, and © American Sociological Association 2015 DOI: 10.1177/0003122415623286 Religion in Biracial Americans’ http://asr.sagepub.com Racial Labeling Decisions Lauren D. Davenporta Abstract Racial attachments are understood to be socially constructed and endogenous to gender, socioeconomic, and religious identities. Yet we know surprisingly little about the effect of such identities on the particular racial labels that individuals self-select. In this article, I investigate how social identities shape the racial labels chosen by biracial individuals in the United States, a rapidly growing population who have multiple labeling options. Examining national surveys of more than 37,000 respondents of Latino-white, Asian-white, and black- white parentage, I disentangle how gender, socioeconomic status, and religious identity influence racial labeling decisions. Across biracial subgroups and net of all other influences, economic affluence and Jewish identity predict whiter self-identification, whereas belonging to a religion more commonly associated with racial minorities is associated with a minority identification. Gender, however, is the single best predictor of identification, with biracial women markedly more likely than biracial men to identify as multiracial. These findings help us better understand the contextual nature of racial identification and the processes via which social identities interact with racial meanings in the United States. Keywords identity, race/ethnicity, gender, religion, minority groups That race is endogenous to historical and There is an important relationship between social dynamics and can be redefined via these social identities and the significance of political processes is a long-standing premise race, but less is known about the effect of such in social science (Brubaker 2009; Omi and identities on the particular racial labels indi- Winant 1994). Prior research also reveals that viduals choose. In the United States, racial the meanings individuals attach to race are labels have traditionally been treated as an influenced by its intersection with other social ascribed characteristic, with group membership categories (Haney López 2006). Accordingly, either devoid of choice or structured by legal placement into such identity categories as gender (Gay and Tate 1998; Saperstein and aStanford University Penner 2012), social class (Dawson 1994; Wilson 1980), and religion (Chong 1998; Corresponding Author: Lauren D. Davenport, Stanford University, Harris-Lacewell 2006) may reinforce or Department of Political Science, 305 Encina Hall weaken racial attachments depending on the West, 616 Serra Street, Stanford, CA 94305 way these intersect with race. E-mail: [email protected] 58 American Sociological Review 81(1) and social norms such as hypodescent (Snipp assess the determinants of exclusive white 2003; Williams 2006). Group membership was identification, a racial label about which we especially stringent for people of mixed Afri- currently understand relatively little, but that can ancestry, who were typically identified as has major implications for the future U.S. singularly black (Davis 2001). Changes to the racial structure (Cross 2002; Gans 2012). U.S. Census in 2000, however, which permit More generally, I examine how biracial young multiple-race classification, show that racial adults are choosing to assert their identifica- labels are no longer a disjoint construct in U.S. tion in the twenty-first century, and the degree politics and culture. to which hypodescent influences their choices. How do central nonracial identities—spe- This research also contributes to our cifically, gender, socioeconomic status, and understanding of identity construction among religion—affect the choice of racial labels? I biracial Latinos, a group often excluded from examine this question by focusing on the rap- multiracial identity studies. Because most idly growing number of biracial Americans— surveys use a two-question approach in which individuals whose parents are from two racial Hispanic origin is distinguished from race, it categories.1 Biracials have a range of racial is often impossible to separate respondents of labels from which to choose.2 Assessing the Latino/non-Latino parentage from respond- labeling decisions of biracials allows us to ents who have two Latino parents and iden- better understand how social class, gender, tify their ethnicity as Hispanic but their race and religion inform personal understandings as white, black, Asian, or other. Because sur- of race in the United States. Prior research vey question formats preclude these distinc- that examines biracials’ labeling choices tions, multiracialism scholars commonly emphasizes the importance of family, peers, refrain from analyzing Latinos in their stud- and environmental context, but gives little ies. The exclusion of Latinos leaves a sub- attention to the influence of nonracial social stantive void in our understanding of biracial identities. This gap in the literature can be identification. This gap is significant for two attributed to the fact that available data have reasons. First, 43 percent of intermarriage not allowed an in-depth analysis of the effects pairings in the United States are between of these factors until now. whites and Latinos; second, the rapid growth Drawing on identity theory and other rate of the Latino population can be attrib- research in sociology and social psychology, I uted, in part, to the rising number of children argue that biracials negotiate their identifica- born to Latino-white couples (Wang 2012). tions based on interpersonal encounters, The surveys I assess have a combined race neighborhoods, and places of worship, classi- and Latino-origin question, allowing me to fying themselves in relation to their peers and pinpoint individuals who are explicitly of adopting the label deemed most acceptable in Latino/non-Latino parentage. Thus, the pre- a given context. To examine the effects of sent work heeds Harris and Sim’s (2002) call social identities on racial construction, I lever- for better understanding biracial Latino age national surveys of more than 37,000 identity. Asian-white, Latino-white, and black-white This article reports three core findings. biracial college students. These surveys allow First, racial identification is gendered in sig- me to include important variables lacking in nificant ways: all else being equal, biracial previous studies, extending the literature in women are much more likely than biracial men three ways. First, I separate the effect of par- to identify as multiracial. The gender disparity ents’ marital status, family income, and reli- exists across biracial category combinations gion on respondents’ self-labeling. Second, to but is greatest (2x) for black-white biracials— ascertain how socioeconomic context shapes pointing to the rigidity of the black/white identification, I examine the effect of neigh- boundary for African American men. Second, borhood median income. Third, I empirically I demonstrate the importance of religion for Davenport 59 racial identification: biracials who practice number of mixed-race subgroups—the survey “ethnic” religions are more likely than non- I assess has a total of 127 possible racial religious biracials to identify with only one combinations—I center my attention on the racial group. Finally, I provide robust evi- largest biracial groups: Asian-whites, Latino- dence that affluence—as measured sepa- whites, and black-whites.3 Together, these rately by household income and median groups compose the majority of the multiple- neighborhood income—“whitens” racial race population.4 self-identification. Other studies (notably Examining the racial labeling decisions of Schwartzman 2007) have found that “money these three groups helps clarify the processes whitens.” These studies typically rely on sam- via which racial identification patterns are ples from Spanish-speaking America or Brazil constructed. In concentrating on these groups, and use education as a proxy for income. In however, my intention is not to fix the refer- contrast, the data I use are U.S.-based and esti- ence of the term “biracial” as applicable pri- mate the effects of income while holding edu- marily to people who are white and non-white, cational attainment constant. rather than individuals belonging to multiple Taken together, these findings inform our minority groups.5 Nor is it my aim to essen- understanding of how racial categories are tialize race by focusing on first-generation used in the contemporary United States. The biracials.6 Instead, my intent is pragmatic: approach I take in this article highlights the narrowing the scope to these subgroups facili- importance of carefully disentangling the tates a more straightforward analysis and a meanings attached to core social identities. cleaner assessment of the findings. Finally, these findings clarify how racial I assess the construction of racial identifi- labels can be the product of social group cation, or how people publicly articulate their attachments while being intimately linked to race to others, such as on a form or in a sur- social class, religion, and gender. vey. One’s expressed identification does not always perfectly correlate with one’s racial identity, or internal beliefs and perceptions RACIAL POPUlatION OF about race, but the two phenomena