Increasing numbers of people in the United States and beyond experience "race" not as a single, consistent identity but as a number of conflicting dimensions. This article distinguishes the multiple dimensions of the concept of race, including racial identity, selfclassification, observed race, reflected race, phenotype, and racial ancestry. With the word "race" used as a proxy for each of these dimensions, much of our scholarship and public discourse is actually comparing across several distinct, albeit correlated, variables. Yet which dimension of race is used can significantly influence findings of racial inequality. I synthesize scholarship on the multiple dimensions of race, and situate in this framework distinctive literatures on colorism and genetic ancestry inference. I also map the relationship between the multidimensionality of race and processes of racial fluidity and racial boundary change. KEYWORDS Self-classification; interviewer-classification; skin color; phenotype; ancestry; race components This article synthesizes a growing body of scholarship that distinguishes and analyzes the multiple dimensions of the concept of race as experienced by individuals and as measured in research. Increasing numbers of people in the United States and beyond experience "race" not as a single, consistent identity but as a number of conflicting dimensions. These may include, for instance, how an individual self-identifies her race, how she is perceived by others, how she believes she is perceived by others, what she checks among the limited options on the census or other surveys, her skin color and other aspects of her racial appearance, and her racial ancestry. These dimensions influence one another, but are not necessarily the same.
The identity choices of multiracial individuals withBlack heritage have traditionally been limited in America by the one-drop rule, which automatically designated them as Black. This paper evaluates the rule's contemporary influence and argues that, with increasing interracial marriage, options in racial identification are now available to this group. Using the 5% 1990 and 2000 Public Use Microdata Samples, I consider how children from Black intermarriages are racially identified by their families and, using 2000 data, evaluate theoretical hypotheses to explain identification processes. The results show that most families with Black intermarriages reject the one-drop rule, but that Black-White families create unique interracial options, the implications of which are considered.
Objectives. A primary justification for collecting U.S. racial statistics is the need to monitor racial discrimination. This article aims to show how analyses of Hispanics—who may officially be of any race—tend to miss discrimination based on racial appearance by relying on data that instead capture racial self‐identification, a different aspect of race that often does not correspond. Methods. The study analyzes 60 qualitative interviews with Dominican and Puerto Rican migrants in the New York metropolitan area. It employs multiple measures to represent theoretically distinct aspects of the lived experience of race. Results. Respondents interpret the Census race question in different ways corresponding to different aspects of race, which often do not match one another. Although respondents experience discrimination on the basis of phenotype, their racial self‐identification is a poor proxy for measuring their racial appearance. Conclusions. Scholars need to develop a language of race that communicates the multiplicity of social processes involved. Social surveys must provide measures of these multiple components, including interviewer observations of racial appearance, to monitor discrimination on the basis of phenotype within Hispanic groups.
Increasing numbers of people in the United States and beyond experience "race" not as a single, consistent identity but as a number of conflicting dimensions. This article distinguishes the multiple dimensions of the concept of race, including racial identity, selfclassification, observed race, reflected race, phenotype, and racial ancestry. With the word "race" used as a proxy for each of these dimensions, much of our scholarship and public discourse is actually comparing across several distinct, albeit correlated, variables. Yet which dimension of race is used can significantly influence findings of racial inequality. I synthesize scholarship on the multiple dimensions of race, and situate in this framework distinctive literatures on colorism and genetic ancestry inference. I also map the relationship between the multidimensionality of race and processes of racial fluidity and racial boundary change.
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