More Immigrant Children Seek Partners of Same Ethnicity

The U.S. Census shows that while interracial marriages overall have increased, the rate of Hispanics and Asians marrying partners of other "races" declined in the past two decades.

The Washington Post reports from a study by Ohio State Sociologist Zhenchao Qianthat the much expected increase in cross-ethnic marriages has actually declined.

From the article:

Image by Made Underground via Flickr

Sociologists and demographers are just beginning to study how the children of immigrants who have flowed into the country in recent years will date and marry.

The generation that is coming of age is the most open-minded in history and living in the Obama era -- where hues mingle in classrooms, nightclubs and the White House. Conventional wisdom has it that they will begin choosing spouses of other ethnicities as the number of interracial marriages rises.

But scholars delving into the U.S. Census have found a surprising converse trend. Although interracial marriages overall have increased, the rate of Hispanics and Asians marrying partners of other races declined in the past two decades. This suggests that the growing number of immigrants is having a profound effect on coupling.

The number of native- and foreign-born people marrying outside their race fell from 27 to 20 percent for Hispanics and 42 to 33 percent for Asians from 1990 to 2000. The downward trend continued through last year.

Increasingly, singles are turning to a growing number of niche dating sites on the Internet, such as http://Shaadi.com and http://Persiansingles.com.

Social networking groups like Professionals in the City have expanded its repertoire of lectures and wine-tastings to include "speed dating" nights for people of Asian, Latino or South Asian descent.

Image by Made Underground via Flickr

The 20- and 30-somethings drawn to these events say they have a deep yearning to connect with someone who shares their roots, yet they are conflicted about it. As children, they felt divided loyalties, growing up with one foot in their parents' home country, the other in the United States. Now, as adults, they wonder: Would I be happy with someone as American as I am, or a recent immigrant?

Researchers found that their subjects were constantly struggling with the desire to be open to people of all backgrounds vs. family expectations, and their own desires to sustain their culture. Most paired with others who shared similar racial or language backgrounds.

Latinos Take Immigration Reform to Evangelical Churches

Quick Post: Latino activists urge churches to provoke broad immigration reform.

Stories and quotes in an interesting article originally from the Chicago Tribune describes the effort by Latino immigration activists to bring families together.

From the article:

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Two years after a sweeping immigration reform bill failed in Congress, Latino leaders have revitalized the effort, positioning children who were left behind when their parents were deported as the new face of the movement. 

The campaign is designed to place pressure on President Barack Obama to make comprehensive immigration reform a priority.

Borrowing a page from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Latinos have taken their cause to churches, drawing upon the growing population of evangelical Latinos, who like their white counterparts, are strong advocates of family values.

While Hispanics overwhelmingly remain Roman Catholics, nearly one in six in the U.S. identify as evangelicals, the second largest religious group in the Latino community, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

"Our families are the cornerstone of our society, and we want to protect those families." Packing a large evangelical church in suburban Atlanta, the mostly Latino audience shouted "amen" and waved as ministers preached about how God would protect them.

Image via Wikipedia

For more than three hours, they prayed, sang spirituals in Spanish and listened to the testimonies of families torn apart at the hands of federal immigration agents.

The stories are designed to tug at the heartstrings of Americans and focus attention on what community leaders said is the most tragic consequence of the federal government's crackdown on illegal immigration -- the breakup of families, a problem they said affects up to 5 million children, most of whom were born in the U.S. and automatically are citizens.

Señor Herberg and the Complexity of American Latino Religious Identity

Will Herberg framed much of our approach to understanding immigrant religion across the generations. But does his framework apply to the experience of American Latinos?


I was asked to contribute to a proposed book of essays on second-generation immigration -- specifically on Latinos, and specifically on their racial and religious identity. I submitted my draft this week. Looking back at the process, I found that in putting my thoughts together I was quickly overwhelmed with the complexity of the subject.

What to say in 25 pages??

Immigrants at Ellis Island. Image via Wikipedia

Well, my quick review of the research on immigrant religion suggests to me a general assumption. From Will Herberg's analysis of immigrant religion until now, scholars of immigrant religion in America generally assume that congregations are ethnically-based social structures that seal themselves off from the inter-ethnic, cross-racial interactions.

Everywhere else in daily life we expect to encounter cross-ethnic diversity like going to school, shopping at the mall, or working at a job for pay. But churches are “ethnic islands” that protect and preserve ethnically based religious cultures, even if younger generations accentuate more of their lives and identities outside of their religious commitments in comparison with their parents and grandparents.

This presents an overarching "mono-ethnic" assumption of church life. And the assumption leads us to a set of “either-or” categories. Younger generations either continue their ethnically-specific religious commitments in particular ways (often with modifications) or they abandon these religious commitments in favor of more general, more assimilated (meaning more “white”) ways of living in society—with our without a religious adherence.

As an ethnographer, I try to pay close attention to the actual context of people's lives. I want to be around ordinary people doing ordinary things to understand their ordinary actions and attitudes. And then I try to understand how their "ordinary" lives fit into "extraordinary" circumstances that allow thier lives to happen. This is part of what's been called a “lived religion” approach. It's an approach that pays close attention to history and context and provides opportunity to see the variety of ways race, ethnicity, and identity co-mingle.

Image via Wikipedia

Because of this approach, I find it difficult to say "Latino religion" or "Latino congregation" because it homogenizes the variety of Latino religions and Latino congregations that exist in the world. For example, for this chapter I returned to Mosaic, a multiethnic church in Los Angeles, to describe a congregation of Latinos who practice their religion alongside members of other ethno-racial groups. The Latinos at Mosaic regularly live out their religious commitments in constant interaction with church members who have non-Latino backgrounds including Asian, Caucasian, African-American, and other ancestral heritages.

The second-generation Latinos in this integrated congregation identify themselves as “Hispanic” yet understand come to understand their religious identities in non-ethnic ways.

Add to this the general dynamic faced by immigrants in American society. Immigrants often struggle to define their particular cultural identity in an increasingly diverse society that tries to lump them in often “unwanted and crude” categories—even among social scientists.

The Hispanic World. Image via Wikipedia

Despite the racialized climate of the United States that often force people into categories, the second generation may not seek to affirm their ethnic identity through forming “pan-Latino” designations as much as remain subject to them. While other pan-Latino groups claim individuals as their own for social or political reasons, other groups may simply label these second generations as “Hispanic” because of their ancestral heritage—even when language and other behavior move decisively away from their parent’s culture.

In day-to-day life, many Latinos simply learn to “code switch” between being “Hispanic” at home and being “non-Hispanic” and church, school, or work.

I think we all need to pay more attention to the complexity and paradox so often found within specific ethno-racial communities. By incorporating ethnographic studies of Latino congregations and adding the experience of Latino members from Mosaic in Los Angeles, I want this chapter to underscore the nuances available to those willing to grasp the diverse ways in which religion intertwines with race and ethnicity. The highly contextual nature of ethnic-designations, racial relations, and the process of forming religious identities encourages us all to attend more closely to the multiple identities that inevitably impinge on American Latinos and, in turn, to the variable reconstructions of racial, ethnic, and religious categories among all American ethnic groups across the generations.

Skilled, Urban, and Mobile - New Profile of Mexican Migrants

Metropolitan Migrants: The Migration of Urban Mexicans to the United States

The first book fully dedicated to understanding a major new phenomenon--the large numbers of skilled urban workers who are now coming across the border from Mexico's cities. Based on a ten-year, on-the-ground study of one working-class neighborhood in Monterrey, Mexico's industrial powerhouse and third-largest city, Metropolitan Migrants explores the ways in which Mexico's economic restructuring and the industrial modernization of the past three decades have pushed a new flow of migrants toward cities such as Houston, Texas, the global capital of the oil industry.

"This carefully researched, clearly argued, and richly detailed study makes a significant contribution not only to studies of Mexican migration but to the field of migration in general and, as such, it will command the attention of anyone seriously interested in the study of migration. Through sharp analysis, Hernández-León illuminates key social threads that link Mexican urbanites' migration to Mexico's economic restructuring. It is a fresh and insightful book that reminds us that there are still many interesting stories to tell about U.S.-bound Mexican migration."--Cecilia Menjivar, author of Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America