07: The Experience of Race and its Complexity, Pt. 1

[0:00:05 Speaker 1] Welcome to the American ingredient podcast that examines race in American society from an academic perspective focusing on the work from social scientists and legal scholars, the American ingredient demonstrates that race is not the only ingredient in making America. But in order to make America you need two heaping spoonfuls, as

[0:00:23 Speaker 2] we’ve highlighted several times in the episodes of this podcast race is complicated, and one of problems you run into is that the discussion of race and its complications are often oversimplified. In today’s episode, we speak to Professor Yasmin Irizarry, who is assistant professor in the Department of African and African Jasper Studies but also affiliated with the sociology department, the Population Research Center, the Mexican American and Latino Studies Department, as well as the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis, all here at the University of Texas.

[0:00:59 Speaker 3] This is the

[0:00:59 Speaker 2] first of a two part episode in which Professor Irizarry discusses the barest misconceptions. We have a regards to studying race and how we’ve measured race in the racial experience. In this first episode, Professor Irizarry highlights that the misconceptions we have about how race is understood globally translate the problems in terms of understanding what blackness means in the U. S. To various groups, specifically immigrant groups from the Caribbean and Latin America. In the second episode, Professor Irizarry would discuss how many of the findings we’ve come to with quantitative analysis because they failed to understand the intricacies of race. The very intersections of race come to false conclusions regarding the race problem in the US We begin this episode with Professor Ariz. Are discussing various misconceptions and how they have played the social sciences.

[0:01:50 Speaker 3] As a quantitative

[0:01:51 Speaker 4] sociologist, I spent a lot of time staring at numbers. But one of the things that I realized really early on is that the while the qualitative work, the ethnography is Thean Dept. Interviewing in essence, kind of

[0:02:04 Speaker 3] simplifying them because you have to You can’t get all the complexity, but it seems that in simplifying, people have become so simple that they, um, really describe a broad brushes. They also don’t spend much time thinking about how they define how they measure, how they conceptualize, how they

[0:02:23 Speaker 4] analyze, how they interpret the black experience using numbers. And so a lot of my work is in taking what I know from these amazing qualitative scholars from thes really a phenomenal theories and trying to think about. How can we think about those quantitatively? How can we incorporate those ideas into the way we measure race and racism, the way we think about groups and populations and the way that we think about how we analyze and understand thes experiences, and so trying to think about how to capture I can’t capture all of it, right? It’s not possible. That’s not the purpose of quantitative work. But

[0:03:05 Speaker 3] how can we better

[0:03:05 Speaker 4] capture that? And in doing that also may be elucidated bring out some

[0:03:11 Speaker 5] of the, um,

[0:03:13 Speaker 4] the problems inherent to all this simplification.

[0:03:16 Speaker 3] So what are some

[0:03:17 Speaker 6] of the main misconceptions that you challenge

[0:03:20 Speaker 3] there? There’s some several different areas. One of them really

[0:03:23 Speaker 4] is just with this idea of how we measure things, right? So

[0:03:27 Speaker 3] as I’m a methodology ist and a lot of my time is thinking about when we’re measuring something that inherently isn’t numeric, right? So we have numbers. If you’re tall,

[0:03:38 Speaker 4] you’re six foot three. We know that shoe arse about 75 inches, right? But

[0:03:44 Speaker 3] that’s something that is inherently numeric in the real world, things like

[0:03:48 Speaker 4] race, efficacy um, engagement. Ah, success. Thes air, Not numeric things. Thes air, qualitative things. And a lot of our time is spent trying to quantify that right? And how much time we spend thinking about that. And

[0:04:03 Speaker 3] people, when it comes to some of these other ideas,

[0:04:04 Speaker 4] spent a lot of time thinking about how to quantify those things. But when it comes to race, they don’t. They default to the things they already know to the things that they’ve learned from their social world as opposed, actually really thinking about when I categorize when I group when I assign. When I asked these questions, what am I actually capturing his measures?

[0:04:25 Speaker 3] Who am

[0:04:25 Speaker 4] I actually including in thes groups? And so I do this in many of my

[0:04:31 Speaker 3] classes, Even if I’m teaching statistics, I spent some time on measurement because we tend to take for granted the groupings without ever stopping to go. Who’s in that group? Wire? They in that group? Can we say that that group

[0:04:44 Speaker 4] is representative of a particulate experience of a particular motive? Racial ization, right? And so that’s why I think that’s one of the major misconceptions. This idea of how we measure this this assumption that when we see things about race in the media, in research where we see it, that that somehow we take for granted these categories and the measurements as those of their somehow inherent and as though someone didn’t actually make decisions about where people fall about, um, what groupings the represented in and what those groupings mean?

[0:05:14 Speaker 6] Past guests talk about split liver for Trayvon Logan talking about race as an experience and what I seem to get from what you’re saying is that we are not fully capturing this experience because it’s not something I experienced. Something is very difficult. Teoh quantify their multiple things going on. So you think of race, gender, sexuality, even income. There’s an experience there and that we are using this measure in many ways to try to to be a stand in for this experience. In many ways, it could be very fault. Ease

[0:05:49 Speaker 3] yes, and there’s several ways that works. One of them

[0:05:52 Speaker 4] is in this. When I was speaking about the measurement part because

[0:05:55 Speaker 3] depending how we grew up,

[0:05:56 Speaker 4] people were making assumptions that those groupings have a similar experience, like part of the reason that we decide people are in a group together is they have a similar experience. And so when we make decisions about that, that will impact what we find, Um, and that will impact our outcomes. What’s really important to think about

[0:06:11 Speaker 3] who were

[0:06:11 Speaker 4] grouping together and whether those groups were saying belong together really have the same experience. Are we seeing within? Let’s say the ethnography is. And in the interviews, um, that people are saying they’re having the same experience. Are we seeing something different that should

[0:06:24 Speaker 3] inform how we think about who we group together? The second part

[0:06:28 Speaker 4] of that is in the complexity of the analysis. So, you know,

[0:06:32 Speaker 3] in quantitative work, your work is more slightly

[0:06:36 Speaker 4] to be accepted in journals. If you, ah, stick to main effects where you’re thinking about these kind of broad swaths, right? So the black effects now, the truth is there is no black effect because it can’t be a cause. But

[0:06:48 Speaker 3] it’ll be described like as though somehow we could understand

[0:06:51 Speaker 4] the entire black experience with a coefficient. And the problem with that is that without the, um, the

[0:06:58 Speaker 3] nuance of investigating the complexity behind that, we don’t know why that coefficient looks that way. We don’t know that coefficient is an average, and an average can represent many different things. It could represent a similar experience across the board, or it could represent two opposite experiences. Or it could represent an extreme experience of one subgroup that no one else within that group experiences all captured within this one single number. And so, in this part, thinking about the idea that it’s important we not just think about these numbers is kind of like broad brush. But also think about how that number may vary among different subgroups. How the black experience varies, and that is so important. Because if we’re thinking about intervention, if we think about policy, um, everything about aid. If we think about support, we cannot do those things that we don’t know who. We’re providing that, too, because we’re not providing it to every

[0:07:56 Speaker 4] person that may embody that one characteristic. There’s clearly someone within that group that needs those things. But how can we target our efforts and how, when we think about where their success and where we can improve if we don’t know who are actually trying to help one

[0:08:11 Speaker 6] things you mentioned the groupings, and I know there’s a lot of discussion regarding the census and how groups categorize. And I know you’ve done a lot of work on this. Can you? I guess. Can you tell us more about what you’ve been doing? We’re going to census and where you see the failures of the census in regards to how it treats worries

[0:08:32 Speaker 3] this interesting question because I actually just had

[0:08:34 Speaker 4] a doctor named Nancy Lopez visit from the University of Mexico. She’s been very involved with this work, thinking about how we, ah quantify race on the senses but actively involved. We’ve been working on this together probably since 2011 and, um, really ah,

[0:08:48 Speaker 3] the bulk of our work

[0:08:49 Speaker 4] is in the area of thinking about how ah, next populations are identified or categorised within the census. But it really becomes much broader than that because the the starting point for our efforts is really centered on what is the goal of the census. And what is the goal of these measures of these questions and the census? A T East presently is really about the allocation of resources and the efforts towards justice right towards dealing with any inequities, early inequalities within the system and in order do that. We need to know which groups are experiencing, what right and so in thinking about, um, the senses as something that’s really about what people are experiencing that brings us this idea of ascribed race, right, because what you experience is often shaped by how people see you, who they think you are. And then what opportunities then you’re given is also ties into who you are and how that’s tied in a previous opportunities and how that builds into whether your family has Ah has had previous wealth and opportunities that can help bolster write your own path. But bringing that all back and thinking about all that right, cause the purpose of of the census is an important part of thinking about how we measure something like race now. Historically, in the census race was a measure that was ah, um, ascribe measure. Someone in a numerator would come and would look at you and would go Daniel black, right, and they would

[0:10:19 Speaker 3] check the box and you didn’t have

[0:10:19 Speaker 4] control over that. And that is, in essence, is kind of describe her this outsider, right? Ah attribution of race. But 1960 that changed. Now individuals are allowed to self identify their race, and

[0:10:36 Speaker 3] for a time there were cases in most cases where what someone said about who they are

[0:10:41 Speaker 4] and what they were perceived as matched. But if you remember our history, we’ve had lots of

[0:10:49 Speaker 3] in migration since then from parts of the world that see race very differently than we do. Not that it works entirely

[0:10:55 Speaker 4] differently, but at least I’ve seen differently, right? The categories air different, whose fits wear within hierarchies is a little different and

[0:11:01 Speaker 3] we have individuals coming and now they’re here and they want to assert those identities. And it’s so important, especially for coalition building for groups, toe build, identities. But those identities air not always reflective of experiences. And so the big tension we have now is is what drives the categories right? Is it what people see themselves

[0:11:22 Speaker 4] as? Or is it what other people see themselves as when those things were in conflict? We run into a lot of problems because then we we wonder what are measures air actually measuring. And so this, uh, this really comes full circle with the Latin X population because, um, Latin America is very diverse. The same populations that migrated to the US and have migrated us for centuries have also migrated to Latin America. There, people who are Jewish and Italian and people who are West African and, um, people

[0:11:57 Speaker 3] were Chinese, and they all live in Latin

[0:11:59 Speaker 4] America, too. And they’re all Hispanic or Latino or Latina, or let next.

[0:12:05 Speaker 3] They all were able to identify that way. But the question is, when they arrive here, do they all

[0:12:10 Speaker 4] have this supposed joint like Hispanic or Latin X experience? And I would argue that they don’t that Ah, that while this is a a great coalition building category, that in terms of the experience of race and racial ization that people have, very there’s wide variation in the experiences within this group. And so the

[0:12:38 Speaker 3] big fight right now is Do we do we go with

[0:12:42 Speaker 4] I identify identities and identification that are built around is coalition building them a mask inequality or hide the differentiation within the group, or try to find ways to actually bring out the differentiation so we can find out what maybe Afro Latin next groups or individuals are experiencing that is often masked within these larger categories, um, or or those of indigenous ancestry. Right? And so. And we can’t flush any of that out of everyone checks a box that says Hispanic, right? And so this is, um, a part of this larger debate of thinking about who is categorized, How it what does that mean? Does that category capture an experience? And

[0:13:19 Speaker 3] so there are people on both sides of the bait. Some people are are for this

[0:13:23 Speaker 4] idea that individuals should be able Teoh have control over how they’re seen, right? But the difficulty

[0:13:33 Speaker 3] I’ve run into is that even if we say we have control,

[0:13:36 Speaker 4] it doesn’t mean that we actually dio You could tell me that you’re white and you could say it over and over and over again. But I would doubt that that would translate to your wealth changing to your opportunities, changing to your interactions, changing very much. It might give, you know, people might give you some interesting looks, but I doubt that will actually change that experience. And so when that conflict exists between identity between how individuals wants a self identify and how they’re categorize. This is where we run into those problems. Do I? Then take what you tell me when you say you’re white and had you to that category and assume that that’s your experience, Or do I find other ways of trying to figure this out? And so this is really where we’re going with this, trying to think about what airways to actually be,

[0:14:21 Speaker 7] um,

[0:14:22 Speaker 3] more nuanced. And I also

[0:14:24 Speaker 4] more accurate and thinking about race as this driving force and inequality. The shapes, our experiences

[0:14:31 Speaker 6] as you were talking about this specifically in comparing the, um, Latin American experience with race compared and also with the North American experience, is the idea of race is a social construction, meaning that one. The way you understand your race differs from different baseball where you are, uh, and how you identify differs as well. I think there’s what research that demonstrates in Latin America that, uh, individuals become. They see themselves as more likely being white as your income increases and that whiteness is linked to income. And the way we think about Ah black white are these other categories is much more complicated and a difference from, you know from country to country and low cattle locale. And so that just checking the box saying that your white saying to black or anything of that nature it doesn’t always mean the same experience because of the social construction that is, that is, fluid is constantly changing.

[0:15:35 Speaker 3] It may not. It may not for

[0:15:37 Speaker 4] the first generation, but often by the third or forfeit. Does so many of those stars that we look to in gold these air representatives, African American stars, singers, um, politicians. Many of them are actually Caribbean and Latin America, and we don’t even know because by certain by a certain generation a lot of languages lost. But that ancestry is still there. But early on, you’re absolutely correct when you’re moving to a new place and when you’re raising their Children in that place, you bring those ideas. You bring those understandings with you, um, from wherever you’re coming, and

[0:16:10 Speaker 3] that’s when a shape how you see the world. And it’s also, to some extent, depending on how obvious those markers of maybe foreignness are. It may also shape how people respond to you, but you can have someone who comes and who looks like the pope my talent, ancestry and may receive some

[0:16:31 Speaker 4] discrimination for having a Spanish accent or Spanish surname. But I would argue that their experience is not the same as someone who looks like many of our baseball players from the Dominican public who would come with the same accent. It would also be Catholic and yet would probably have a very, very different experience. And so, yes, there is, Ah,

[0:16:49 Speaker 3] part of

[0:16:49 Speaker 4] this that is most definitely shaped by, um, how people understand race where they come

[0:16:54 Speaker 3] from. But there’s a part of this a

[0:16:55 Speaker 4] shaped by the way, our worlds, or at least our society. Our country works in terms of race. That, um, does not change just because someone brings with some ideas from elsewhere. But you’re absolutely correct. Um, Latin America has very different understandings of racist comes from the way ah, race was treated historically in Latin America. I’d like to tell my students one way to think about it. In the US, we have the one drop right that one drop of black makes you black. This, um, had so much power that people could use this in the courts to actually drive fear and other individuals. I heard that your

[0:17:29 Speaker 3] grandmother may have been black, even if we don’t know, Um, and this would go through the courts. I mean, it was a big deal. A primary

[0:17:37 Speaker 2] example of how the law is used to establish race is the case of Suzie Phipps, who in the early 80 sued the state of Louisiana over designation is being colored Phipps, who argue that she believed herself to be white her entire life until she went to apply for a passport in solving a birth certificate. But she was Disney. This Colored argued that the Louisiana state law, which desert a nearest colored, was unconstitutional, unlawful. The law actually argued that if you contain more than 1 32nd of black blood, meaning if one of your great great grandparents was black, you were considered to be colored. Phipps would lose this case and, furthermore, added to the controversy many of Phipps is. Relatives openly acknowledge that they had black ancestry in the Phipps, knew that she had black ancestry and that she was trying to move away from it or hide the fact that she was black. But this case also demonstrates the way in which the government has codified race and that laws have been established to dictate who is and who is not white. And this has been very important to understanding the development and the shape of policies that we see in the US today

[0:18:44 Speaker 3] in Latin American Argue they

[0:18:45 Speaker 4] have ah, reverse one drop rule. One drop of white makes you not black so historically at in America they

[0:18:53 Speaker 3] instead of believing

[0:18:54 Speaker 4] that blackness taints they believed that whiteness elevates that if we could white in the population, we could better it. They did this through ah, movements blankie aumento so whitening where they actually brought populations from Europe to come until white in the population within these particular countries that practice this, um so

[0:19:14 Speaker 3] and and so some extent, this this is still

[0:19:16 Speaker 4] ingrained. I remember my own grandfather mentioning things like Miranda LaGrassa bettering the race

[0:19:22 Speaker 3] so entrenched he wasn’t much. Just a little light of the you and he would say things

[0:19:28 Speaker 4] like this. It was so ingrained this idea that whiteness could elevate that if you could find characteristics that you goingto whiteness that could improve your standing and prove who you are as a person right. And so that that meant that there was a lot of racial mixing. So we’re is here. We had miscegenation laws and things that tried to create a clear boundary between those who are white. And those warrants in

[0:19:50 Speaker 3] Latin America, that boundary was not there. In fact, they promoted racial mixing. And so you have many more people look like me that are kind of in

[0:19:58 Speaker 4] the middle of this skin tone spectrum. This is where all these categories come from. Three. And you? Ah, how, um Indio

[0:20:07 Speaker 3] All these things come

[0:20:08 Speaker 4] from this kind of mixture over time, cause any of people look so many different ways. But the

[0:20:14 Speaker 7] the

[0:20:15 Speaker 3] sad part about it is that it may be different, but in some ways

[0:20:18 Speaker 4] it’s exactly the same. Right? Blackness is seen at the bottom of the hierarchy. Whiteness of the top. The

[0:20:24 Speaker 3] difference. Really. The the key

[0:20:26 Speaker 4] difference is how help perceive the blood works the power of blood. So, Sir Francis Drake in his book, Black Folks here and there believe those chapter one speaks about, um, you know, 33 parts of racial ideology and the 1st 1 was an aesthetic appraisal. Fish physical features. The 2nd 1 was tying those physical features to a temperament of body ability of the mind. But the

[0:20:52 Speaker 3] last one

[0:20:52 Speaker 4] was the power of blood to elevate or taint. And that was really powerful, because what he was doing was speaking to the way racial ideology works around the world that in

[0:21:01 Speaker 3] some ways it’s exactly the same. They’re still in

[0:21:03 Speaker 4] aesthetic appraisal, physical features. Um, there still a clear biased or your towards Eurocentric beauty in Latin America? Um, just like there is in the US and and most definitely a, um, a dent denigration of those who have more still typical or traditional African features. Right? Darker skin, um, and final type. And, um so this power of blood elevator Tate really speaks to just ah, which way blood works right in here in the US one drop rule and he drop a black, makes you black in Latin America, and he drop of white makes you not black, but the rest of it is pretty much the same, right? And so some ways it’s it’s actually almost exactly same. But that is what makes it different. And that is what people bring when they come this kind of aspiring to be white, something that ah doesn’t happen in the same way in the US because there wasn’t this promotion of this belief that whiteness could elevate right? So So while people may still have colorism, it doesn’t, uh, it’s not nearly as entrenched as powerful as it is in Latin America, because in Latin America everyone’s always striving for whiteness. In a sense,

[0:22:15 Speaker 3] they’re not

[0:22:15 Speaker 4] everyone but many. And it’s in grains and in the culture

[0:22:19 Speaker 6] if we think about the various ways in which people see blackness or whiteness. And I think about things such as Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and be the attempt to create kind of a global or a dia spork coalition

[0:22:38 Speaker 3] to keep a little

[0:22:38 Speaker 2] bit of background. Marcus Garvey is the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which in the early 20th century was a Pan Africanist movement on Garvey, originally from Jamaica, work to try to unite people of African ancestry all over the globe. Working in the US, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and working with groups in Africa, Garvey hope to provide an African nation or homeland in which people of African descent could move to to escape white supremacy. Garvey’s movement was seen as the largest movement of African Americans in the 20th century as it not only of African Americans but those within the African diaspora in the 20th century because it touched on so many countries in so many continents, Garvey and the U. N. I would eventually meet the downfall when Garvey was convicted of mail fraud and later deported to Jamaica. Wow, there are questions about the authenticity of the mail fraud, but he was convicted of it was clear with the U. N. A. Suffered from a number of problems regarding the skill of the workers, as well as the amount of fraud that they faced from those who were seen as supporters. But one of things that really sticks out about the Garvey mail fraud case is that this was the case that launched the career of future FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who would be a thorn in the side of King and other civil rights leaders. As you saw them as a threat to the United States. Does this

[0:24:09 Speaker 6] undercut this? So if you think of this, attempts with Garvey tips during the black power movement do does the because the differences with complexities within Latin America, um, and also the Caribbean undercut or help in terms of, I guess, identify this reapplication of a black identity to create some type of movement to protect black interest globally.

[0:24:35 Speaker 3] I wouldn’t say that it undercuts it, but I would argue that

[0:24:38 Speaker 4] it probably makes it more difficult for sure because, um um the the idea that the power of blood to taint means that, uh, this kind of black coalition is anyone and everyone who can say I have black ancestry. So in black, right. Um, but in Latin America, there wasn’t much of a focus on black ancestry. In fact, many countries don’t even acknowledge that they had

[0:25:02 Speaker 3] black populations there and that those black populations may in fact be a significant proportion of everyone’s ancestry. Right? And so, um, and so in in countries where this is the case, the question comes, Where’s the

[0:25:16 Speaker 4] line for who is black? It is

[0:25:18 Speaker 3] everyone black, right? Um are some people black? So I’m Dominican. And if you got a Dominican republican for a really light skin, the maker public, um, by American standards, I

[0:25:29 Speaker 4] probably argue that 90 to 95% of the island is black. Um, but they don’t believe that. And I’m sure there’s some little here. This would be very angry with me for saying it. Maybe even some of my family right. But in terms of ancestry, as we understand in the US, it’s the truth. But then the question becomes, then where does that coalition come from? Right now, In countries like that, the coalition comes from those individuals who are most marginalized, uh, in the Dominican Republic. Those air those who are darkest populations there,

[0:25:57 Speaker 5] many of them a patient, many of

[0:25:59 Speaker 4] the Haitian, many them are also Dominican. Same island for the same ancestry. Um, but that is where a lot of the um and of the movement that is, where it’s taking root is in those individuals who are most marginalized. And there they clearly are even there where I’m the light skin person, you can see the defining lines. You can go to the wealthy areas of see individuals who are light skinned, living in homes with armed guards, walking around blocking their neighborhoods, and then you go to public housing or to the Gumpel right to the country, and people are much darker, but they look different. So you see that even there. But this coalition building becomes more difficult when, um, you’re in a place where, in essence, almost everyone’s mixed, right? So the question is, who actually is, and

[0:26:48 Speaker 3] this isn’t the case everywhere. So there are some places where there’s some clear defining lines. There are

[0:26:51 Speaker 4] some. There’s some really, um, um entrenched, ah, diaspora movements in Latin America, particularly in countries where where the predominant population is actually indigenous. And so the black populations fairly small and distinct, Right? Not to say that there also isn’t some inter interracial when I make singer in terms of ancestry, but that there are often distinct groupings and populations live in particular areas, and they’ve in fact in some ways maintained cultural ties to it and things like that. And so you see these movements rising out of the space is right. Where people are trying to, um, t to link themselves is kind of broader movement. But, um, while that works, when when it’s known, while it works better, some of these bases in other places, like where I come from it’s, um, not maybe moving at the same pace, right? People aren’t gaining that consciousness in the same way. And I think that some of that, maybe the issue.

[0:27:50 Speaker 3] So how does this

[0:27:50 Speaker 6] translate into, given the immigration patterns and the these groups moving into the US? How does this translate to understanding race relations within the U. S. Is one thing you said like come the 2nd 3rd generation. Um, they, I guess, come to the conclusion. Like, I guess I am black, Uh, at least with the Miss us context. And I’m assuming with 1st 2nd generations, there’s a bit of, um, I guess Camembert, cognitive dissonance or some some type of difficulty trying to figure out where exactly you fit. And so how does how does this play out in the US with 1st 2nd against an third generation?

[0:28:30 Speaker 3] Yeah, most

[0:28:30 Speaker 4] definitely. Is, um, a greater resistance because Atlanta metro, part of this kind of ah, aspiration of whiteness responding to his whiteness is a kind of a pushing away of blackness. Anything you can kind of move away from that. And so, uh, people in Latin America in most countries are very hesitant. Um, if not even I’d say hesitant, maybe is a software for it, um, to identify is let’s black right? And so you move toe, you move from a country where you’re not black, right? Only those who were at the most extreme of the spectrum are black, and then you go to another country, and all of a sudden you’re black.

[0:29:07 Speaker 3] Maybe not immediately you might

[0:29:08 Speaker 4] not see the meteorite. You don’t have the same socialization. Understand all the cues that we understand, right? I see things, and I go That’s probably racism. And And when people immigrants just generally they tend to not have those kinds of understanding the cues to be aware that the way they’re being treated is tied to a history of racism, right? Um, and so they may not be immediately aware, but the payoffs to their degrees, air different their opportunities air different individual, especially for those from Latin America who are have African ancestry tend to be more like to be segregated with African

[0:29:37 Speaker 3] Americans. And over time, there is, um, over generations. There is some of this kind of hate to say the word

[0:29:44 Speaker 4] assimilation. But as individuals attach from this kind of pan ethnic identity or or maybe national origin identity. There is more this move towards racial categories that are traditionally understood in the US, depending on what racial category one would actually be ascribed, as I’ve actually some work looking at that, specifically looking at how over, um, between adolescence and adulthood, individuals change and how skin tone is a primary driver of that. So that’s something that were actually sending out for review soon over who will be out of something I’ll send you when when it’s out. But it’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time, this idea of generation. So I’m second generation, I would say in some ways I discovered my blackness, even though there’s even was clear African ancestry. My family, um, that’s something that I wasn’t taught to know was there, but I was clearly told, was from the other people in my daily experiences, um, and that’s that shaped both the experiences I’ve had and also now, in some ways, how identify, um, but it’s I would say that I came to a much more quickly than my mother did, right, who who’s first generation and arrived here in her late teens. And so there is this kind of movement over generations. And in fact, um, you know, the Caribbean populations Afro Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Um, there along the east coast of Central America, Venezuela, um, have been

[0:31:15 Speaker 3] coming here for a long time

[0:31:16 Speaker 4] and many people who have that ancestry Ah, people don’t know Dio In

[0:31:22 Speaker 2] this first part of our interview with Professor Irizarry, she has highlighted the complexities of understanding, race and how the Latin American experience really highlights the difficulties of understanding race and that race is a social construction and that the way we understand race in the US differ. Somehow we understand it in other nations. But it is clear that the assimilation process sticks out, and as darker skin Latin Americans coming to the U. S. They begin to understand that they are black and through that they develop a new identity. And it’s very important for us to understand that the complexity of the Latin American experience with race adds extra textures or layers to our understanding of race in the US. In the next episode, Professor Irizarry will plan out many of the misconceptions that we have in regards to our study of race and how many of the findings that we have that have gained great deal of attention within the social sciences may actually be more complicated than we realize. And particularly she talks about painting a better picture by Dennis during the complexity off the lives of racial minorities. And in doing so, the hope is to create better policy.

[0:32:36 Speaker 1] Thank you for listening to the American ingredient. American Daniel, a professor in the department government. The University of Texas. I would like to think Michael Heidenreich and Jacob Weiss their assistance along with the Department of Government, University of Texas and the University of Texas El E. I. T s development studi0