Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Assimilation can be thought of as the breaking down of boundaries between racial and ethnic groups. In this view, intermarriage rates can reflect the breakdown or persistence of group boundaries. Attitudes toward intermarriage can also reflect the changes in these group boundaries. Less tolerant attitudes toward intermarriage with certain racial or ethnic groups point to the persisting boundaries between groups. Less tolerant attitudes also reflect the racialized structure of American society. This analysis highlights the differences in tolerance of intermarriage with Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Mexican immigrants for Mexican origin people in Los Angeles and San Antonio using data from the Mexican American Study Project in 1997. This analysis shows that Mexican origin people were more tolerant of marriage with Whites and Mexican immigrants and less tolerant of marriage with Asians and especially Blacks. The analysis here points to the persistence of a color line that can influence assimilation with other groups and maintain group boundries.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study uses the 1 in 6 Long Form Sample of the 1990 U.S. Census to describe intermarriage patterns for a detailed set of groups. Expanding on the standard practice of focusing on marriages between whites and members of minority groups, this study also describes patterns for marriages between members of different minority groups. Detailed, national-level tabulations of intermarriage patterns for many groups have not previously been described because of data limitations.

I distinguish among different Asian American and Latino groups and evaluate the common practices of combining all Asian American groups into a single category and all Latino groups into a single category. I find substantial variation in intermarriage patterns among Asian American and among Latino groups, suggesting that significant detail is lost when using the coarse, aggregate categories. I also find that panethnic identities are not reflected in the marriage behavior of Latino groups, although there is evidence that members of different Asian American groups favor each other as marriage partners. I also examine marriages with Blacks and find that the Black/non-Black divide is the deepest racial cleavage in marriage behavior. These findings provide a more comprehensive map of racial and ethnic divisions in the United States.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: For minority immigrants, economic mobility with preservation of ethnic culture and solidarity and assimilation into majority middle class are two examples of the segmented assimilation (Portes and Zhou 1993). We examine these patterns of assimilation by comparing educational attainment and intermarriage patterns between Asian Indians and Filipinos. Using census data from 1980, 1990, and 2000, we follow Asian Indian and Filipino children who were 0-19 year old in 1980 and immigrated into the United States in the 1970s. We compared their educational attainment in 2000 with that of their parents and explored how these two groups differ in educational attainment and intermarriage patterns in 2000. Educational attainment, on average, was lower for Filipino children than for their parents but higher for Asian Indian children than for their parents. In 2000, when these children were 20 to 39 years old, Asian Indians were much more likely to have completed college than Filipinos, but Filipinos were far more likely to marry whites than Asian Indians. The implications of the findings were discussed within the framework of segmented assimilation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recent increasing levels of racial intermarriage have been celebrated as evidence that boundaries dividing racial groups are slowly but surely weakening. For men and women belonging to different racial groups to be willing to join in such intimate relationships, they must have transcended the racial boundary between them, or so the story goes. However, there is little research investigating whether intermarried couples truly have transcended racial boundaries or not. If they have not, this suggests that intermarriage may not be the litmus test of social incorporation it is so often held to be.
This paper investigates fertility differentials between same-race and interracially married couples. In several instances, interracially married couples have lower fertility than same-race couples. This is consistent with the argument that intermarried couples experience a social support deficit because of their marriage choice, and that this social support deficit leads to lower fertility.
This finding also has consequences for the argument that intermarriage is itself an engine of social change because children who are products of intermarriages are socialized into two different racial groups and may not be easily classified into either. Since intermarried couples have lower fertility levels, intermarriage is at best a weak engine of social change.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Because the majority of contemporary immigrants originate from Latin America and Asia, an immediate sociological concern is whether they are following the traditional straight-line assimilation trajectory of their European predecessors, or whether they are assimilating as racialized minorities whose experiences are more like those of African Americans. Based on 36 in-depth interviews with intermarried couples with children, we study patterns of intermarriage among Asians, Latinos, and blacks, and use them as the analytical lenses through which to gauge processes of incorporation. First, we first investigate the cultural parameters that intermarried couples construct to guide their choice of marital partners. Second, we examine whether intermarried couples view intermarriage as a route to assimilation, and third, we study how these couples identify their children. Based on the data, we find little support for the hypothesis that today’s nonwhite newcomers are assimilating as racialized minorities, and find greater evidence that supports the thesis that Asians and Latinos are following the classic straight-line model of assimilation.