Skin Tone and Assimilation

Sean Richey and Ryan E. Carlin

Social Science Quarterly, 2018, vol. 99, issue 3, 1233-1247

Abstract: Objective We test one untested influence on whether Hispanics will assimilate into American society in a “straight line” or remain “segmented.” The type of assimilation hinges on both how non‐Hispanics treat Hispanics and whether Hispanics desire assimilation. We argue that these behaviors depend on the social construction of Hispanics’ identity, which in turn may depend in part on their skin tone. Methods We compare these two theoretical competing models in two ways. First, to a nationally representative sample, we randomly assign four images of Hispanic males who are two standard deviations apart in skin tone and gauge respondents’ social acceptance of them. Second, using objective skin‐tone measures from the 2012 ANES oversample of Hispanics, we determine if skin tone correlates with beliefs over assimilation. Results For the experimental evidence, we discover that whites and blacks do not discriminate across this range of skin tone for Hispanics. For the ANES data, we find no evidence that skin tone affects Hispanics willingness to assimilate into America. Conclusion Thus, the typical skin tones of Hispanics do not affect the assimilation ideas of either non‐Hispanics or Hispanics.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12505

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:socsci:v:99:y:2018:i:3:p:1233-1247

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0038-4941

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Quarterly is currently edited by Robert L. Lineberry

More articles in Social Science Quarterly from Southwestern Social Science Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().