How the Latinos Became...?

In his landmark book How the Irish Became White, Ignatiev (2004) argued that Irish immigrants and Irish Americans used, among other tactics, racism against African Americans to secure acceptance as white.  By claiming contrasts between themselves and African Americans, Irish Americans were able to shift racial borders such that the white majority accepted them as part of the mainstream and no longer saw them as part of the non-white category.  In the 20^th century, other white ethnic groups largely disappeared from public consciousness, and the status of Asian Americans changed considerably, although the dynamics of shifting racial boundaries had also changed. Today, with the rapid increase in Latino populations, largely fueled by renewed immigration from Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean, the racial-ethnic future of the US is unclear.  Some have proposed that it will be characterized by a multicultural future with allied minority groups that together constitute a majority, while others worry about a shifting racial border that reinforces black/non-black divisions – but with Latinos and Asian Americans encompassed by an expanded definition of white/non-black.  This paper proposes to explore these contemporary dynamics, particularly in the Latino acculturation context, bringing together the extant literature and analyzing data about inter-group attitudes. It will then attempt to draw some conclusions about the uncertain racial-ethnic future of the US.