Immigration and Racial Formation: A Happy Marriage?

• In Event: 209 - Theory Section Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Cultural Sociology 2

Abstract

This article attempts to explore the possibility of bridging immigration research and racial formation theory to examine identities of immigrants. Scholars have long employed the ethnicity paradigm, the nationalism paradigm, and the transnationalism paradigm to discuss a variety of outcomes of identity among immigrants. However, they share a flaw in their reduction of race to ethnicity, nationality, and transnationality, respectively. This article suggests that more immigration studies need through the lens of racial formation theory to explore identity formations of immigrants as the theory recognizes the autonomous power of race. I conclude that immigrant family is among the starting points to conceptualize the relationship between immigration and racial formation. I construct a framework to illustrate the identity formation process within immigrant families. In this framework, I define the second generation as new racial subjects and their spouse preference as a measure of their identity formation. I argue that U.S. born- and raised-children of immigrants display two types of identity formation: consonant formation and dissonant formation. The consonant pattern indicates that immigrants in the same panethnic category see the members of all subethnic ethnic groups as “we.” Thus, they are more likely to have interethnic marriages. In contrast, the dissonant formation suggests that panethnic categories and ethnic categories are mutually exclusive. People with this pattern may still see members of the same panethnic category as “others.” They are thus less likely to have interethnic marriages.

Author

• Yuching Julia Cheng, State University of New York-Albany