Ideology Formation: Whites Construction of Latinos as a Racial Group

• In Event: 199 - Regular Session. Latinos

Abstract

While there is a rich body of work that address the Latino experience at it pertains to race and ethnicity, most of it tends to be historical, quantitative and measures discrimination through Latinos’ self accounts. My research takes up accounting for contemporary Latino racialization by examining white attitudes towards Latinos. As the country’s diversity increases and more and more parts of the country are becoming majority minority, questions of race relations and stratification arise. My findings show whites hold overwhelmingly negative and racist views towards Latinos. They not only express that Latino culture is deficit and inferior but that characteristics assigned to them are permanent. Moreover they explicitly describe these problems to the group as whole regardless of national origin, status and even generation. The interviews reflect the justification of how whites come to construct Latinos as a racial groups and in doing so reveal and comprehensive racial ideology about Latinos. My paper also addresses the key important implications of this; mainly that this offers an opportunity to expand notions of racism that account for different groups experience in the US.

Author

• Celia Olivia Lacayo, University of California-Los Angeles