Placing race in context

Abstract In the United States, in the last two decennial censuses, 40 per cent of Hispanics rejected racial categories, such as ‘White’ or ‘Black’, and racially classified themselves ‘Other’. Scholars have argued that the format of the question induced them to respond this way; that those Hispanics who ticked ‘Other’ are racially intermediate, that is to say, mulatto or mestizo; and, lastly, that Hispanics simply misunderstood the question. This article examines these interpretations. The 1989 sample used consisted of 240 randomly selected Puerto Rican travellers at New York City airports. The methods used were descriptive data analysis and multivariate logit analysis. Three different dimensions of Puerto Rican racial identity are compared: (a) how race is externally defined, namely, by the interviewer; (b) how it is defined by the respondents themselves in both open‐ended and closed question formats; and (c) how the respondents think it is defined by (White) North Americans. The determinants of racial self‐identity are then explored systematically. Our major conclusion is that racial identity among Puerto Ricans is historically and contextually influenced. Race is more complex than is generally assumed. These findings challenge the hegemonic and static biological view of race that is prevalent in the United States and in classical social science literature.