The diversity paradox: immigration and the color line in twenty-first century America

Abstract

This book by Jennifer Lee and Frank Bean, sociologists at the University of California (Irvine), examines the role of three processes—the “new” (post-1965) immigration, intermarriage trends, and multiracial identity—in increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S. and how these may be contributing to a redrawing of the historical black/white colour line in that country. The subject of how U.S. racial boundaries may be changing is of great interest to researchers and the general public: the former shown by an extensive research literature, the latter reflected in numerous stories on race and multiraciality in the mass media, including extensive coverage of President Barack Obama’s election in 2008 as the first black and multiracial U.S. President. The idea of potentially new colour lines emerging in the U.S., and what this may mean for notions of race, “whiteness,” and “blackness,” is therefore intriguing for a country where race has been—and, many believe, continues to be—a central organizing principle in daily life. The book is divided into three parts, with ten chapters. Part I discusses the historical background, theoretical framework, and sociodemographic context for the study. There are four chapters in Part I, including one on racial categories in the U.S. census and the role of the new immigration in altering ethnoracial1 diversity in the U.S., particularly in metropolitan areas where immigrants tend to settle. Part II consists of four chapters, which document and describe trends in intermarriage and multiracial identity, and results from interviews with various intermarried and multiracial respondents. Part III contains two chapters: additional analysis in Chapter 9 clarifies the relationships between ethnoracial diversity, intermarriage, multiracial identity, and the diversity paradox of the book’s title, and the last chapter is a conclusion that discusses possible future paths for America’s colour lines,