The First Generation and a Half: Notes on the Delinquency of the Native White of Mixed Parentage

Abstract

T IHE NATIVE white population falls into two groups: those with native parents and others who come from parents or who have one parent. This category, called native white of or mixed parentage,' is treated mostly as a unit. It is uniformly called second generation and has been given much study. It is obvious, however, that groups so dissimilar in structure must differ in function. We are wont to see conflicts arising from the clashing worlds of the native child and the parents. We are satisfied with the label foreign born although term and notion put a British couple on par with an Armenian who married a Finnish girl. A different cultural element is carelessly believed to enter each marriage of a native with a foreigner. These easy generalizations would not do much harm if the phenomena were insignificant in magnitude. The fact is that more than one third of the 23,000,000 Americans classified as native white of or mixed parentage in I940 had parents, one a native American and the other a foreignborn. The war has created a new type of mixed marriage in allied and occupied countries. The problem is therefore weighty enough to call for examination and the official denomination is too cumbersome to discourage the quest for a briefer term.2 There have been prior attempts to discuss the delinquency,3 the insanity4 and the suicide5 rates of the native of mixed parentage. But that is all. The group itself has not been carefully studied nor split up in its component parts. The relative control of father or mother has not been weighed. Which of the countless nativities preponderantly come into play? Are there different age conditions which would affect delinquent tendencies? What is the economic status of both categories? May it be that the census figures are not quite reliable because the enumerator did not always receive a correct statement? The I933 prison statistics supply data on male prisoners admitted in Federal institu-