Just like light skinned Blacks, Latinos have recognized the opportunity to use their ambiguous attributes to their advantage. Keep it real: When it comes to job and credit applications and corporate socialization it pays to be White. A white washed accent, a little dye and some ultra perm are all it takes to fly below the minority radar undetected.
Here are a few more interesting snippets from the article about Hispanic ethnicity and race:
"It really surprises me, that is a significant shift," said Claudio Remeseira, a Columbia University professor and editor of "Hispanic New York: A Sourcebook."
"In general, most Latinos tend to think of themselves as white. But the issue of how Latinos identify themselves by race has always been complicated."
For example, most Dominican immigrants - even dark-skinned Dominicans - would say they are white "because they have historically perceived themselves as not black" like their neighbors in Haiti, Remeseira said.
In all, the number of people in the "white alone" category jumped by 12.1 million over the last decade to 223.6 million, the census showed.
Whites now represent 72% of the U.S. population and account for nearly half of the total population increase since 2000.
Take out the Hispanics, however, and whites account for 64% of the population, according to the figures. They were 69% of the population just a decade ago.
Hispanics continue to be the nation's fastest growing group.
The percentage that identified themselves as white jumped in the past decade from 48% to 53%. The portion that marked "some other race" dropped from 42% to 37%.
What I find most interesting about this is that Latinos don't want to be mistaken for Black people, Whites don't want to be mistaken for Black people and nowadays even Blacks don't want to be mistaken for Black people. That says alot about the perception of the Black race.
SMDH.
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