Asian American Identification with African Americans, Latinos, and Whites: The Roles of Discrimination and Self-Identified Skin Tone

ABSTRACT

Using a sample of up to 1,208 Asian Americans, we examine the effects of skin tone on perceived commonality with African Americans, Latinos, and whites. Overall, we find that Asian Americans are more likely to identify with whites than with African Americans or Latinos. When we account for skin tone, we find that Asian Americans with a medium skin tone experience increased odds of perceiving a commonality with African Americans and Latinos. While we expected the relationship between skin tone and perceived commonality to be mediated by experiences of discrimination, this was not the case. We conclude that Asian Americans occupy a position toward the top of the black-white binary and the oppressive racial hierarchy that exists within the United States. Like previous scholars, we suggest that Asian Americans can use their relative standing to disrupt the oppressive racial hierarchy. However, we recognize that whites, holding a position at the top of the racial hierarchy, must also be responsible for dismantling it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Smaller groups were excluded from the analysis. The largest of the groups (Asiatic) was comprised of 64 respondents, while the smallest groups (Cambodian, Madagascan, Malaysian, Maldivian, and Pakistani) were each comprised of one respondent. The decision was made to drop these respondents because the groups were too small to estimate effect sizes. Excluding these respondents reduced the sample size from 5,159 to 4,901.

² These dependent variables had a number of respondents who reported that they did not know if they had anything in common with blacks (17.6 percent), Latinos (17.8 percent), and whites (15.4 percent). Excluding these respondents further reduced the sample size to under 4,000.

³ Only 50 percent of survey participants were asked about their skin tone. This reduced the sample size to less than 1,900.

⁴ Keith et al. (2010) find a correlation of 0.80 between self-identified skin tone and interviewer evaluation of respondent skin tone.

⁵ From the original sample of 5,159, a value on age was missing for 18.4 percent of respondents. Multiple imputation was used to fill in the missing values, and the models were re-estimated. No substantive differences were found between the imputed and non-imputed models. As a result, only the non-imputed results are presented.

⁶ Factors other than skin tone can contribute to how closely Asian Americans identify with African Americans, Latinos, and whites. These include annual income, educational attainment, and out-marriage to whites. We control for factors for which data is available (e.g., income and education). However, we are unable to control for out-marriage to whites, which may play a significant role regarding which group Asian Americans most closely identify with.

⁷ Immigration status may impact experiences with discrimination and how an individual identifies with African Americans, Latinos, and whites. All individuals in this analysis, however, were born outside of the United States. Because all respondents are first-generation immigrants, the number of years each has been in the United States is controlled for.

⁸ 11.7 percent of survey participants were not asked questions about their experiences with discrimination. This reduced the sample size to less than 1,700.

⁹ Analysis of variance was conducted on a sample size of 1,208—those providing responses to perceived commonality with whites. The results did not change when conducting ANOVA with those providing responses to perceived commonality with African Americans and Latinos.

¹⁰ Because this survey was administered via telephone, respondents were not looking at a picture of Tiger Woods. A small percentage (6 percent) of respondents did not know how to describe Tiger Woods’ skin tone. These respondents were excluded from the analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philip J. Levchak

Philip J. Levchak is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Hartford. His research focuses on disparities in police contact, disparities in imprisonment, and cross-national homicide rates. His work has appeared in Justice Quarterly, Homicide Studies, and International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice.

Charisse C. Levchak

Charisse C. Levchak is an assistant professor of sociology at Central Connecticut State University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with a PhD in sociology. She is also a licensed master of social work with a focus on integrated social work, cultural competence, and diversity. Her research focuses on race-based microaggressions and macroaggressions, and she is the author of Microaggressions and Modern Racism: Endurance and Evolution.