The United States Census Bureau's main purpose is to provide as accurate a representation of the American people as possible-however, doing so is becoming increasingly difficult with an ever-changing society. Current Census Bureau statements regarding the ethno-racial diversity of the nation are faulty, because the data fail to adequately represent the growing diversity within major ethno-racial populations. The research presented in this volume of The ANNALS sheds light on the shortcomings of census data when it comes to identifying these subgroups, as well as the consequences that these omissions could have on political attitudes. This volume of The ANNALS addresses common misconceptions about American diversity that stem from issues surrounding race and ethnicity in census data-misconceptions such as the belief in the imminence of a majority-minority society, when in reality there are rising numbers of Americans being raised in mixed majority-minority families. When census-based population projections fail to acknowledge this, information and data presented to the public are misleading.
Introduction The Census Race Classification: Is It Doing Its Job? - Kenneth Prewitt The Significance of Ethno-Racial Mixing The Rise of Mixed Parentage: A Sociological and Demographic Phenomenon to Be Reckoned With - Richard Alba, Brenden Beck, and Duygu Basaran Sahin Ethnic/Racial Identity: Fuzzy Categories and Shifting Positions - Kay Deaux Establishing the Denominator: The Challenges of Measuring Multiracial, Hispanic, and Native American Populations - Wendy D. Roth The Generational Locus of Multiraciality and Its Implications for Racial Self-Identification - Ann Morning and Aliya Saperstein Multiracial Identification and Racial Gaps: A Work in Progress - Jenifer L. Bratter Boundary Blurring? Racial Identification among the Children of Interracial Couples - Daniel T. Lichter and Zhenchao Qian Change across the Generations after Immigration Finding the Lost Generation: Identifying Second-Generation Immigrants in Federal Statistics - Douglas S. Massey Social Mobility across Immigrant Generations: Recent Evidence and Future Data Requirements - Van Tran Tracking a Changing America across the Generations after Immigration - Tomas Jimenez Identifying the Later-Generation Descendants of U.S. Immigrants: Issues Arising from Selective Ethnic Attrition - Brian Duncan and Stephen J. Trejo Diversities within Major Populations Conceptualizing and Measuring Hispanic Origin: Reflections on Hispanic Race Reporting - Sonya R. Porter and C. Matthew Snipp Latinos, Race, and the U.S. Census - Edward Telles Estimating the Characteristics of Unauthorized Immigrants using U.S. Census Data: Combined Sample Multiple Imputation - Randy Capps, James D. Bachmeier, and Jennifer Van Hook Counting America's First Peoples - Carolyn A. Liebler Accurately Counting Asian Americans Is a Civil Rights Issue - Jennifer Lee, Karthick Ramakrishnan, and Janelle Wong Some Ramifications of Diversity Racial and Political Dynamics of an Approaching "Majority-Minority" United States - Maureen A. Craig, Julian M. Rucker, and Jennifer A. Richeson Racial Population Projections and Reactions to Alternative News Accounts of Growing Diversity - Dowell Myers and Morris Levy Growing U.S. Ethno-racial Diversity: A Positive or Negative Societal Dynamic? - Frank D. Bean
