Measuring the Racial Identity of Latinos (Pew Research Center, 2021)

How do you measure something as personal as race? Pew’s researchers tried four different ways with Latino adults: the census checkboxes, the race people believe strangers see on the street, open-ended self-description, and skin color itself. Each method produced a different picture of the same population, which is the study’s quiet bombshell: the identity is real and steady, but the instrument decides what shows up in the data. For families who have never fit one box, this is validation in chart form. Our answers were never wrong; the questions were narrow. The full report is a rewarding read.

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2021/11/04/measuring-the-racial-identity-of-latinos/