Efrén Pérez, UCLA

Racial Order, Racialized Responses: Interminority Politics in a Diverse Nation

Efrén O. Pérez
Professor, UCLA Departments of Psychology and Political Science; Director, Race, Ethnicity, Politics, and Society (REPS) Lab

Entung Enya Kuo,
Doctoral Student, Yale University Department of Psychology

Abstract: America’s racial sands are quickly shifting, with parallel growth in theories to explain how varied groups respond, politically, to demographic changes. We develop a unified framework to predict when, why, and how racial groups react defensively toward others. America’s racial groups can be arrayed along two dimensions: how American and how superior are they considered? We claim that location along these axes motivates political reactions to outgroups. Using original survey data and experiments, we reveal the acute sensitivity that people of color have to their social station and how it animates political responses to racial diversity.