The Los Angeles Times
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Times Staff Writer
Latinos who view themselves as white are more likely to be better-educated, earn more, register to vote and vote Republican, according to a national study to be released today on how Latinos identify racially.
The study by the Pew Hispanic Center also found some notable regional differences not yet fully understood. For example, in California, 42% of U.S.-born Mexican Americans identified themselves as white, compared with 63% of their ethnic counterparts in Texas.
The analysis of Census data and recent surveys is perhaps the most detailed in a relatively new field of research on how Latinos adapt to the rigid racial categories they encounter in the United States. It is the first to probe the differences between Latinos who consider themselves white and
those who say they are of some other race.