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Home Research Topics Race & Ethnicity Racial & Ethnic Identity
Pew Research CenterMay 13, 2021
Black and Hispanic Americans See Their Origins as Central to Who They Are, Less So for White Adults

Asked to describe their race and ethnicity, most write a usable answer

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Asked to describe their race and ethnicity, most write a usable answer

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Black and Hispanic Americans See Their Origins as Central to Who They Are, Less So for White Adults
Six-in-ten Americans say they are very familiar with their origins. Black and Hispanic adults feel more connected to roots than White adults
About half of U.S. adults say census questions reflect own identity very well
Black and Hispanic adults are more likely than White adults to say origins central to their identity
How do multiracial adults compare with other groups on questions about identity?
The two different ways we asked about race and ethnicity
Only about half of Hispanics had matched self-descriptions and responses to census questions
Six-in-ten Americans said they were very familiar with their origins
Americans were split on whether they felt connected to their family’s origins
Most White adults didn’t see their origins as central to their identity
The survey used the two-step race and ethnicity questions from the 2020 census to ask for respondents’ origins
Majorities of White and Black respondents provided an origin
Those with more education more likely to provide an origin
Large majority of Black respondents identified ‘African American’ as origin
Most adults’ self-described race and ethnicity match census answers
How the 2020 census asked about Hispanic origin and race
Asked to describe their race and ethnicity, most write a usable answer
About half of U.S. adults say census questions reflect own identity very well
For Hispanics, importance of origins slips across immigrant generations
‘Hispanic’ is most common race or ethnicity given by adults indicating Latin American or Spanish origins in open-ended identity question
More than half of Hispanics say their race is White
Weighting dimensions
Unweighted sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling

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