Skin Tone and Assimilation

Objective We test one untested influence on whether Hispanics will assimilate into American society in a “straight line” or remain “segmented.” The type of assimilation hinges on both how non‐Hispanics treat Hispanics and whether Hispanics desire assimilation. We argue that these behaviors depend on the social construction of Hispanics’ identity, which in turn may depend in part on their skin tone. Methods We compare these two theoretical competing models in two ways. First, to a nationally representative sample, we randomly assign four images of Hispanic males who are two standard deviations apart in skin tone and gauge respondents’ social acceptance of them. Second, using objective skin‐tone measures from the 2012 ANES oversample of Hispanics, we determine if skin tone correlates with beliefs over assimilation. Results For the experimental evidence, we discover that whites and blacks do not discriminate across this range of skin tone for Hispanics. For the ANES data, we find no evidence that skin tone affects Hispanics willingness to assimilate into America. Conclusion Thus, the typical skin tones of Hispanics do not affect the assimilation ideas of either non‐Hispanics or Hispanics.