ABSTRACT
Social scientists have become increasingly concerned with the role that Latinos will play in our newly diverse society (Bonilla-Silva 2003; Chavez 2011; Lee and Bean 2004). Latinos now represent 16 percent of the U.S. population, accounting for half of the nation's growth in the past decade (Passel, Cohn and Lopez 2011). If Latinos embrace a collective group status and work to identify and mobilize around group interests, it would have enormous consequences in shaping the political, economic, and social landscape of the United States. However, because Latinos are legally classified as an ethnic group of varied national origin, status, creed, and color, it is unclear if and how they will be identified as a group in the U.S. context. Moreover, there is mixed evidence as to whether Latinos really are embracing a Hispanic/Latino identity and, if they are, how they are aligning themselves in the U.S. racial hierarchy (Jimenez 2009; Masuoka 2006; McConnell, Diaz, and Delgado-Romero 2004; Sanchez 2008; Sanchez and Masuoka 2008).
