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Edward Telles
My research focuses on social stratification, social divisions and classification issues based on race and ethnicity, in comparative perspective. I am interested how race and ethnicity are differentially manifested across societies, using various kinds of data including censuses, surveys, in-depth interviews and legal documents. My recent research has focused on the case of black, white and mixed race people in Brazil and on Mexican Americans in the U.S. Southwest. In Race in Another America, I demonstrate how substantial intermarriage and residential integration co-exist with high levels of racial discrimination and inequality in Brazil, which has created challenges for implementing affirmative action. In Generations of Exclusion, I show that low levels of education persist for Mexican Americans three and four generations removed from immigration and find that this and other factors unique to that group have created a particular trajectory of integration in U.S. society. Both of these cases diverge dramatically from the standard ways in which American Sociology has tended to understand race and ethnicity. I am particularly interested in the implications of particular ethnic and racial configurations for designing effective social policy. Visit WebsitePublications Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil
This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on the increasingly important and controversial subject of race relations in Brazil. North American scholars of race relations frequently turn to Brazil for comparisons, since its history has many key similarities to that of the United States. Brazilians have commonly compared themselves with North Americans, and have traditionally argued that race relations in Brazil are far more harmonious because the country encourages race mixture rather than formal or informal segregation. More recently, however, scholars have challenged this national myth, seeking to show that race relations are characterized by exclusion, not inclusion, and that fair-skinned Brazilians continue to be privileged and hold a disproportionate share of wealth and power. 
Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race
Generations of Exclusion measures Mexican American integration across a wide number of dimensions: education, English and Spanish language use, socioeconomic status, intermarriage, residential segregation, ethnic identity, and political participation. The study contains some encouraging findings, but many more that are troubling. Linguistically, Mexican American assimilate into mainstream America quite well – by the second generation, nearly all Mexican Americans achieve English proficiency. In many domains, however, the Mexican American story doesn’t fit with traditional models of assimilation. The majority of fourth generation Mexican Americans continue to live in largely Hispanic neighborhoods, marry other Hispanics, and think of themselves as Mexican. And while Mexican Americans make financial strides from the first to the second generation, economics progress halts at the second generation, and poverty rates remain high for later generations. Similarly, educational attainment peaks among second generation children of immigrants, but declines from the third and fourth generations. |
