Monday, September 18, 2023
2:00 to 3:30 PM
820 Social Sciences Building
UC Berkeley
About the Book
For decades now, pundits and political scientists have been pointing to a major demographic change that’s underway in the United States. Demographers project that whites will become a minority of the US population and that minority groups will jointly comprise a majority before 2050. Diversity’s Child is a vital and engaging look at America’s identity politics as well as at how people of color think about racial disparities and how politics can best solve them.
Drawing on opinion surveys of multiple minority groups, social science experiments with minority adults, content analyses of newspapers and congressional archives, and in-depth interviews with minority individuals, Efrén O. Pérez makes two key points. First, a person of color’s identity does exist, and we can reliably measure it, as well as distinguish it from other identities that minorities hold. Second, across a wide swath of circumstances, identifying as a person of color profoundly shapes how minorities view themselves and their political system.
About the Author
Efrén Pérez is a Professor of Political Science & Psychology at UCLA. Professor Pérez utilizes psychological principles to examine the political attitudes and behaviors of racial and ethnic groups. His research centers group identity, interminority politics, language, public opinion, and expertise in measuring attitudes in intergroup contexts. At UCLA, Peréz directs the university’s Race, Ethnicity, Politics, and Society (REPS) Lab and co-directs its Intergroup Relations (IRL) Lab.
Presented by the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research and the Charles & Louise Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley.
Jack Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research
UC Berkeley
The Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science
798 Social Sciences Building #1950
Berkeley, CA 94720-1950
citrincenter@berkeley.edu