Event Details — Immigration and Houston’s Changing Racial/Ethnic Mix

The Texas Economic & Demographic Association and Greater Houston Partnership are holding this workshop. According to an email describing the event, speakers include:

- Michael Emerson, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, and Co-Director, Institute for Urban Research, Rice University. Emerson chaired the American Sociological Association’s Section on Religion last year, won Rice’s George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching in 2008, and won the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s 2001 Distinguished Book Award with Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. He has a book forthcoming this year entitled Transcending Racial Barriers.

- Jenifer Bratter, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rice University. Dr. Bratter has authored several articles and book chapters on the implications of racial mixing (e.g., interracial families, multiracial identity) for the salience of racial distinctions in the areas of family, identity, and social inequality. Most recently, she was awarded the 2009 Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Award for Junior Faculty to explore how changes, and particularly the declines, in residential segregation by race are linked to the growing number of multiracial families. Her work has appeared in the journals Demography, Social Forces, Sociological Forum, and Social Science Research.

The email also indicates that the symposium will look at questions such as:

- What is “ethnicity”? How do social, cultural and economic factors shape ethnic identity? Ethnic groups are frequently categorized based on simplistic characteristics such as national origin, language or physical attributes. However, debates surrounding racial and ethnic identity on issues such as the U.S. census categories demonstrate that the concept is anything but simple.

- How are ethnic boundaries important? Historically, Houston avoided the extreme racial tension that affected many cities in the South. What about the future? What factors influence group boundaries? In the Houston context, how are social and economic institutions likely to reinforce these boundaries? What institutions may help bridge these boundaries?