Search Results

This chapter uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey to provide an extensive description and discussion of aggregate and demographic group-specific turnout rates since 1972, focusing on education, income, race, ethnicity, age, gender, and marital status. Among the findings is that voter turnout in presidential elections since 1972 has not declined systematically. Instead, it has been slightly higher in some elections, and slightly lower in other elections. Second, the relationships among income, education, and voter turnout are quite strong: the probability of a highly educated or wealthy individual casting a ballot is much, much higher than the probability of a less-educated or poorer individual casting a ballot. Third, these differences in turnout have been remarkably stable over this thirty-six-year period. Fourth, there is less stability in turnout patterns by age, gender, and ethnicity since 1972 compared to those of education and income.

This chapter begins with framing America's history of measuring races, and how the government decides what those races are. The significance of measuring races lies in how law and policy are not about an abstraction called race, but are about races as they are made intelligible. A German doctor in 1776 divided the human species into five races. Today, nearly two and a half centuries later, these are the same five races into which the U.S. Census divides the American population, making America the only country in the world firmly wedded to an eighteenth-century racial taxonomy. Embedded in this science were theories of a racial hierarchy: there were not just different races but superior and inferior races.

This chapter provides new statistics on the entry, exit, and growth of farms using data from the U.S. Census of Agricultures from 1978 to 1997. Entry and exit statistics can reflect sales or leases of an existing farm and thus do not directly correspond to the movement of land in or out of agricultural production. Both the small farms and the very largest farms are increasing as a share of the total farms during the period 1978 to 1997. The average farm size in acres is larger for surviving farms than it was for either exiting or entering farms during the four subperiods. The microanalysis of turnovers reveals considerable structural change underlying the traditional aggregate indicators of farm structure. There is large-scale reallocation of outputs and inputs in agriculture. The majority of surviving farms change their farm size.

Chapter 2 focuses primarily on African Americans with some comparisons to other racialized groups. It lays the foundation for understanding the collective black experience from 1850 to 1870. It considers the racial climate and social hierarchy, particularly, the ways in which black Angelenos established a community within the larger society. By examining the lives of the first families in the city, this chapter shows how people connected with one another in order to secure access to education and economic opportunity.

Despite the strict 1853 Black Codes, several landowning African American families moved to the outskirts of New Philadelphia and became prominent members of the community. Living in a slave state during the beginning of the American Civil War must have encouraged John Walker to sell his land and livestock. James Washington established his farm close to the New Philadelphia. The 1860 U.S. Federal Census shows that New Philadelphia's town population had increased to about 114 individuals. After the railroad line opened in 1869, people began to slowly move away from New Philadelphia to larger cities and less-developed land west of the Mississippi River. A road sign stood at the site of New Philadelphia beginning in the 1950s, commemorating the multiracial town and the achievements of the McWorter family. It is noted that the history of the town and the development of the multiracial community is an intriguing story.

This chapter focuses on the modern South, which contains one-third of the nation's 100 most populous metro areas as defined by the U.S. Census and five of the top ten. Since 1980, the South's metropolitan population has increased by more than 45 percent, so that three out of four Southerners now live in a metropolitan setting. From 1987 to the beginning of the deep 2007–9 recession, metropolitan areas accounted for 89 percent of the South's job growth, rural areas 11 percent. In their State of Metropolitan America report, issued in 2010, the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program scholars define seven categories of U.S. metros. It is significant that Southern metros fall into all seven categories.

This introductory chapter describes the background of this study as well as the theoretical approaches to be used; in particular, the chapter defines and expands on the concepts of intersectionality and agency as applied to immigrant women. There is a growing number of women migrants within the United States and internationally, yet despite their burgeoning community these women remain invisible to the public imagination. Thus, the chapter goes on to introduce the research methods involved in attempting to rectify this issue—in-depth interviews and an analysis of existing data from the U.S. Census—and maps out the particular demographics to be interviewed and studied for the remainder of this book.

People experience themselves across time—recalling who they were and imagining who they will become. This consciousness of the self over time (Tulving, 1985; Wheeler, Stuss, & Tulving, 1997) and the ability to mentally “time travel” is a general human capacity (Epstude & Peetz, 2012) that develops by about age five (Atance, 2008; Atance & Jackson, 2009; Atance & Meltzoff, 2005; Russell, Alexis, & Clayton, 2010). For this reason, the future self can play a role in current choices from an early age. Indeed, when asked, people report imagining their future selves; they can describe both positive and negative possible identities their future selves might have (Dalley & Buunk, 2011; Norman & Aron, 2003). People say they care about whether they are making progress toward attaining their positive and avoiding their negative future identities (Vignoles, Manzi, Regalia, Jemmolo, & Scabini, 2008). They even report that their future selves are truer versions of themselves than their present selves, which are limited by the demands of everyday life (Wakslak, Nussbaum, Liberman, & Trope, 2008). Given all that, it might seem unnecessary to test whether people’s current actions are influenced by their future identities. Surely it has to be the case that future identities matter. Yet uncovering the circumstances in which the future self and other aspects of identity matter for behavior has turned out to be difficult. It is not always apparent that identities matter in spite of people’s feelings that they must. Figuring out the underlying process is critical to reducing the gap between aspirations and attainments and is the focus of this book. Does the future self really make such a difference in behavior? In the next sections, I provide a perspective and research evidence to answer the question. While often used interchangeably, the terms self, self-esteem, and identity are based on different concepts (Oyserman, Elmore, & Smith, 2012). Self-esteem is the positive or negative regard one has for oneself. Identities are descriptors (e.g., homeowner, middle-aged), personal traits (e.g., shy, outgoing), and social roles (e.g., mother, daughter) and the content that goes with these traits, descriptors, and roles (e.g., proud, worried).