The Abstract on Race and Identity The New York Times (& MSNBC) Incorrectly Cited

As they say: put something up on the Internet and someone will be bound to eventually find it. Such is the case of the initial presentation about race and identity presented in the first week of May at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, the same presentation which prematurely and erroneously concluded (according to The New York Times and MSNBC) that more Latinos are becoming “white.”

Here is a picture of the actual abstract description, which can be found here.

Here is the extended abstract:

The Abstract on Race and Identity The New York Times (& MSNBC) Incorrectly Cited by Latino Rebels

We understand completely that an actual study is not public yet, but wouldn’t you think that The Times and MSNBC would have made mention of this abstract in their reports? Is there anywhere in that abstract which makes as bold of a conclusion as the one from The Times: “More Hispanics Declaring Themselves White“? It’s no wonder one of the study’s co-authors said that initial inferences from the media are the media’s inferences are not theirs.

As the conclusion states: “We will use matched census records for about 197 million Americans who in the 2000 and 2010 decennial censuses, and focus on 166 million who were most likely to self-report (or have a household member report) their race/Hispanic origins. Using these remarkable data, we will give a first look into the extent of race/Hispanic response churning happening in contemporary America. We see our work as having substantial implications for sociological theories about race and Hispanic identities, as well as for research on racial stratification and inequalities. In future versions of this manuscript, we will expand on both of these points.”

But the media damage has already been done, and quite frankly, The Times (contacted several times about this story) nor MSNBC care.