Dean of the College and Sociology Program Present

More American Than Whom? Race, Status, and National Identity

This talk examines how Black, Latino, and Asian Americans define what it means to be “truly American” and how these definitions relate to perceptions of racial group position in the national hierarchy. Using data from the Truly American Project (TrAP) 2 survey—a nationally representative sample of 3,000 respondents across the three groups—the study uses a ranking-based measure of Americanness to uncover patterned differences in how groups prioritize ascriptive traits such as nativity and long-term residence and credal traits such as hard work, lawfulness, and paying taxes. The analysis shows that these priorities reflect groups’ demographic profiles and perceived strengths: Black respondents elevate nativity, while Latino and Asian respondents emphasize credal qualities. These definitions correspond to distinct views of the national hierarchy, with each group locating itself differently relative to Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians. Additional analyses demonstrate that emphasizing specific traits shifts perceptions of relative Americanness in systematic ways. Together, the findings reveal that national identity is not a shared consensus but a contested symbolic arena in which groups advance status claims that shape intergroup relations.

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Victoria S. Asbury-Kimmel is a political and cultural sociologist and a Faculty Fellow in the NYU Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. She received her PhD in Sociology from Harvard University and holds an MA in Education from Stanford University. Her research investigates how definitions of national belonging shape democratic institutions, civic participation, intergroup relations, and policy attitudes. Drawing on surveys, experiments, behavioral economic tasks, and computational text analysis, she examines how legal, racial, and civic criteria inform judgments of Americanness and structure views on immigration, redistribution, and citizenship. Her work has appeared in Public Opinion Quarterly, Social Psychology Quarterly, the Journal of Communication, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. She has received support from the Russell Sage Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, and her research has been recognized with awards from the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the Eastern Sociological Society, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.

Time: 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium

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