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Latino Immigrants and the U.S. Racial Order: How and Where Do They Fit In? Reanne Frank, Ph.D.1 Ilana Redstone Akresh, Ph.D.2 Bo Lu, Ph.D.3 ************Please do not cite without permission from the authors************** 1 Corresponding Author. Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University. 238 Townshend Hall, Columbus, OH. 43210. frank.219@. 2 Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 3 College of Public Health, Division of Biostatistics, The Ohio State University Latino Immigrants and the U.S. Racial Order: How and Where Do They Fit In? Abstract: According to recent population projections, the non-Hispanic White population will no longer constitute the majority of Americans in the near future. These forecasts have touched off a series of debates over the definition of Whiteness and the future of the U.S. color line. In the context of a shifting U.S. racial landscape, this paper addresses a two-part question regarding racial boundaries and the place of the Latino immigrant population therein. The first part of the question investigates where Latino immigrants place themselves along the U.S. color line in terms of racial self-identification. The second part of the paper evaluates the way the U.S. color line affects outcomes of Latino immigrants. Using data from the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), we find that while Latinos do not conceptualize racial categories in terms of skin color alone, they do suffer an earnings penalty for darker skin. These findings suggest that even if Latino immigrants are challenging the supremacy of racial phenotype in terms of how they racially self- identify, the prevailing U.S. racial order based on skin color is still exerting powerful effects on their outcomes. L