Are solidarity and identification as people of color distinct? Validating new measures across Asian, Black, Latino, and Multiracial Americans

Abstract Mounting U.S. research suggests many non-White individuals feel solidarity with, and identify as, people of color (PoC). Yet measurement limitations prevent scholars from testing whether these constructs are empirically different. We explain why these concepts diverge and evaluate our claims with an expanded battery of measures across U.S. Asian, Black, Latino, and Multiracial adults ( N = 3402). Using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, we show these items capture related but distinct concepts among PoC ( configural invariance ). We then establish that these items uniformly measure each construct across PoC groups ( metric invariance ), with mean level differences validly reflecting actual heterogeneity between groups, rather than measurement artifacts ( scalar invariance ). Finally, consistent with our conceptualization, we show that solidarity among PoC mediates the association between PoC identification and support for policies that implicate various communities of color. We end with practical advice for using these items in surveys of racially diverse populations.