Who Sees Race as a Choice?

ABSTRACT Due to shifting understandings of race and identity, the number of people who see one's race as rooted fully or partly in self‐identification, rather than solely in ancestry or social appraisals, may be on the rise. This study uses a survey of over 1100 Americans to map the prevalence and distribution of “racial voluntarism”—that is, the view that a person's race is up to that person. I find that support for racial voluntarism is modest, but not trivial: about a quarter of Americans support it, and another quarter are neutral. People who see their race as hard for others to assess, those who report uncertainty about their own multiraciality, and dark‐skinned individuals are more likely than others to think of race as “up to each person.” I also find some interactions between respondents' race, multiraciality, and skin tone. Findings are mostly consistent with racial contestation perspectives that highlight the threats that contestation poses to identity and status. I consider the implications of these patterns.