Shifts in Racial Self-Identification for the Greatest Generation: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Data

Researchers generally recognize that racial identification may shift over the life course. However, there is less consensus about the prevalence of these shifts. Previous estimates suggest as many as 6% of Americans shift their racial identity. Using administrative data on Social Security applications from 1984 to 2007, we quantify the magnitude and direction of shifts in racial and ethnic self-identification among Black, White, Asian, American Indian, and Hispanic members of the “Greatest Generation,” those born between 1901 and 1927 (N = 410,388). Approximately 9,274 (2.3%) persons in this dataset changed their racial or Hispanic identity, with distinct patterns of change for racial-ethnic subgroups. Overall, the most common shift was from a non-White identity to a non-Hispanic White identity. We then link to the 1940 Census to investigate whether social status in youth and young adulthood predicts a shift in identity in later life, and we find a positive and significant association between socioeconomic status in early life and a shift from non-White to non-Hispanic White identity. These systematic patterns would be unlikely if these shifts were due entirely to measurement error. We conclude the prevalence of racial fluidity is itself contingent, varying across time and cohort with response to racial climate, events in greater society, and social position.

Macho Man

Chapter 2 is devoted to the WWII-Soldado Razo archetype that anchors Latina/o civic and cultural citizenship models, transnational mestizaje and hybridity paradigms, and hypermasculinist warrior hero discourses. Through a reassessment of familiar, as well as neglected and undertheorized literary and performative texts, the chapter examines the conservative—specifically heteronormative, capitalist, and protoimperialist—nature of prevailing triumphalist historiographies of the WWII Soldado Razo as a member of the proverbial “Greatest Generation.” Both familiar and new permutations of WWII-Soldado Razo archetypes, as well as related civilian archetypes such as Pachucas and Pachucos, reveal this figure’s varied negotiations of ideology. In the process they also complicate our understanding of the racialized, gendered, and sexualized texture of this epochal milieu and its Latina/o protagonists. This chapter’s case studies reveal that the Soldado Razo actually anchors a wide variety of WWII-era supra-Latina/o violentologies. These range from hyperlocal cultural nationalisms, protofascist imperialisms, frequently ignored WWII-era Marxist internationalisms, and protoqueer warrior heroes, all of whom are intertwined with homosocial and simultaneously homoerotic Pachucos!

Arsenal of the Global South: Yugoslavia’s Military Aid to Nonaligned Countries and Liberation Movements

Yugoslavia’s military internationalism was one of the most practical expressions of the country’s policy of nonalignment. Beginning with Algeria in the 1950s until its demise in the 1990s, Yugoslavia was an ardent supporter of liberation movements and revolutionary governments in Africa and Asia. This article argues that Yugoslav military internationalism was at the heart of Yugoslavia’s efforts to reshape the post-1945 global order and represented an extension of Yugoslav revolution abroad. Military aid was an expression of personal identification of Yugoslavia’s “greatest generation” with decolonization struggle. However, Yugoslav military aid to other countries went beyond a single foreign policy issue. Yugoslav military internationalism touched upon many other issues that included problems related to finances, economic development, the acquisition and transfer of military technology, relations with the superpowers, national security, ideology and politics, and prestige and status in global affairs. By the end of the 1970s, with the departure of the World War II generation and the looming economic crisis, Yugoslav military involvement in the Global South became increasingly driven by economic reasons. Former Yugoslav republics, after a short hiatus in the 1990s during the wars for Yugoslavia’s succession, are still present in the arms trade in the Global South.

Cemetery Mapping and Digital Data Analysis: A Case Study in Minnesota, USA

This study examines how geospatial technologies can be used in the aid of local-level cemetery management with limited resources using a case study in Woodland Hills Memorial Park Cemetery, Minnesota, USA. The hard-copy records in a handwritten ledger were manually transferred into an Excel table. The spatial data of the gravesites were collected using a Trimble Geo 7X unit with a Zephyr antenna and a Laser Rangefinder sensor over the summer of 2017. A geodatabase was constructed by joining the Excel table with the GPS data in GIS. A procedure was also developed to map the spatial distributions of plots and analyze the demographic data. It was demonstrated that a very high locational accuracy could be achieved based on carefully designed GPS data collection strategies. In addition, the data analysis results revealed that there were 12,190 plots in total, approximately half of which were still available for purchase. Among the 5,906 inhabitants buried at the Woodland Hills, many were ethnically German and Scandinavian, of whom 9.7% were veterans and nearly half were from the Greatest Generation (born between 1901 and 1927). The birth, death, and age distributions are significantly different between the nonveteran and veteran groups. Clustered patterns were identified for the filled plots and all the Generation categories. Such results will be beneficial to local cemetery managers to plan for further development as well as to future historians or individuals interested in the local culture and history. The proposed methods can greatly facilitate local-level cemetery data collection, mapping, query, and analysis.

A New Look at Cohort Trend and Underlying Mechanisms in Cognitive Functioning

Objectives The prevalence of dementia in the United States seems to have declined over the last few decades. We investigate trends and their underlying mechanisms in cognitive functioning (CF) across 7 decades of birth cohorts from the Greatest Generation to Baby Boomers. Methods Data come from 30,191 participants of the 1996–2014 Health and Retirement Study. CF is measured as a summary score on a 35-point cognitive battery of items. We use generalized linear models to examine the trends in CF and explanatory variables across birth cohorts. Then, Karlson–Holm–Breen decomposition method is used to evaluate the contribution of each explanatory variable to the trend of CF. Results CF has been improving from the Greatest Generation to Late Children of Depression and War Babies, but then significantly declines since the Early-Baby Boomers and continues into Mid-Baby Boomers. This pattern is observed universally across genders, race/ethnicities, education groups, occupations, income, and wealth quartiles. The worsening CF among Baby Boomers does not originate from childhood conditions, adult education, or occupation. It can be attributed to lower household wealth, lower likelihood of marriage, higher levels of loneliness, depression and psychiatric problems, and more cardiovascular risk factors (e.g., obesity, physical inactivity, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and heart disease). Discussion The worsening CF among Baby Boomers may potentially reverse past favorable trends in dementia as they reach older ages and cognitive impairment becomes more common if no effective interventions and policy responses are in place.

Multiple Sources of Aging Attitudes: Perceptions of Age Groups and Generations From Adolescence to Old Age Across China, Germany, and the United States

Emerging evidence suggests that people not only categorize themselves and others based on age but also in terms of their generational membership. This cross-cultural study compared attitudes and stereotypes toward age and generational groups across the life span in China, Germany, and the United States including 1,112 participants between 18 and 86 years of age. We asked younger, middle-aged, and older respondents to rate either six age groups (e.g., adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, young-old, older, and old-old adults) or six matching generational groups (e.g., Generation Z, Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomer, Silent Generation, and Greatest Generation) on various characteristics (e.g., happy, competent, selfish). Consistent with our hypotheses, the results demonstrate that across all three countries older generations were perceived consistently more positive, whereas older age groups were perceived as less positive. These findings suggest that generations represent a source of positive regard and high social status in later life across different countries with different historical backgrounds and cultures.