US racial and ethnic relations in the twenty-first century: are old divisions prevailing?

In this response to Valdez and Golash-Boza's article, U.S. Racial and Ethnic Relations in the twenty-first century, I commend the authors for raising critical issues about the traditional lack of integration of race and ethnicity paradigms. However, I argue that, in an effort to make their claim about the distinction between the ethnicity and race paradigms, they end up oversimplifying some of the literature and overlook the ways in which race and ethnicity scholarship from the twenty-first century has made important advances towards paradigm integration. In my response I provide an alternate reading of some of the literature that the authors critique, focusing on the Mexican middle-class case. I then highlight scholars who are working towards race-ethnicity integration, moving past old paradigm divides. I conclude my response by introducing the concept of the ethnoracial core, which I believe moves us in the direction that Valdez and Golash-Boza are proposing.