7% Asian-Americans, and 17.3% Hispanic-Americans. The two most prominent changes in these numbers from the other two fields were the lower incidence of Asian-American painters (about 1/3 the rate of accountants or waiters/waitresses) and the higher incidence of Hispanic-American painters (more than three times found in the other two occupations). Analysis:

Kirschenman and Neckerman explore the issue of race an ethnicity in the eyes of employers. Interviewing Chicago-area businesses, the authors found that employers perceived Black men as being "unstable, uncooperative, dishonest, and uneducated" (311). However, looking across the three fields investigated for this paper, this is not necessarily reflected. If this perception held true, it would follow that there would be far more African-Americans in the lower-skilled, lower-education fields of waiter/waitressing and especially painting, given the high percentage of males in that field. Instead, the percentage of African-Americans in all three fields were fairly even. Although there was a slightly higher prevalence of African-Americans in the painting field overall, there was a higher percentage of African-American accountants than waiters/waitresses.

Newman and Ellis specifically discuss fast food restaurant work and minorities. Despite excellent internal promotion programs, most employees never even come close to management, according to the authors. This combined with the stigma of working in fast food makes it a challenging industry, for workers of every race. Work, of any sort, is valued in America. Yet, these findings don't really apply to the differences found in the three occupations of this paper. One would think that if work of any kind was valued that there would be a higher percentage of minority workers...

This, however, was not found. Kandel and Parrado talk of the increasing Hispanic population, yet the associated significant increase in this demographic for lower-skilled jobs compared to accounting is simply not found.
Conclusion:

There were interesting gender differences between the investigation of the fields of accounting, waiter/waitressing and painting. Where accountants were almost evenly divided male and female, waiters/waitresses were heavily skewed female and painters were heavily skilled male. However, there were only a few differences found with the racial breakdowns for these three occupations. Although painters showed a higher prevalence of Hispanics and a lower prevalence of Asians, most of the statistics were similar across all three fields. These findings would seem to be contrary to the writings of other authors who would have predicted a significantly higher incidence of minorities in the lower-skilled, lower-education jobs, due to stereotyping, lower education levels, and increases in minority populations.

Works Cited

Kandel, W. And Parrado, E. "Hispanics in the American South and the Transformation of the Poultry Industry" in Rethinking the Color Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity. Boston: Mcgraw-Hill, 2008.

Kirschenman, J. And Neckerman, K. "We'd Love to Hire Them, but..." In Rethinking the Color Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity. Boston: Mcgraw-Hill, 2008.

Newman, K. And Ellis, C. "There's No Shame in My Game." In Rethinking the Color Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity. Boston: Mcgraw-Hill, 2008.