reverse one-drop rule

noun

The notion that one drop of white blood (i.e. any white ancestry at all) makes a person white.

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Meanings

noun
  1. USThe notion that one drop of white blood (i.e. any white ancestry at all) makes a person white.

    The silence in American public discourse about the reverse one-drop rule as it governed Mexican Americans is significant.

    2008, Laura E. Gómez, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race
    1 more example

    For Mexican Americans, the reverse one-drop rule operated to open up white status to Mexicans, and thereby the assumption of some political rights, but it also operated to impose a contingent whiteness.

    2015, José A. Cobas, Jorge Duany, Joe R. Feagin, How the United States Racializes Latinos
Cite this entry
APA

reverse one-drop rule. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/reverse%20one-drop%20rule

MLA

“reverse one-drop rule.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/reverse%20one-drop%20rule. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “reverse one-drop rule,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/reverse%20one-drop%20rule.

Source: reverse one-drop rule on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.