Mixed Race Studies

Multiple Realities: A Relational Narrative Approach in Therapy With Black–White Mixed-Race Clients

Family Relations
Volume 52, Issue 2 (April 2003)
pages 119–128
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2003.00119.x

Kerry Ann Rockquemore

Tracey A. Laszloffy

Notions of a racial identity for persons with one Black and one White parent have assumed the existence of only a singular identity (first Black and later biracial). Emerging empirical research on racial identity formation among members of this group reveals that multiple identity options are possible. In terms of overall health, the level of social invalidation one encounters with respect to racial self-identification is more important than the specific racial identity selected. Here a relational narrative approach to therapy with Black–White mixed-race clients who experience systematic invalidation of their chosen racial identity is presented through a detailed case illustration.

Read or purchase the article here.

Sources of Self-Categorization as Minority for Mixed-Race Individuals: Implications for Affirmative Action Entitlement

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology
Volume 16, Issue 4 (October 2010)
Pages 453-460
DOI: 10.1037/a0020128

Jessica J. Good, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina

George F. Chavez
Department of Psychology
Rutgers University

Diana T. Sanchez, Associate Professor of Psychology
Rutgers University

Multiracial individuals are in the unique position of being able to categorize themselves as members of multiple racial groups. Drawing on self-categorization theory, we suggest that similarity to the minority ingroup depends on self-perceptions of physical appearance and connectedness to the minority ingroup. Moreover, we argue that similarity to the ingroup determines self-categorization as minority, which predicts category-based entitlements such as perceived eligibility for minority resources (e.g., affirmative action). Using path analysis, we found support for this model on a convenience sample of 107 mixed-race minority–White participants. The results suggest that affective processes rather than observable characteristics such as prototypical physical appearance better predict self-categorization among mixed-race individuals.

Read or purchase the article here.

Sociology Professor Chronicles Rising Latino Culture

Inside Fordham Online
Fordham University
In Focus: Faculty and Research
2010-11-15

Patrick Verel

Already the largest minority group in the United States, Latinos will be an even bigger presence in the years to come, according to demographic studies. Clara Rodriguez, Ph.D., professor of sociology in Fordham College at Lincoln Center, is making sure their stories are told.

Through 10 books, dozens of papers and consulting projects with Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street, Rodriguez has developed a deep knowledge about a group that now accounts for 15 percent of the population.

Her analyses of United States census data have resulted in papers such as “Contestations Over Classifications: Latinos, the Census and Race in the United States” (Journal de la Société des Américanistes, 2009) and “Implications and Impact of Race on the Health of Latinos,” a chapter in Health Issues in Latino Males: A Social and Structural Approach (Rutgers University Press, 2010).

As part of her study of census data, Rodriguez cast a critical eye on racial classifications in the decennial censuses. Examining how respondents who identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino reported their race, she found that 40 percent chose “some other race,” and many of them wrote in what is known as a Latino identifier, such as Dominican, Panamanian or Chicano.

This happened in the last three decennial censuses, despite the fact that the census allowed them to choose more than one racial category in the last census…

…“People who could choose more than one race didn’t choose white and black; they still chose the category ‘some other race.’ This 40 percent has increased—I think this time it was 42 percent—even though the Census Bureau has really tried to discourage this response,” she said.

“This raises the question, ‘What is race?’ Science was raising that question. Children of mixed-race families were raising that question. So are people from all over the world who came here with very different identities and are now being folded into one of our five major groups.”…

Read the entire article here.

Constructing Whiteness: Regulating Aboriginal identity

University of Toronto
2009
93 pages
Publication Number: AAT MR59722
ISBN: 9780494597224

Rebecca Boock

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts Graduate Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

Curricula in classrooms facilitate a national amnesia of colonialism that renders inconceivable the possibility of Aboriginal heritage or mixed-blood presence in national subjects. This thesis examines my own family history alongside the Indian Act and discourses of multiculturalism. I provide a personal account for the ways in which Aboriginal identities are regulated in Canada. I examine how glorified white settler narratives—reproduced through both formal and informal schooling—work to displace Aboriginal peoples as the original inhabitants of the land. I argue that this facilitates ongoing Canadian colonialism that continues to circumvent the possibility of particular mixed-blood Aboriginal identities within the confines of national belonging. Citizenship education in the Toronto District School Board is situated as a mechanism of formal schooling that continues to negate the ongoing colonization of Aboriginal people so that mixed-race Aboriginal students may continue to assume themselves as white subjects within the nation.

Table of Contents

• Title Page
• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Rendering Whiteness: Making National Belonging White
• Chapter Two: National Benevolence and the Erasure of Canadian Colonialism
• Chapter Three” Citizenship Education: Reinscribing Whiteness
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Read the entire thesis here.

Video from 2010 Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at DePaul now available on iTunes U

If you missed the Nov 5-6, 2010 “Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies” conference or any of the keynote talks or the welcoming address, you can now download the videos via Apple’s iTunes U.

Here is a link to the following videos:

• November 5th (00:19:48): Welcoming Remarks by DePaul’s Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean Charles Suchar and conference organizers Camilla Fojas, Wei Ming Dariotis, and Laura Kina.
• November 5th (00:50:36): Keynote Address by Andrew Jolivette, “Critical Mixed Race Studies: New Directions in the Politics of Race and Representation”
• November 6th(01:00:04): Keynote Address by Mary Beltrán, “Everywhere and Nowhere: Mediated Mixed Race and Mixed Race Critical Studies”
• November 6th (00:57:08): Keynote Address by Louie Gong, “Halfs and Have Nots”

Please note that your computer must have Apple’s iTunes installed in order to view the video.  It can be download here.

Multiracial and Adopted Asians

Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education
Volume 3, Number 2 (Fall 2001)
Theme: Interracial and Mixed-racial Relationships and Families

C. N. Le, Senior Lecturer Professor
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In the 1980s Asian Americans became the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States in terms of percentage growth.  As part of this growth, the number of those who are multiracial and adopted from Asia is increasing significantly.  These particular Asian Americans face unique political and cultural challenges from Asians and non-Asians alike.  While many struggle to fit into both cultures, many are creating their own identity that unites, rather than separates, their experiences. 

Table of Contents

• All Mixed Up?
• All Asians Alone or with Other Races
• Room to Grow
• Much More Than the Sum of the Parts
• References
• Editor’s Note

Read the eniter article here.

Ethnic, Multi-Ethnic, and Nationalist Identity in Belize: Voices of Belizean Children

Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education
Volume 3, Number 1 (Spring 2001)
Theme: International Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity

Sarah Woodbury Haug

This paper discusses ethnicity and nationalism in children in the rural community of Punta Gorda, Belize. Ethnicity and nationalism are important aspects of identity in Belize because of a deliberate government policy to teach about these identities in the schools. My purpose in this paper is to contrast what is taught in schools about ethnicity and nationalism with how children describe their own identities.

Table of Contents

• The Government’s Plan
• Methodology
• Ethnicity in Punta Gorda
• Working in the Schools
• Voices of Ethnically Mixed Children
• Conclusion
• Endnotes
• References

Read the entire article here.

Ethnicity and Ethnically “Mixed” Identity in Belize: A Study of Primary School-Age Children

Anthropology & Education Quarterly
Volume 29, Issue 1 (March 1998)
pages 44–67
DOI: 10.1525/aeq.1998.29.1.44

Sarah Woodbury Haug

This article focuses on the ehtnic identity of children in Belize. Belizean nationalism, as taught in the primary schools, is both pan-ethnic and multiethnic. However, because the increasingly widespread practice of ethnic mixing is unacknowledged, there is a discrepancy between what is taught in school and the daily life of children. This has resulted in a paradox. Whereas the overt intent is to recognize and celebrate difference, the result has been to silence children’s voices.

Teacher: “Everyone here belongs to an ethnic group. You will draw the clothing of your group.”
Mixed Mestizo/Garifuna girl: “What if you are mixed?”
Teacher: “It doesn’t matter if you are mixed… you draw the Creole outfit.”
[Teacher tells four other children of mixed ethnicity which clothing they will draw.]
Anthropologist to teacher: “What ethnic group are you?”
Teacher: “I am mixed with Creole and Spanish but my husband is an East Indian.”
Anthropologist: “What ethnic group do your children belong to?”
Teacher [laughs and waves her hand dismissively]: “They are just mixed.”
Anthropologist: “Oh. What did you do with the mixed children in your class?”
Teacher: “Well, I assigned them to a group.”

This article illuminates the subjective nature of ethnic identification in a nation-state that promotes multiculturalism and ethnic diversity within its borders. The government of Belize supports the cultures of all its ethnic groups and teaches about them in schools as part of its program of nationalism. The scene above illustrates the combination of issues that are involved in locating children of mixed ethnicity within the government’s ethnic framework in Punta Gorda, a small town of 3,500 people on the southern coast. Because ethnic mixing is unacknowledged by the Belizean government and not discussed in schools, there is a great discrepancy between what is taught in the schools, and the daily life of such children. What schools teach and what children understand are not the same. The silence on the part of the government, however, speaks loudly to children as they attempt to place themselves within the ethnic framework of their community and country.

To many adults, not only Punta Gordans, children are reflections of the adult world. They are thought of as simple creatures who absorb all that is taught to them (Jenks 1996:2; Stephens 1996:12), or viewed as a means of measuring the values of society (Ndebele 1996:322). They are not, as Stephens writes, “social actors in their own right, engaged in making sense of and recreating the social worlds they inherit” (1996:23-24). However, my research shows that children clearly are active participants in the construction of their own identity, even if their constructions are not recognized by the adult community and even if children are labeled by adults according to adult needs and perceptions…

Read the entire article here.

The struggle for selfhood in multiracial adolescents: Identify formation in Asian-White mixed race youth

Widener University, Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology
May 2008
184 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3405230
ISBN: 9781109705614

Leilani Salvo Crane

A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology College of Arts and Sciences Widener University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Psychology

This qualitative study identified factors that contribute to racial identity development in multiracial Asian-White adolescents. The research sample was comprised of 12 mixed-race Asian-White Americans between the ages of 16 and 23 years, 7 females and 5 males. They represent a variety of Asian-White mixes: 4 Japanese American-White; 3 Chinese-White or Chinese American-White; 2 Filipino American-White; 1 Japanese-Chinese-White; and 1 Hawaiian-Spanish-Filipino-Chinese-White. Biracial Asian-Black individuals were excluded due to the well-documented American tendency to classify mixed-race individuals of Black descent as “Black.” The participants were drawn from two sources, a book of interviews conducted and compiled by Pearl Fuyo Gaskins entitled, What Are You? Voices of Mixed-Race Young People, and a “fictional autobiography” by Kip Fulbeck entitled, paper bullets. Participants were chosen to represent a broad spectrum of Asian descent, geographical location, age, and gender. The first-person accounts were analyzed using a qualitative method devised by Carol Gilligan and colleagues, the Listening Guide Method. The method was modified by employing a tabular sorting of themes identified in the various stages of analysis dictated by the Listening Guide Method. The findings indicated several shared themes that impacted the participants’ process of racial identification. Key findings included sensitivity to other racial minorities, experiences of exoticization and objectification, not fitting in, racial pride, and experiences of racism. These in turn contributed to the participants feelings of anger toward the majority White culture, pain at not fitting in to this culture, “invisibility,” or lack of recognition by the majority culture, and having an unclear sense of self.

Based on data from well-being studies, multiracial Asian American identity development models, and the results of the current analyses, the study concluded that exposure to a reference group of multiracial Asian-White individuals is a critical contributor to the development of positive racial self-view. The study acknowledges that experiences of racism, marginalization, and invisibility negatively impact identity development in mixed-race Asian-White adolescents, and that clinical interventions should include exposure to Asian-White reference groups.

Purchase the dissertation here.

CAMD Scholars Take On Variety of Complex Racial Issues in MLK Jr. Day Presentations

Phillips Academy
Andover, Massachusetts
2008-01-28

Sally Holm

January 28, 2008 — Simone Hill ’08 had good reason to be excited last Monday. Chosen as a featured speaker for one of Phillips Academy’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day special events, the CAMD scholar presented her research on diversity, whose trail led her back more than 150 years into the dust of family history. And in the audience were not just her peers and teachers: her parents, Everett Hill ’77 and Dr. Yasmin Tyler-Hill from Atlanta, and her grandparents, from tiny Ridgeland, S.C., where the trail ended, were right there as well.

…The CAMD Scholars program was created last spring by the Office of Community and Multicultural Development (CAMD) to allow students to apply for research grants to pursue topics in multiculturalism during their summer vacations from school. Funded by the Abbot Academy Foundation, the scholarship provides a small stipend and a faculty advisor to each student selected. Three scholars presented during the fall term and three others spoke on MLK Jr. Day….

CAMD Scholar Britney Achin ’08 began her session with an exercise meant to educate her audience on the difficulties biracial teenagers face with identity in today’s social milieu. She asked everyone to answer the question “What am I?” in a brief phrase, then share it with a small group in the audience. Most seemed to find it difficult to capture complex selves—especially the offspring of interracial parents, as Achin is herself. Her research project was titled “I Am: A Study of Self Identification among Biracial Teenagers.” Mundra served as her advisor.

Achin surveyed hundreds of biracial adolescents through MySpace and Facebook, personal connections, and random interviews, asking probing personal questions of how they viewed themselves. She found that their responses clustered into five categories of identity: “Monoracials,” who defined themselves predominantly by a primary peer group; “Bidentifiers,” who identify confidently with more than one racial identity; “Sliders,” who were able to identify with whatever group in which they found themselves; “Raceless,” who refused to identify with any race, but prefer race-neutral descriptors such as “American”; and “Partial People,” who identify themselves as half a person, mostly as half-white, rarely as half-black.

Achin compared relative levels of turmoil and self-doubt, as well as confidence and self-knowledge, reflected by each group. She said she found that, without fail, PA students offered the most insightful responses. “I believe that speaks very highly of the work done by the school to make us aware of ourselves and others—our differences and similarities, racial and otherwise,” Achin said…

Read the entire article here.