Mixed Race Studies

The nature of bi-ethnic identity in young adults of Asian and European descent and their perceptions of familial influences on its development

University of Maryland
Department of Human Development
2009

Amanda Laurel Wagner Hoa

The purpose of this study was to identify the key constructs of bi-ethnic identity, the key familial influences, and other salient influences on bi-ethnic identity as perceived by young adults of Asian and European descent. The rapidly changing demographics of the United States provide an impetus for research on the developmental processes of bi-ethnic individuals. In this qualitative study, participants were interviewed about their bi-ethnic identities and possible influences on bi-ethnic identity development. Data analysis for this study incorporated techniques from grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and analytic induction (LeCompte & Preissle, 1993). Five bi-ethnic identity types emerged from participants’ responses to interview questions: majority identity, minority identity, dual identity, integrated identity, and unresolved identity. These identity types are a unique contribution to the literature in that they specify how individuals of Asian and European descent define themselves. Additionally, this study identified four facets of bi-ethnic identity that indicate how bi-ethnic individuals think and feel about their background: centrality, self-label, affirmation, and affect. Six categories of influences on bi-ethnic identity development emerged from responses to interview questions (parental, extended family, personal, peer, environmental, discrimination), with 18 subcategories. This study is important because most prior research on bi-ethnic identity has focused on uncovering developmental stages, while we lack understanding of the nature of bi-ethnic identity and influences on its development. This study was important given the dearth of research on bi-ethnic Asians, although future research is needed with other bi-ethnic groups.

Download restricted until 2015-10-06.

Counseling Interventions with Biracial Black/White Adolescents

East Bay Therapist
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists – East Bay Chapter
Jan/Feb 2005

Venita Antonia-Maria Lue, PhD, MFT

Adolescence is an especially vulnerable time for many biracial individuals because identity issues become racial problems when the interracial person starts dating. All dating is potentially interracial for these adolescents.

The important questions for these biracial teenagers seem to be “Who am I?” and “Where do I fit?” In adolescence the question of social acceptance is very important. Biracial adolescents report anxiety over social acceptance based on exclusion groups in which they were accepted as children. There is an abrupt recognition of the need to redefine and renegotiate their social relationships and status. The process of finding friends who will accept them as individuals and show them unconditional acceptance can be a painful one for some biracial adolescents of either gender…

Read the entire article here.

Black, White, or Biracial? The Identity Development of Mixed-Race Individuals

Cornell University
August 1994
Call Number: Thesis DT 3 .5 1994 M926
152 pages

Mary Ellen Moule

This thesis analyzes the scholarly and popular treatment of the racial identity formation of Americans with one Black and one White parent. The racial identity development of biracial individuals has received increased attention in the social scientific literature and popular media within the last decade. Today, the historical one-drop rule that forced all individuals with any African ancestry to identify as Black, has been replace by a variety of identity options that incorporate one or both of their heritage groups into a self-selected identity matrix. Yet the literature on biracial identity development is still limited by a tendency to offer a single option deemed to be healthy for the individual.

This project reviews the recent literature on biracial identity development and compares the articles published in academic and professional journals to the material found in Interrace, a magazine devoted to interracial families, people, and concerns. In both cases, this analysis seeks to understand and critique the author’s advocacy of a particular identity development pathway. Secondly, I have assessed each of the potential identity choices to determine both their health for the individual and their potential impact on the Black community and race relations in society.

I conclude with my contention that the most appropriate model for biracial identity development offers a multidimensional framework which allows each person to discover and incorporate a racial identity that is best suited to his or her individual background, experience, and needs. Finally, I argue that they should also consider how their personal identity choices will affect their relationships with others and society.

Biracial Identity Development: Therapeutic Implications of Phenotype and Other Contextual Considerations

Practices of Healing: Using Multicultural Psychotherapy to Confront Symbols of Hate Presentation
Hosted by the Multicultural Research and Training Lab, Graduate School of Education and Psychology Psychology Division
Pepperdine University
2008-10-11
35 slides

Krystle G. Hays, M.A. Doctoral Student
Pepperdine University

This presentation examines the interplay of phenotype, environmental influences, and other sociocultural considerations in the self-construction of biracial (African American and Caucasian) individuals. Consideration will also be given to potential therapeutic issues that may arise for someone who is negotiating the development of a biracial identity.

Purpose of Presentation

• Examining the experience of self-identification for persons of biracial heritage, Black and White.
• Overview of research that explores Black culture and values, and the formation of identity in this cultural group.
• Overview of literature that highlights White culture, values, and identity-development.
• Discussion of biracial identity – is there an intersection between Black and White cultural values or is the biracial individual’s identity an independent formation?
• Discussion of biracial identity development for persons of Black and White descent; including factors of phenotype and sociocultural factors such as family and environment.
• Looking at racial identifiers used by biracial persons.

View the presentation (Microsoft Powerpoint) here.

Changing Answers but Not Identities: A Qualitative Investigation of Race Responses in a Longitudinal Survey

Population Association of America
2009 Annual Meeting
Marriott Renaissance Center
Detroit, Michigan
2009-04-16
19 pages

Kelsey Poss
University of Minnesota

Carolyn A. Liebler, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Minnesota

Paper presented at the 2009 annual meetings of the Population Association of America on May 1, 2009

We seek to understand why people change their race responses over time. We use longitudinal survey responses to selectively recruit individuals for in-depth interviews about the reasons behind their changing responses to questions about their race(s) and primary racial or ethnic identities between 1988 and 2007. We find a wide variety of changes in 33 individuals’ answers to questions about their race, ancestry and Hispanic origin. To date, we have completed in-depth interviews with nine of these individuals. In many cases, respondents do not remember changing their answers and do not consider themselves to have changed their identities. Respondents’ post-hoc accounts of varied answers often focus on events or thoughts near the time of the survey and on details of question-wording. Many also report a rationalized process for selective reporting of their race(s), depending on the purpose of the form (e.g., job application versus social club).

Read the entire article here.

At last! It’s cool to be mixed race (which is handy because I’m African, American, Jewish, Geordie, Irish, Scottish and Hungarian)

The Daily Mail (United Kingdom)
2010-04-25

Oona King, Head of Diversity
Channel 4

White supremacy is so last century. These days it’s on-trend to be a mixed-race supremacist. Unlike the British National Party, mixed-race people can now point to scientifically credible research that highlights the various biological advantages of their ethnicity.

And that’s not to mention the anecdotal evidence pointing to sports stars and celebrities such as Lewis Hamilton, Theo Walcott and Leona Lewis as representing the new ideal of physical beauty.

But is this just a media fad, sparked by the election of the world’s most famous mixed-race person as President of the United States? And now that mixed-race people are our fastest growing ethnic group, what does it mean for Britain’s uneasy relationship with race?..

…And now it seems that mixed race genes are being hailed as the latest Darwinian ‘must-have’ accessory. If you spent your childhood being called a ‘mongrel’ in the playground, the recent research by Cardiff University, which seems to show that mixed-race people are more attractive and more successful, may bring a wry smile to your face.

Dr. Michael Lewis, who conducted the research said: ‘Darwin suggested that diversity of genes led to greater genetic fitness and this in turn seems to be linked to attractiveness.’

Far from being an abomination of the natural order, mixed-race children are apparently biologically preferable. The logic is that the wider the gene pool (the further apart genetically two parents are) the greater protection from illness or genetic abnormality their children enjoy…

Read the entire article here.

Ethnically mixed individuals: Cultural Homelessness or Multicultural Integration?

University of North Texas
May 1999
260 pages
15 tables, 6 illustrations, references, 273 titles

Veronica Navarrete-Vivero, B. S. CPR
University of North Texas

Thesis Prepared for the Degree of Master of Science of Psychology

Studies addressing racial/ethnic identity development have often overlooked the developmental cultural context. The impact of growing up with contradictory cultures has not been well explored. Immersion in multiple cultures may produce mixed patterns of strengths deficits.

This study reviews the literature’s currently inconsistent usage of the terms race, ethnicity, and culture; introduces the concept and theoretical framework of Cultural Homelessness [(CH)]; relates CH to multicultural integration; and develops two study-specific measures (included) to examine the construct validity of CH.

The sample’s (N= 448, 67% women) racial, ethnic, and cultural mixture was coded back three generations using complex coding criteria. Empirical findings supported the CH-specific pattern of cognitive and social strengths with emotional difficulties: social adaptability and cross-cultural competence but also low self-esteem and shame regarding differences.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION
    Controversial Definitions of and Processes
    Conflicting Approaches to Theory Development
    Theoretical Frameworks for this Study
    Self and Ethnic Identity Development
2. METHOD
    Participants
    Recruitment and Data Collection Procedures
    Instruments
3. RESULTS
    Descriptive Statistics
    Association Among Variables
    Hypotheses Tests
    Exploratory Analyses
4. DISCUSSION
5. CONCLUSIONS

APPENDICES
REFERENCES

List of Tables

1. Theoretical CH Domain Criteria
2. Risk Factors for the Development of Cultural Homelessness
3. Hypothesized Consequences of Multicultural Experiences
4. Sample’s Demographic Characteristics
5. Sample’s Racial, Ethnic, & Cultural Characteristics
6. CHRiF Items by Systems Model Levels
7. Conceptually Derived CH Criteria Items
8. Domains Measured by the ICME Scales
9. Multicultural Variables Means & S.D.
10. CHRiF Scores: Means, S.D., & Interlevel Correlations
11. Theoretical vs Empirical CH Domain Criteria
12. Theoretically vs. Empirically Derived Items and Domains
13. Factored Item’s Loadings, Interitem Correlations, and Reliabilities
14. CH Criteria, Risk Factors, ICME, & MC Distributions
15. Correlations: CH, Risk Factors, ICME, and MC Variables

List of Illustrations

1. Conceptual Categorization by Ethnic Group Preference and Acculturation
2. Categorization by Parental Race and Ethnicity
3. Categorization by Family and Socio-Cultural Environment
4. General Systems Model of Communication
5. General Systems Model: Top-Down View
6. Marcia’s Ego Identity Status Model

Read the entire thesis here.

Dartmouth Junior wins Beinecke Scholarship

Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs
Press Release
Media Contact: Kelly Sundberg Seaman
2010-05-18

Anise Vance, a member of the Dartmouth Class of 2011, has been named a Beinecke Scholar, one of 20 college juniors nationally. The award, which supports the “graduate education of young men and women of exceptional promise,” provides $4,000 prior to entering graduate school and an additional $30,000 while attending graduate school. He joins Gabrielle Ramaiah ’10 and Jodi Guinn ’09 as the third Dartmouth student tapped for the scholarship in the past three years.

Vance, of Weston, Mass., is majoring in geography. “This is a huge honor,” he says, “both for the validation of my aspirations, and the financial support.” On the other hand, he notes, “it raises expectations. The call from the award committee came while I was working in the library; I phoned my parents, and then went right back to work.”

Issues of social justice, in the United States and globally, engage Vance. He traces his drive to ask questions about who lives where — and what results from that mix of space and identity — to his childhood “growing up all over the place”: Vance attended school in Kenya, Botswana, and Egypt. Growing up, as he calls himself, “a mixed race child of an Iranian mother and an African American father,” he was aware that the perceptions of others were often linked to one’s environment. This understanding has formed the basis of his research thus far…

…My current research for my senior thesis as a Mellon Mays Fellow investigates the causes of and mechanisms by which residential segregation continues to plague urban centers and their populations,” he reports. “Using a variety of methods, including ethnographic research, census-data analysis and structural examination of lending and real estate practices, I hope to provide a comprehensive investigation of African American segregation in my father’s hometown of Hartford, Connecticut.”…

Read the entire press release here.

Census trend shows mixed-race Americans are more likely to identify with their multiracial background

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-05-18

Brittany Wong, Bruin contributor

When President Barack Obama got to Question No. 9 on the 2010 Census, he did what mixed-race respondents nationwide were asked to do: pare down and define his complex racial background by checking all the boxes he saw fit.

His decision to exclusively check “Black, African Am., or Negro” and the fractured response that followed speaks to the complex nature of being mixed race today, said Kyeyoung Park, an associate professor of sociocultural anthropology at UCLA who teaches a class about race.

A new generation of mixed-race people are coming into their own this decade, and as they do, many are more comfortable self-identifying in a way that encompasses all of their background, Park said…

…Miguel Unzueta, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management who conducted a study that showed that self-identified mixed-race children were better adjusted in school, said he was somewhat surprised by Obama’s decision. Given the president’s discussion of his mixed heritage during the primaries, he said he expected a census answer more in line with his talk on the campaign trail.

But the decision also speaks to the reality that the way Americans talk about race is not always the way they think, he said.

“I think people are more comfortable with having a mixed-race background, but there still isn’t a label that we’re comfortable with in society,” Unzueta said…

Read the entire article here.

Priming Race in Biracial Observers Affects Visual Search for Black and White Faces

Psychological Science
Volume 17, Number 5 (2006)
Pages 387-392

Joan Y. Chiao, Assistant Professor of Brain, Behavior, and Cognition; Social Psychology
Northwestern University

Hannah E. Heck
Harvard University

Ken Nakayama, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology
Harvard University

Nalini Ambady, Professor and Neubauer Faculty Fellow
Tufts University

We examined whether or not priming racial identity would influence Black-White biracial individuals’ ability to visually search for White and Black faces. Black, White, and biracial participants performed a visual search task in which the targets were Black or White faces. Before the task, the biracial participants were primed with either their Black or their White racial identity. All participant groups detected Black faces faster than White faces. Critically, the results also showed a racial-prime effect in biracial individuals: The magnitude of the search asymmetry was significantly different for those primed with their White identity and those primed with their Black identity. These findings suggest that topdown factors such as one’s racial identity can influence mechanisms underlying the visual search for faces of different races.

Read the entire article here.