Introduction
Esperanza Spalding, a young jazz musician, won the 2011 Grammy for Best New Artist, eclipsing the wildly popular teenage idol Justin Bieber. Information about Spalding exploded on the Internet. Who was this little-known artist? Where did she come from? Discussion of her music and her mixed-race heritage quickly filled the blogs. During an interview Spalding described her family background as reflecting “the racial balance of the future.” Her father is African American; her mother is Welsh, Native American, Hispanic, and African American. Like Esperanza Spalding, a growing number of Americans describe themselves as being mixed-race, multiracial, of mixed heritage, or as having many backgrounds—black and white, Jamaican and English, Mexican and Danish, and numerous other combinations. This includes well-known figures such as Lani Guinier, Alicia Keyes, Malcolm Gladwell, Jessica Alba, and even President Barack Obama.
Most of us have a mixed ancestry. In fact, when investigating their ancestry, many people find that their forebears included people of different races—which is sometimes unexpected and often surprising to discover. In the United States, it is estimated that at least one-quarter of African Americans have an ancestor who is not of African descent.1 The renowned Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who appeared in the PBS series African American Lives,2 found that his ancestry was more than 50 percent European—Irish, to be specific. Yet it is only since the 1980s that individuals have been able to declare their mixed-race identity publicly. Up to that time, most individuals of color were classified according to their “minority” status. Because of this hypodescent,3 multiracial individuals defaulted to their nonwhite parentage and identified only as black, Latino, Native American, or Asian. Today this has changed, and the option of identifying with more than one racial heritage has become a viable choice for three specific reasons. First, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia4 declared the Virginia statute barring interracial marriage to be unconstitutional. Second, the efforts of a multiracial movement during the 1980s and 1990s pressed for the inclusion of a multiracial category on the 2000 U.S. Census.5 And third, there has been a growing national acceptance for seeing ourselves in terms of greater racial complexity.
Nevertheless, choosing which term to use for individuals who identify as being of more than one race proves difficult. The descriptive language employed over time to designate race has been inconsistent. Historically, words such as mulatto, mixed-blood, and half-breed have been used to describe people of mixed race, but these terms are now generally considered outdated and unacceptable.6 Today, biracial, children of interracial marriages, interethnic, mixed-race, and multiracial are among the terms used in indexes, catalogs, books, magazines, and newspaper articles to define this population. Some individuals have created new terms to describe themselves, like Cablinasian, the term Tiger Woods uses to describe his mixed heritage, which includes Caucasian, black, American Indian, and Asian.
Much has been written about which term should be used to describe people of more than one race.7 Borrowing from Maria Root’s pioneering work on mixed-race populations, we use the term multiracial to describe “people who are of two or more racial heritages.” Root adds, “It is the most inclusive term to refer to people across all racial mixes.”.8 Our book explores the experiences of individuals who identify themselves as multiracial, and considers what this identity means for their everyday existence.
The concept of multiracial identity also raises concerns about the reification of race itself. Being multiracial assumes that there is such a thing as a single, monoracial, or “pure” racial category. Although race was once considered biological and innate, today it is understood as a social construction that has changed over time; in other words, race is not biological. Nevertheless, racial categories have evolved over the decades, and they do hold social meaning. In the social sciences, race is understood as a variable that has strong economic, political, and educational significance that can affect an individual’s life chances. So even though we understand that race is “a product of human invention like fairies, leprechauns, banshees, ghosts and werewolves,” it does matter as a “cultural creation” and has consequences for how a person experiences life every day.9 Furthermore, race categories in the United States are hierarchical, and whiteness is privileged. As the activist and antiracist Tim Wise points out: “We live not only in a racialized society, but also a class system, a patriarchal system, and one in which other forms of advantage and disadvantage exist. These other forms of privilege mediate, but never fully eradicate, something like white privilege. . . . [T]he fact remains that when all other factors are equal, whiteness matters and carries with it great advantage.”10 Consequently, for multiracial individuals, the “mix” matters. How one looks (skin color, hair texture, body type, etc.) will position an individual along the continuum of racial privilege. Multiracial individuals with more European-looking features will have more privilege than African-or indigenous-looking multiracials. In the United States, race still structures access to opportunities: nonwhite children suffer substantially higher rates of poverty, attend schools with far fewer resources, and lack preventive health care.11 Thus, having a mixed racial background can provide insight into how race in its many dimensions is understood.
The growth of the multiracial population has also spurred neoconservative activists to reiterate the idea that the United States has become a color-blind nation and that race no longer influences life chances; the mere fact that “multiracialness” exists is proof that racism and discrimination no longer pervade our society, and fuels a race-neutral doctrine.12 Yet Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean’s findings suggest that black multiculturalism, in particular, “continues to constitute a fundamental racial construction in American society. Hence, it is not simply that race matters, but more specifically, that black race matters, consistent with the African American exceptionalism thesis.”13 Thus, even in the case of multiracials, race still matters.
Who Is Multiracial? The U.S. Census
According to Kim Williams, the multiracial movement of the 1980s and 1990s prompted a restructuring of American racial classifications. Beginning with the 2000 U.S. Census, respondents who previously were permitted to mark only one racial category were allowed for the first time to check multiple categories; a “multiracial” category was never added, however.14
The ability to “mark one or more”—people were allowed to mark up to fifteen boxes—radically changed the way race was perceived in the United States. People’s responses could now reflect their diverse racial backgrounds and perceptions of race itself. Although this change was groundbreaking and provoked a great deal of debate about how individuals should fill out the form, only 2.4 percent, or 6.8 million respondents, identified themselves on the 2000 census as having more than one race.
Of the census respondents who selected more than one racial category, 93.29 percent checked only two boxes; fewer than half a million respondents checked more than three. This low percentage surprised many researchers and journalists who believed that the concept of race, as a single, innate, and unchanging category, had changed. According to Joel Perlmann and Mary C. Waters, “by allowing individuals to report identification with more than one race, the census challenges long-held fictions and strongly defended beliefs about the very nature and definition of race in our society.”15
During the 2000 enumeration, there was a strong campaign to have people check only one box even if they understood that they had a mixed racial heritage. Questions about how multiracials were going to be counted, either in aggregate or in racial combinations, had not yet been determined, though the answers matter for civil rights and voting rights, as well as social and educational programs.16 Although the census and other surveys that classify individuals racially now seek to identify those who are multiracial as such, many mixed-race individuals do not mark more than one box. For example, on the 2010 U.S. Census, the popular press reported, President Obama marked only one box: “Black, African Am., or Negro.” Many factors can influence how multiracial individuals choose to identify, including family structure, socialization, cultural or personal knowledge about one’s heritage, gender, social networks, and physical appearance.17 Some individuals who understand themselves privately as mixed-race also recognize that their race matters publicly, politically, organizationally, and in terms of the distribution of social resources. According to G. Reginald Daniel and Josef Manuel Castañeda-Liles:
The most significant opposition [to checking more than one box] came from various African American leaders and organizations. Acknowledging that most, if not all, African Americans have some European and, in many cases, Native American ancestry, they feared many individuals would designate themselves as “multiracial” in order to escape the continuing negative social stigma associated with blackness. This, in turn, would reduce the number of individuals who would be counted as black, which would affect the ability to track historical and contemporary patterns of discrimination and enforce civil rights initiatives. Similar concerns were expressed from other communities of color.18
The 2010 U.S. Census saw the number of people who marked two or more races rise to approximately 9 million, or 2.9 percent of the population. This was a 32 percent increase from 2000. Every state except New York showed an increase in its multiracial population since 2000, and some states saw a significant rise, such as North Carolina (100%), South Carolina (100%), Delaware (83%), Georgia (81.7%), and West Virginia (71.9%). Yet the percentage of people who marked more than one box was still small; 97 percent of all respondents (299.7 million) still marked only one race. In other words, approximately one in forty U.S. residents identified as multiracial in 2010. Some estimate, however, that by 2050 the ratio could be one in five, or about 20 percent of the U.S. population.19 Whatever is to come by the middle of the twenty-first century, the data from the 2000 and 2010 censuses show that racial identity is fluid, contextual, and both a private and a public phenomenon.
Stories of Being Multiracial
The students who contributed to this volume negotiate their race in various situations; they often present one identity one day and another the next. The notion of checking one or more boxes fails to capture the realities experienced by mixed-race individuals. Surveys provide a demographic portrait, but they do not portray life experiences. These essays, written in the voices of multiracial students, explore the concerns these young people confront with their families and friends in their everyday lives, and as they enter adulthood.
Each chapter in this book reveals a story of how race is lived within the context of being multiracial. Unlike individuals who understand themselves as having one racial identity, these students have lived the complexity of their identity from a very young age. They understand how their mixed racial identity impacts their lives, how the race of their parents and other family members affects their childhood development, and how others’ understanding of them shapes their relationships. For these young adults, negotiating their identity is an everyday occurrence, one that often causes stress, and at times one that offers them the privilege of seeing their environment from a different perspective.
The essays in this collection are organized according to three main themes. The first section—“Who Am I?”—focuses on the question of identity and self-exploration. Students write about their struggle to fit in at various points in their lives and to discover where they belong. They are reminded that they are different by the questions strangers ask about their race, or when trying to decide how to self-identify. The second section—“In-Betweenness”—explores the students’ concerns about feeling caught in the middle between their parents’ two worlds, about being part of each but belonging fully to neither. The third section—“A Different Perspective”—highlights how their multiracialism gives these students a unique lens through which to view their environment. This different perspective often helps them navigate their world. Their multiracial identity underscores the multiple identities these students inhabit: they are also gay, immigrants, undocumented, poor, or wealthy; their multiracial identity is but one of many they must manage as they pass through late adolescence.
Who Am I?
The authors of the stories in this section—Ana Sofia De Brito, Chris Collado, Yuki Kondo-Shah, and Allison Bates—share their insights regarding their difference through the questions others ask about their identity. Because their physical appearance does not place them clearly in a known racial category, these students are regularly asked, “What are you?” Moreover, how they understand themselves is not always how others view them. This dissonance between their self-identification and others’ understanding of who they are grows tiresome for them.
In her essay, “Good Hair,” Ana Sofia Brito struggles with her racial identification. Questions of racial identity are tied to the history and location of her Cape Verdean family. Her tan skin, curly (but not kinky) hair, and thin nose cause her to be viewed as black, white, or even Latina in the United States. Among Cape Verdeans, Ana Sofia doesn’t have to explain who she is, but in the United States, her identity causes confusion: “In America, I often feel I’m forced to choose whether I’m black or white or “other.” I prefer to choose “other” because I’m neither black nor white, but being in between creates problems for others trying to classify me. So here in the United States I identify as black, which is the most comfortable category to fit myself into, but I constantly feel like the immigrant stepchild to black American culture.” But Ana Sofia’s racial identification as black puzzles her family, who insist that she is white, since the history of her family and their native country privileges whiteness. Concepts of melhorar a raça, bettering the race by marrying a white or lighter-skinned individual, is a long-established practice in many parts of the world, in particular those that are former Portuguese and Spanish colonies. Ana Sofia’s family does not understand why she would not identify as white, given that she doesn’t necessarily look black, especially by Cape Verdean standards.
Still, in the United States—where, according to the “one-drop rule,” having any African ancestry makes one black—Ana Sofia can be identified as black and chooses to do so. Interestingly, in order to be accepted as black, she adopts accents and mannerisms in order to appear “more black.” For Ana Sofia, like many multiracial individuals, the understanding that race is a social construct is a lived experience. Students learn early on that if you are going to adopt a racial identity that is not so apparent to others, then you must also adopt racial artifacts to “perform” that racial identity. Thus, by wearing her hair curly rather than straightened, allowing herself to get tanned to appear darker-skinned, and taking classes in the African American studies department, Ana Sofia appears “more black,” more authentic. Yet she still often feels lost: “After three years at college, I still feel there is a divide between dark-skinned and light-skinned blacks, and between African Americans and Africans. Interestingly, I am African and I identify mostly with African American culture, yet I feel as if I’m not being taken seriously at black group events because of my light skin.” Consequently, the question “Who am I?” is not settled for Ana Sofia, and she hopes for a future when she will not have to choose.
In “So, What Are You?” Chris Collado, whose father is Afro-Cuban and whose mother is white, relates his reaction to the types of questions he often receives about his ancestry:
“Are you black?” “I thought you were Mexican because you speak Spanish, right?” “So, what are you?” These are the types of questions I have answered my entire life. I used to get annoyed when people would ask me “What are you?” in a tone similar to one you might use to ask about a homemade Halloween costume. I have been mistaken for being black, Mexican, Italian, and, on one occasion, Greek. I even had an older woman once ask me, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Pete Sampras?” . . . It can be so frustrating to have the very part of you that makes you unique ignored. For the longest time I couldn’t understand why people saw me as anything but biracial or, the more socially recognized term, “mixed.”
His physical features—light brown complexion, brown eyes, and thick curly hair—make Chris a curiosity. His ability to speak Spanish throws an additional curveball at those who try to categorize him; he doesn’t fit clearly into a stereotypical black or Latino box. Chris understands himself as mixed-race and wonders why others cannot see him the same way.
This kind of identity dissonance is amplified in these students’ relationships with their parents. Because children of mixed racial heritage do not always look like their parents, the two generations can have quite different experiences. As children enter adolescence, they begin to understand that their racial identity might be viewed differently in their environment than it is in their parents’, and that their experiences are often dissimilar. In her 1996 article “Brown-Skinned White Girls,” France Winddance Twine examines the relationships between multiracial female college students who have African ancestry and their nonblack mothers. As these young women entered university, some found that their mothers were not always able to participate in a knowledgeable way in discussions about racial identity and racism.20
For Yuki Kondo-Shah, who is Japanese and Bangladeshi, understanding who she is includes not only racial differences but also cultural differences. She was raised in Japan until age seven, when her family moved to the United States. Though an American citizen, she understands herself as being Japanese, but she doesn’t “look” Japanese. During her summer visits to Japan, Yuki learns quickly that her assimilation back into Japanese culture will not be so simple: “As time went on, I found that I didn’t fit into Japanese society anymore because I was ‘too American,’ but I didn’t fit into American culture either because I was ‘too foreign.’ I had become someone without a home, and that was terribly isolating. The Japanese label I longed to stick on my forehead didn’t match those being placed on me without my consent.” Being neither Japanese nor American gives her a sense of not belonging, of being an outsider to both groups. Not feeling authentic enough, Yuki chooses not to join Asian student organizations while at college. She worries about being seen as “a fake or a poser.” This feeling of being thought inauthentic and facing suspicion and even antagonism has been well documented.21 After college, Yuki faces her fears by studying the history of various Asian ethnic groups in order to feel comfortable with her place in the world. Now in graduate school, she understands herself in a more “sophisticated” way, knowing that who she is includes her many experiences and cultures.
In her essay, “A Sort of Hybrid,” Allison Bates questions whether her white mother struggles with the same issues that she does:
I often wonder if my mom ever grappled with how to check the “race box” when it came to the forms and documents she surely had to fill out for all of her kids. Which one did she choose: white, black, or other? Or did she write in something else? I don’t really know the answer to these questions because I’ve never asked, which reveals a large gap in my understanding of how my mother sees herself in her own family. I have often felt foreign and out of place when I am with her side of the family, which leads me to wonder if my mother feels uncomfortable about being the only white person in our immediate and extended family. Even though I am technically half white, I don’t feel it; I don’t even know if I’m supposed to. I have no concept of what it must be like never really to have to be aware of your difference. I think that is because, as a society, we see whiteness as racelessness.
Allison, like other students in this book, understands that her parents occupy a different racial space than she does, which causes a disconnection between them. “Who am I?” becomes a difficult question to answer, because children often use their parents as reference points; children view themselves as a reflection of their parents and vice versa, but when children and parents identify with different racial categories, the question “Who am I?” becomes more complicated. Consequently, the racial socialization of multiracial children becomes challenging for parents, as Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Tracey Laszloffy, and Julia Noveske explain:
In same-raced families, the focus of racial identity development is to try to encourage children to have a positive perspective on their blackness in spite of the pervasive societal devaluation of blackness. In short, there is an assumption that the child is black, and parents work to build a positive black identity. However, in black/white interracial families, the child can identify as black, white, biracial, or as no race. This sets up a situation in which parents need to be in alignment with consistent messages about his or her racial group membership.22
This “alignment” is not always easy to achieve, especially when children are often asked “What are you?” or when parents are asked “Did you adopt your child?” For the authors of these stories, the inconsistent messages about their identity do cause frustration, and at times even detachment from their families. Moreover, because these students have not quite reached adulthood, their understanding of themselves is still developing.
In-Betweenness
All the students in this book learned early on that they are part of two or more cultures. Whether it is because of the way they look or because of their different family heritages, they understand that they inhabit a separate space that is often “in between.” The students in this section—Shannon Joyce Prince, Thomas Lane, Ki Mae Ponniah Heussner, and Samiir Bolsten—articulate their sense of being in the middle.
In Raising Biracial Children, Rockquemore and Laszloffy examine how mixed-race people understand their racial identity and challenge the assumption that there is only one appropriate way to identify one’s race. They argue that one of the greatest challenges mixed-race people confront arises when the identity they choose is rejected by others in their community.23 The students who tell their stories in this book understand firsthand this struggle with being in between and part of many heritages. Like a Venn diagram, they are the intersections of the various circles, an element that is made from many sets. Shannon Joyce Prince, in her essay “Seeking to Be Whole,” describes her multiple identities:
Whenever I’ve been called on to define my heritage, I’ve never been perplexed about how to answer. My response has not changed since I was first able to speak, just as my ethnic identity has never shifted. When asked what I am, I smile and say, “I am African American, Cherokee (Aniyunwiya) Native American, Chinese (Cantonese) American, and English American.” I excise nothing of myself. I claim the slave who was a mathematical genius; the storyteller, the quilt maker, and the wise healer; the bilingual railroad laborer and the farmer—regardless of the amount of melanin in any of their skins.
Her words are strong and clear and reflect the identity that she chose for herself early in life, which she defends firmly. Like Rockquemore and Laszloffy, Prince understands identity as a social process. She does not try to “fit” into a single correct identity but proudly shares her understanding that she is between and part of all her many heritages.
That liminal space, however, is adaptable and contextual, as Thomas Lane describes in his essay, “The Development of a Happa.” He writes: “I am a happa, a Hawaiian word for someone who is half Asian. I can be white, I can be Asian, or I can be somewhere in between, depending on what suits me at the time. …I am and always have been living in two separate worlds. I was the white boy eating fermented soybeans, the Asian boy who could speak English, and the jock who played card games.” He understands that he can be chameleon-like and change with the situation. Although he might sometimes be forced to “pick one side,” he can transform himself later. His ability to move between two cultures makes him feel as though he does not fit in, but with time he hopes to close the gap between his Japanese and American sides and “feel equally comfortable with both cultures and be able to switch between them naturally.”
Ki Mae Ponniah Heussner, in “A Little Plot of No-Man’s-Land,” also wrestles with belonging to the two different cultures of her parents. She writes:
When I feel inextricably caught between their two worlds—rejected by both, or too quickly accepted by one—I wish to be solely of one heritage. I do not think people often realize how much of a luxury it can be to have one group to fall back on, one to blame, or one to identify with and one to reject. Perhaps it’s easier to wear your racial consciousness on your sleeve when you know that you can always hide behind the garb of an entire race if things get too bad, or if the opposition comes on a little bit too strong for you alone. Most will never know how much more difficult it is to speak out when you feel as though you have to pick a side, even though neither side is really your own.
Belonging to neither and not having one reference group to call upon adds stress to Ki Mae’s everyday interactions. In their seminal book Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America, Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David L. Brunsma use the category “border identity” to describe biracial individuals who consider themselves to be not a part of either parent’s racial categories but a “unique hybrid category of self-reference.”24 Moreover, these individuals have two kinds of border identities: those that are validated by others and those that are not. Ki Mae describes having just such a border identity; at times she is validated and at other times she is not. Like other students in our book, Ki Mae feels she is in between.
Sometimes this “in-betweenness” leads our authors to feel different from other people. In his essay, “Finding Blackness,” Samiir Bolsten relates how he has handled difficult circumstances:
I was used to dealing with awkward and offensive situations related to race, having grown up with my dark complexion in predominantly white Denmark. Later on, as my family moved to more diverse environments, perceptions of me changed—both in my own eyes and in the eyes of others. It seemed that because of my unusual family situation and racial makeup, I was always perceived as different from the norm, no matter where we relocated. Although this led to issues of low self-worth and some turbulent times mentally, I eventually became comfortable with always being different. Much of this comfort came from realizing that norms were by no means rules, and that all people had some way in which they were different.
Samiir’s comfort with “being different” makes him wiser and better able to comprehend how he is being judged. Being multiracial offers all these students a different perspective from which to understand their experiences.
A Different Perspective
In their essays in this section, the students discuss how being multiracial affords them a different perspective on a given situation from that of their friends or family members who are monoracial. Being different or in between in fact makes them aware of their unique vantage point. Because questions about their race or background come up often, they have thought about these issues in ways that their friends perhaps have not. They strive to become their own individuals. They are young people who are developing an understanding of who they are, including their sexual orientation, political affiliation, and future profession. In “Chow Mein Kampf,” Taica Hsu, who is Asian, white, and gay, explains his concern about his many identities:
I still struggle with the perception of my race in the gay male community and my own attraction to full-Asian gay men. . . . As a result, I have become hypersensitive to the reasons why gay men are or are not attracted to me: Do they like me because I am exotic (half Asian)? Do they not like me because I look too Asian? How do I cover my more effeminate (read: Asian) characteristics and features? . . . I hope to overcome these hurdles in time and fully accept my mixed racial background. Then, and only then, will my gay identity and racial identity truly exist in harmony.
Hsu is trying to synthesize his many sides, but his multiracialism might make that task more complicated. The intersection of his multiracial identity and his sexual orientation affects how he sees himself and possibly how others view him as well.
Anise Vance, in “A Work in Progress,” describes how his Iranian–African American ancestry allows him to move in different spaces—Kenya, Egypt, and the United States. Although the transitions are not always easy, Anise’s unique position as multiracial and multicultural gives him insights into his own identity and that of others. Anise writes: “I was eager to explore the identity choices I found laid before me. Scholars and analysts often talk of ‘negotiating’ or ‘navigating’ identity. Clothing, speech patterns, hairstyles, rebelliousness, athleticism, flirtatiousness—all are used to project identity. Everyone navigates identity, but when race is introduced into the mix, the stakes are raised. At an early age I learned how to twist my self-presentation to provoke specific responses from those around me.” Anise’s cultural code-switching—that is, his ability to navigate in different surroundings—enables him to represent himself in a way that he controls and can benefit from.
Dean O’Brien, in “We Aren’t That Different,” eloquently describes the benefits of being multiracial: “I know that my mixed racial heritage has colored my experiences in many ways, but I think it does so in a way that isn’t exclusive to race. Because I have grown up with two different cultures, the idea that there are multiple valid perspectives on life has always been salient. So to me at least, my story isn’t about race but about seeing things from different perspectives and, I’d like to think, being a better person because of it.” The views that Taica, Anise, Dean, and many other students in this book espouse highlight a distinct advantage that multiracial individuals may have. George Yancey and Richard Lewis Jr. point out that individuals of multiracial heritage are able to function comfortably in various racial communities, which helps them succeed in a multicultural society.25
Finally, for Lola Shannon, whose father is black and whose mother is white, her mixed-race identity is interconnected with her relationship to two cultures—those of Jamaica and Canada. Although Lola lives in Canada with her white mother, where she suffers among her peers under the oppression of difference, she is drawn to her faraway heritage and father in Jamaica. Frustrated that she cannot look like or fit in with her prejudiced schoolmates, Lola believes that her racial identity and beauty are, to a large extent, defined by her connection to Jamaica. She craves sexual affection to fill the emotional void left by her father, which ultimately backfires when she is raped. Her idyllic vision of Jamaica is eventually shattered when, following the death of her father and her introduction to feminism, her eyes open to the island’s tradition of sexism and violence. She concludes her essay by expressing her understanding of the intersection of her backgrounds: “By looking at my life as a product of two ethnicities, I have learned about what ethnicity means to many people, and I have learned what it means to me. I know racism; I know how many mixed people choose to be black because it’s easier. I know white people who prefer it that way too. I am reluctant to resign myself to one side or the other, which shows up in many aspects of myself. I am neither black nor white, but I can be both. The strongest ethnic ties I feel are to others with the same heritage.”
A New Mestizaje?
The term mestizaje, a mixture of races, has been used in Latin America to refer to the fusion of races on that continent which has produced a new people who are a mix of European, indigenous, African, and more. Like this new people, multiracials must fuse a new identity. Like the mestizaje celebrated by the Mexican philosopher José Vasconselos in his famous work La Raza Cosmica (The Cosmic Race), multiracials are often viewed as a metaphor for a new world.26 If a multiracial identity is a new form of mestizaje, then the anthropologist Peter Wade describes it most aptly: “I have proposed a view of mestizaje as multiple and with many meanings, among them the image of a mosaic, made up of different elements and processes, which can be manifest within the body and the family, as well as the nation. Seen in this way, mestizaje has spaces for many different possible elements, including black and indigenous ones, which are more than merely possible candidates for future mixture; it also implies processes of inclusion that go beyond mere rhetorical discourse.”27
The students who have contributed to this book push the boundaries within their communities and thus open up spaces that offer new possibilities. We hope this collection of narratives moves beyond a narrow black/white binary of multiracial identity and instead elucidates the wide variety of multiracial experiences that includes the influences of culture, class, gender, space, sexual orientation, nations, and regions. A multiracial identity has taken hold, and forecasters expect that it will be an ongoing trend. These stories paint a portrait of the concerns and experiences inherent in this new identity. As they look toward the future, these students, too, wonder what this identity will bring. Will we continue to allow people to choose more than one category, or will we again force individuals into a singular racial identity? Chris Collado in “So, What Are You?” reflects on what his future children will face: “Having gone through the process myself, I know how difficult it can be at times to be comfortable in your own skin. My hope for them would be that they would be proud of their mixed racial heritage and choose not to pass for whatever race they most resemble physically. Ultimately it will be their journey, but I will give my insights if they ask. My broader hope for our society is that with the population of multiracial children growing, we will be able to accept people as belonging in more than one category.” By sharing the stories of students who have written and reflected so thoughtfully about what their mixed identity means for their lives, we hope this book will help others on their journey.
Notes
1. Audrey Smedley, Race in North America: Origins and Evolution of a Worldview (Boulder: Westview Press, 2007), 332.
2. African American Lives, directed by Leslie Asako Gladsjo, Grahm Judd, Jesse Sweet, and Jack Youngelson, Thirteen WNET (New York: Kunhardt Productions, 2006).
3. Hypodescent refers to the automatic assigning of the children of people from mixed racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds to the minority group.
4. Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
5. Kim M. Williams, Mark One or More: Civil Rights in Multiracial America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008).
6. Karen Downing, “Accessing the Literature,” in Multiracial America: A Resource Guide on the History and Literature of Interracial Issues, ed. Karen Downing, Darlene Nichols, and Kelly Webster (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2005), 5–12.
7. David Parker and Miri Song, eds., Rethinking “Mixed Race” (Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2001).
8. Maria P. P. Root, The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1996), xi.
9. Smedley, Race in North America, 6.
10. Tim Wise, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, 2005), ix.
11. Duncan Lindsey, Child Poverty and Inequality: Securing a Better Future for America’s Children (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
12. Charles A. Gallagher, “Color-Blind Privilege: The Social and Political Functions of Erasing the Color Line in Post-Race America,” RGC Journal Special Edition on Privilege 10, no. 4 (2003): 575–88.
13. Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean, “Reinventing the Color Line: Immigration and America’s New Racial/Ethnic Divide,” Social Forces 86, no. 2 (2007): 579.
14. Williams, Mark One or More.
15. Joel Perlmann and Mary C. Waters, The New Race Question: How the Census Counts Multiracial Individuals (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005), 1.
16. Ibid., 2.
17. Kristen A. Renn, Mixed Race Students in College: The Ecology of Race, Identity, and Community on Campus (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004); Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David L. Brunsma, Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2002).
18. G. Reginald Daniel and Josef Manuel Casteneda-Liles, “Race, Multiraciality, and the Neoconservative Agenda,” in Mixed Messages: Multiracial Identities in the “Color-Blind” Era, ed. D. L. Brunsma (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), 129–30.
19. Lee and Bean, “Reinventing the Color Line.”
20. France Winddance Twine, “Brown-Skinned White Girls: Class, Culture, and the Construction of White Identity in Suburban Communities,” Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 3, no. 2 (1996): 205–24.
21. C. N. Le, “Multiracial Asian Americans: Social Class, Demographic, and Cultural Characteristics,” in Multiracial Americans and Social Class: The Influence of Social Class on Racial Identity, ed. K. O. Korgen (New York: Routledge, 2010), 115–20; Yu Xie and Kimberly Goyette, “The Racial Identification of Biracial Children with One Asian Parent: Evidence from the 1990 Census,” Social Forces 76 (2997): 547–70.
22. Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Tracey Lazloffy, and Julia Noveske, “It All Starts at Home: Racial Socialization in Multiracial Families,” in Brunsma, Mixed Messages, 213.
23 Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey Lazloffy, Raising Biracial Children (New York: Altamira Press, 2005).
24. Rockquemore and Brunsma, Beyond Black, 42.
25. George Yancey and Richard Lewis Jr., Interracial Families: Current Concepts and Controversies (New York: Routledge, 2009).
26. Jose Vasconselos, La Raza Cosmica/The Cosmic Race (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997). This book, first published in 1925, is about the new race of people who are an “integral race, made up of the genius and the blood of all peoples and, for that reason, more capable of true brotherhood and of a truly universal vision” (18).
27. Peter Wade, “Rethinking Mestizaje: Ideology and Lived Experience,” Journal of Latin American Studies 37 (2005): 254.