Mixed Race Studies

Differences give mixed-heritage students a common bond

The Los Angeles Times
2013-05-27

Larry Gordon

Increasing numbers of college campus clubs give voice to those who don’t fit into the traditional perceptions of race.

No matter what their ancestry or their skin color, many members of UCLA’s Mixed Student Union say they have repeatedly been asked the same question by classmates and strangers curious about an ambiguous racial appearance: “What are you?”
And that shared experience, they say, helps to bond the otherwise extremely diverse group, which is devoted to the rising numbers of students who are biracial and from mixed ethnic heritages.

Jenifer Logia, 20, a UCLA sophomore who is one of the Mixed Student Union’s directors, said much of campus life is defined by distinct ethnic, religious or social groupings. But none comfortably fits someone like her — from a family that blends Nicaraguan, Filipino and Guamanian heritages…

Read the entire article here.

“My dad is samurai”: Positioning of race and ethnicity surrounding a transnational Colombian Japanese high school student

Linguistics and Education
Available Online: 2013-05-22
DOI: 10.1016/j.linged.2013.03.002

Satoko Shao-Kobayashi
Chiba University, Japan

Highlights

• Racial hierarchies in different countries impact transnational students’ positioning in local contexts.
• Participants Other coethnics by using various labels to destigmatize their own minority positions.
• Racial mixedness is variously interpreted and represented in the identity negotiation.
• Social stratification of dominance and subordination is reenacted through Othering of coethnics.

From sociocultural, interactional and critical perspectives, this study investigates the practices and ideologies of racial and ethnic identities and relationships surrounding Jun, a Colombian Japanese high school student, within a transnational Japanese student community at Pearl High School (pseudonym) in California. In particular, the analysis focuses on how Jun’s racial and ethnic positioning is interpreted and represented by others and himself through examining their labeling and categorization practices. I utilized the analysis of two-year ethnography, in-depth discourse analysis of narratives and conversations and mental map analysis. The study shows how Jun and other participants interactionally negotiated their racial and ethnic identities and relationships by strategically positioning each other in an attempt to survive in the environment where they were marginalized. The study illuminates the dynamics and politics of inter-/intraracial and ethnic relations and identities as well as the circulation of a persisting Whiteness ideology in a global context.

Read or purchase the article here.

Multiracial Identity Development and the Impact of Race-Oriented Student Services

Kansas State University
2013
46 pages

Margaret Roque

A REPORT submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF SCIENCE Department of Special Education, Counseling, and Student Affairs College of Education

Multiracial identity development has been a topic of study that has slowly begun to grow interest in academia. While it is important to acknowledge the process of multiracial identity development in and of itself, it is also essential to understand how this development is influenced by different ecological factors in higher education, such as when and where a multiracial student may encounter instances of marginalization, as well as instances of mattering. One of the more prominent facets of this ecology is race-oriented student services, which can provide either a space in which multiracial students feel marginalized, or one in which they feel that they matter. This report will examine multiracial identity development and why it is needed in order to better understand multiracial students’ needs, as well as how race-oriented student services affect development and expression of their identity.

Table of Contents

• List of Tables
• Chapter 1 – Introduction
  • Concepts and Key Terms
  • Race as a Social Construct
  • Mattering and Marginalization
  • Summary
• Chapter 2 – Review of the Literature
  • Introduction
  • Monoracial Identity Development
    • Cross & Fhagen-Smith’s Life Span Model of Black Identity Development
  • Multiracial Identity Development
    • Poston’s Biracial Identity Development Model
    • Root’s Five Types of Identity
    • Renn’s Identity Patterns
    • Multiracial Identity Denial
      • External Identity Denial
      • Internal Identity Denial
    • The Effects of Marginalization
  • Race-Oriented Student Services
  • The Influence of Campus Ecology on Multiracial Identity
  • Monoracial Race-Oriented Student Services
    • External Denial
    • Marginalization
  • Multiracial Race-Oriented Student Services
    • Providing a Sense of Mattering
    • Making Meaning of Marginalizing Experiences
  • Summary
• Chapter 3 – Analysis through Personal Reflection
  • Personal Narrative
• Chapter 4 – Implications for Student Affairs Practitioners and Future Research
  • Implications for Student Affairs Practitioners
  • Need for Future Research
  • Conclusion
• References

Read the entire report here.

Obama Urges Morehouse Graduates to ‘Keep Setting an Example’

The New York Times
2013-05-19

Mark Landler

ATLANTA — President Obama came to Morehouse College, the alma mater of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on Sunday to tell graduates, 50 years after Dr. King’s landmark “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, that “laws and hearts and minds have been changed to the point where someone who looks just like you can somehow come to serve as president of these United States.” [Read the transcript here.]

The president tied Dr. King’s journey to his own, speaking in forthright and strikingly personal terms about his struggles as a young man with an absent father, a “heroic single mom,” and the psychological burdens of being black in America.

He also issued a challenge to the graduating class, imploring the young men of Morehouse, the nation’s only historically black, all-male college, to be responsible family men, to set an example, and to extend a hand to those less privileged than them.

While Mr. Obama has struck these themes before, he has rarely done so in such unsparing terms. After a week in which his presidency seemed adrift on a sea of controversies, the speech served as both a reminder of his historic role and an emphatic change of subject.

“We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices,” Mr. Obama said. “And I have to say, growing up I made quite a few myself. Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down.”…

Read the entire article here.

Zumbi dos Palmares College encourages Afro-Brazilians to study

Infosurhoy.com
2012-04-27

InfoSurHoy.com is a one-stop source of news and information about, and for, Latin America and the Caribbean. It is sponsored by the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM).

Thiago Borges

Opened in 2004 in São Paulo, the institution reserves 50% of its enrollment for people of African descent, who account for only 13% of college students in Brazil.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil – As the country’s classrooms become gradually more diverse, the debate over racial quotas at public universities has once again reached the Brazilian Supreme Court.

The 10 judges representing the country’s highest court voted unanimously on April 26 that affirmative action based on race is legal.

Though quotas remain a controversial issue in Brazil, the path to a college education is becoming increasingly accessible for Brazilians of African descent.

In 2000, only 2% of university students in Brazil were black, according to the NGO African Brazilian Society for Social Cultural Development (Afrobras), which is working to increase the inclusion of Afro-Brazilians in higher education.

That rate has risen to 13%, according to the Ministry of Education (MEC).

The federal government’s University for All Program (ProUni) provides scholarships in private universities to students with disabilities, as well as indigenous, mixed-race and black students. The number of scholarships awarded is based on percentages of each group within the overall population, using figures from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

“The situation is somewhat different because of ProUni, which made it possible for a lot of people from low-income communities to study at private universities (by granting them scholarships),” says Francisca Rodrigues, the director of communication for the Afrobras. “But the proportion is still very low when you take into account the fact that 51% of the population is black or mixed-race.”

Of the 919,551 scholarships awarded throughout Brazil by ProUni from 2005 to 2011, 35.34% went to students who declared themselves to be mixed race and 12.51% went to students who declared themselves to be black…

Read the entire article here.

Multiracial students discover identities in college

USA Today
2013-04-04

Taylor Lewis, USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent

College offers multiracial students the chance to have open conversations about race, allowing them to embark on a quest that is crucial in developing their identities.

When Sam Ho receives a form where he must select his race, he has a decision to make: Will he choose “white,” or will he check “Asian”? The trick, he has found, is to alternate.

Raised by a Caucasian mother and a first-generation Chinese immigrant father, Ho, a junior at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, grew up in a multiracial household. Although he lived in predominately white Topeka, Kan., he was frequently exposed to his Chinese heritage. But because of his physical appearance, Ho finds himself identifying more strongly as a white man.

“My outward features aren’t particularly Asian, and living in a majority white society, that’s culturally just what has been around me for the most part,” Ho says. “I think most people assume I’m 100% Caucasian, so I think the treatment I get from others is with that assumption.”…

…”Your identity is not only impacted by how your racial group might perceive you, but how the dominant culture perceives you as a member of a different racial group,” says Belinda Biscoe, associate vice president for University Outreach at the University of Oklahoma in Norman and an coordinator of The National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE). “Regardless of how we may see ourselves, part of our identity is also inextricably woven with how others see us.”…

…Take the “one drop” rule, for example, which suggests that if you have “one drop” of African-American blood, you must identify as black. So for multiracial students who grew up in two or more cultural worlds, they had to learn to define themselves in a society that was frequently asking “What are you?”.

“A lot of the biracial students would hear, ‘I’m not black enough to be black, and I’m also not white enough to be white, so where does that leave me?'” says Willie L. Banks Jr., associate dean of students at Cleveland State University in Cleveland and author of the study “Biracial Student Voices: Experiences at Predominantly White Institutions.” “So that’s always the conundrum. That’s the question that’s always addressed to these students: Where do you fit in?”…

Read the entire article here.

Hamilton school board asks aboriginal families to “self identify”

CBC News
Hamilton
2013-04-19

Taylor Ablett

The Hamilton Wentworth District School Board is asking aboriginal families to “self identify” as First Nations, Métis, or Inuit.

“We are encouraging families to self-identify because it will enable us to determine programming and supports to increase First Nation, Métis and Inuit student success and achievement,” said Sharon Stephanian, Superintendent of Leadership & Learning in a press release. The board will keep the information collected confidential.

“The information will only be used for the purpose of developing relevant support programs, services and resources”.

The board has sent out notices to parents and caregivers of children under the age of 18 and directly to students over 18…

Read the entire article here.

Generation Mixed and the One Love Club

Gino Michael Pellegrini: Education, Amalgamation, Race, Class & Solidarity
2012-06-03

Gino Pellegrini, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English
Pierce College, Woodland Hills, California

The popular media and specifically the Race Remixed series in the New York Times propagate the myth of multiracialism. According to this social myth, the increasing number of interracial families and multiracial children in America is transforming race and paving the way for a post-racial future. This myth assumes the existence of a growing mass of mixed youth who both identify with their multiracial heritage and who have a clear conception of its significance and transformative potential. At best, writers and audiences (popular and academic) who believe in this myth are engaged in wishful thinking. From my experience and observation, they confuse a few individuals for the many.

For instance, I remember that Timesia is colorful. She wears yellow, purple, red, and taupe colored tops with brown, indigo and maroon pants. She is awkward and sweet, sixteen or seventeen. She’s from the neighborhood and probably poor. She is brown, black, copper, beige, and she wants to start a club for mixed kids like her.

Or at least this is what she initially tells me when she asks me to be the faculty sponsor for her club. The year is 2006, and I am working as an English teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Van Nuys High School. I recall that it’s my future wife, her counselor, who suggests to her that I might be the right teacher to sponsor her club.

I am more than happy to sponsor her club, but there’s a hitch. She has to complete an application: Describe the club. Explain its purpose. Give it a name…

Read the entire essay here.

A Mixed Bag: Examining the College Experience of Multi-Racial Students

INSIGHT Into Diversity
April/May 2012 (2012-03-29)

Andrea Williams, Contributing Writer

To most American youth, college is the requisite rite of passage into adulthood, an experience marked as much by self-exploration and discovery as biology lectures and late night cram sessions.
 
From managing the excitement of living away from home for the first time, to coping with the stresses of time management, college can be simultaneously exhilarating and intimidating. And for biracial students who don’t fit neatly into the predetermined ethnic categories of many colleges and universities, the journey can be especially challenging.

For Theresa Lopez, the daughter of a white mother and a Latino father, the issues started with her application to the University of Illinois. “I was not given the option to be both white and Hispanic because the boxes were marked ‘White (Non-Hispanic)’ and ‘Hispanic (Non-White),’ making me feel as though whoever created the application was under the impression that white people and Hispanics could not have babies together,” says Lopez. “I would prefer, however, to call myself both white and Hispanic without denying either ancestry.”

The problems didn’t stop there for the college senior. In a society where people are confident in their own assumptions, even going to dinner becomes a lesson in cultural sensitivity. “When we go to eat at the local Mexican restaurant here in town, my friend, who is Columbian but does not speak Spanish, is always waited on in Spanish while I am always greeted in English because of the way I look,” says Lopez, whose blonde hair and blue eyes belie her Hispanic roots. “It makes me upset sometimes because even though I continue to speak Spanish to them, they seem to think I’m just some white girl who is trying to speak their language and be a part of their people. But I’m their people, too.”…

…Luckily for Matt Kelley, he discovered during the fall semester of his freshman year at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University that the school sponsored a mixed heritage student organization. “It was the first time I was made aware of ‘people like me’ who shared the experience of not fitting neatly into generally accepted racial boxes and boundaries,” he says. Kelley subsequently learned about similar clubs at other schools and in 1998 decided to launch a national magazine that would create a community among those organizations.

The publication – given the Yiddish name MAVIN, which means “one who understands” – was immediately well received, leading Kelley to form the nonprofit MAVIN Foundation in 2000 to further the work and reach of the magazine…

Read the entire article here.

Colleges or universities with monoracial cultural centers pose a challenge for biracial and multiracial students. While we know that challenge is an important feature of the student development process, we must still think deeply about the challenges we present through the messages sent by our programs and services. Is this level of challenge harmful or helpful? Are we asking students to choose which part of themselves they are going to identify with during their time at the college or university? Are we asking students to deny a part of themselves in order to identify with another part? Are we allowing biracial students to be their whole selves? How does this current design for the delivery of cultural programs and services help with the students’ identity development? This is a critical period in which students learn about themselves and their identity… What are biracial students learning through monoracial cultural centers, and what are we teaching students about our view of the world?

Larry D. Roper and Kimberly McAloney, “Is the Design for Our Cultural Programs Ethical?,” Journal of College & Character, Volume 11, Number 4, (2010): 3 pages, doi:10.2202/1940-1639.1743.