Mixed Race Studies

The New Multiracial Student: Where Do We Start?

The Vermont Connection
Volume 31 (2010)
pages 128-135

Jackie Hyman
University of Vermont

Jackie Hyman earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2008, and is anticipating her graduation from HESA in 2010. Having gone through periods of doubt and confusion throughout her graduate career in identifying as Biracial, she is now more confident than ever in her racial identity. Because of her experiences at University of Maryland and University of Vermont, she has committed herself to creating a Multiracial student group at UVM, as well as creating potential spaces for Multiracial students at her next institution, wherever that may be. Without a doubt, a passion has been ignited that will guide her research and involvement on college campuses for years to come.

In 2004, one in 40 persons in the United States self-identified as Multiracial. By the year 2050, it is projected that as many as one in five Americans will claim a Multiracial background, and in turn, a Multiracial or Biracial identity (Lee & Bean, 2004). With racial lines becoming more blurred, it is increasingly important for practitioners in higher education to address the issues surrounding identity development in Multiracial college students. By looking at a personal narrative of a Biracial woman, recent studies of Multiracial identity development, and the daily challenges that Multiracial and Biracial students face concerning their identity, student affairs practitioners can begin to create more inclusive spaces for this growing population of students.

Read the entire article here.

UCLA needs more than just one multiethnic club

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-10-11

Salim Zymet

Only one student group promoting multiracialism is not enough for a campus as diverse as ours

Where are you from?

Answering that question can be difficult for some multiracial students. Perhaps you’re inclined to believe that despite your ethnic background, you’re simply an American, born and raised. Maybe you introduce yourself with all of your ethnic background included. Uncertainty may still plague your ethnic and cultural identity.

Enter the Hapa Club at UCLA. Hapa is a Hawaiian word traditionally meaning someone of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander descent – but the club aims to be a place where all multiracial students can come together. As the only club which represents all mixed ethnic backgrounds, it has large shoes to fill, even more so when you take into account that there are over 70 clubs, fraternities and sororities on campus devoted to various Asian ethnicities. I don’t take issue with the existence of these clubs, merely the staggering volume of them…

…If we are to be part of a truly diverse campus, more multiracial groups are going to have to be part of the solution…

…As an American of Indian, Syrian and Polish descent, I hope that next year’s incoming mixed students can be greeted by a more diverse group of ethnic clubs. As it stands now, if they want to join a club they are forced to either “choose” one of their backgrounds to identify as or join Hapa Club…

Read the entire article here.

New multiracial category has effects nationally, few at Smith

The Smith College Sophian
Northampton, Massachusetts
2010-09-30

Gina Charusombat

While Smith students speculate about the lack of diversity across disciplines of study, colleges and universities across the U.S. continue to track diversity on their campuses. On Sept. 19, the Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that the U.S. Department of Education now requires colleges to report students who check the “two or more races” category. Previously, reports listed “race unknown” for students who marked more than one category.

Students who mark several race categories in addition to “two or more races” are only counted in the multiracial category. However, there is one exception: if a student marks “two or more races” and marks Hispanic/Latino/Latina, the student is counted within that one category.

“[The multiracial category] is set against the politics of how we define or don’t define race,” said Dean of Enrollment Audrey Smith…

Read the entire article here.

Panel discusses race, identity

Indiana Daily Student
2009-11-06

Therese Kennelly

Graduate student Fileve Palmer said though her parents always talked about their diverse backgrounds with her, she still struggled to find a way to relay her identity to others.

She struggled throughout her life to retain her African-American identity, while society viewed her as Puerto Rican.

“I have always been dealing with this,” Palmer said. “I always was familiar with what I was.“

She was part of a group of panelists who spoke Thursday on “Race and Ethnic Classification: Can Identity be Negotiated?” the final installment of the Choices of Color Series. The panel began with questions about how each of the participants acquired their own sense of identity while growing up in a multi-racial household.

Joseph Stahlman, interim director of the First Nations Educational and Cultural Center, served as moderator. He said his life has been a struggle preserving his Native  American heritage because people would often simply see him as white…

Read the entire article here.

Psychological Adjustment, Behavior and Health Problems in Multiracial Young Adults

University of Maryland, College Park
2006
236 pages

Warren L. Kelley

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2006

This study: (1) examined whether multiracial young adults reported lower levels of well-being relative to their White and monoracial minority peers and whether these outcomes were moderated by college attendance or racial identification; and (2) investigated factors, drawn from Root’s (2003) ecological model of multiracial identity development, during adolescence that could predict better well-being outcomes for young adults. Participants were 18-26 years old and drawn from the Wave III archival data of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Bearman, Jones, & Udry, 1997), a nationally representative school-based probability sample of participants initially surveyed in 1994-1995, with the Wave III follow-up conducted six years later in 2001-2002. Using a subset of 14,644 participants (615 multiracial, 4,686 monoracial minority, and 9,343 White) the multiracial young adults reported statistically higher levels of depression, drug abuse and physical limitations, and lower levels of self worth than their monoracial counterparts. Effect sizes (partial eta squared), however, were so small, varying between .001 and .003, that these statistical findings did not represent meaningful differences. Therefore, the current study found evidence of fewer difficulties of multiracial young adults relative to their monoracial peers, when compared to previous researchers who studied the same sample as adolescents and found consistent patterns of negative well-being (Milan & Keiley, 2000; Udry et al., 2003). In part this may be because previous researchers did not present effect sizes. Using a second subset of 8,978 participants (402 multiracial, 2,617 monoracial minority, and 5,959 White) a two phased, multi-group structural equation model examined the relationship between adolescence and young adulthood factors and found that multiracial participants had the highest path coefficients for depression and living with both biological parents in comparison to their monoracial counterparts. College attendance was found to not change the relationship of multiracial young adults on reported well-being outcomes in comparison to their monoracial counterparts. In the area of multiracial identification, there was no evidence that multiracial young adults who reported their racial category as multiracial versus monoracial exhibited higher well-being outcomes. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Chapter 1 – Introduction
• Chapter 2 – Review of the Literature
  • Defining What it Means to be Multiracial
  • Multiracial Identity Models
  • Factors Influencing Well Being and Identity Development
    • Family environment
    • School, Friends and Neighborhood Environments
    • Generational/Societal Acceptance
    • Multiracial Change From Adolescence to Young Adulthood
    • College Experience
  • Adjustment Outcomes in Multiracial Young People
    • Self Esteem
    • Psychological, Behavior and Health Outcomes Using Add Health Data
• Chapter 3 – Statement of Problem
• Chapter 4 – Method
  • Design Statement
  • Participants
  • Measures
  • Procedures
• Chapter 5 – Results
  • Preliminary Analyses
  • Hypotheses 1a and 1b
  • Hypothesis 2
  • Hypothesis 3
  • Additional Analyses
• Chapter 6 – Discussion
  • Summary
  • Multiracial Young Adults and Well-being
  • Adolescent Predictors of Well-being in Multiracial Young Adults
  • Multiracial Identity Development and Well-being
  • Limitations
  • Implications for Practice
  • Areas of Future Research
• Appendix A – Add Health Project Description
• Appendix B – Initial and Final Items
• Appendix C – Wave I and Wave III Item Comparison
• References

LIST OF TABLES

1. Comparison Psychological Adjustment, Behaviors and Health/Somatization Significant Findings
2. Demographic comparisons of retained and removed participants
3. SEM measurement model fit indices (whole sample Wave I-III subset 8,978)
4. Summary of Initial and Final Latent Constructs and Factors
5. M, SD and Intercorrelations among predictor and outcome variables using Wave I-III subset of 8,978 participants
6. M, SD and Intercorrelations among predictor and outcome variables using Wave I-III subset of 402 multiracial participants.
7. SEM Single and Multi-group Model Fit Indices
8. Multi-group Comparisons on Factor Loadings for the Measurement Model
9. Factor loadings and structural paths released
10. Racial Identification Change from Wave I to Wave III
11. Multiracial identification and Wave III dependent factors
12. College vs. non-college participants compared at Wave I factors
13. Wave I parental income and Wave III outcome factors – Pearson correlation and simple regression
14. Race specific categories using Wave III subset of 14,644
15. Means, Standard Deviations for Wave III outcomes for monoracial groups and selective multiracial groups
16. Significant ANOVA results shown across Wave III dependent factors for specific multiracial groups

LIST OF FIGURES

1. SEM Initial Measurement and Structural Model
2. SEM Final Measurement and Structural Model
3. SEM Final Multi-group Structural Model with Path Coefficients

Read the entire dissertation here.

Multiracial College Students: Understanding Interpersonal Self-Concept in the First Year

The University of Michigan
2010
151 pages

Mark Allen Kamimura

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Education) in The University of Michigan 2010

This purpose of this study was to explore the differences between mixed and single race students in the factors that contribute to an interpersonal self-concept. The data in this study are drawn from a national longitudinal survey, Your First College Year (YFCY), from 2004-2005 and include mixed race Black and Asian students and their single race Black and Asian peers to explore interpersonal self-concept.

The results suggest that mixed and single race Asian and Black students have different pre-college and first year experiences, but only mixed race Black students were found to develop a significantly higher interpersonal self-concept after their first-year than their single race peers. Most importantly for mixed and single race students are their interactions with diverse peers. For all groups, both negative and positive interactions based on race within the college environment directly impact interpersonal self-concept. First-year college experiences (Positive Ethnic/Racial Relations, Racial Interactions of a Negative Quality, Leadership Orientation, Sense of Belonging, Campus Racial Climate, Self-Assessed Cognitive Development) were the most significant contributors to the development of an interpersonal self-concept in comparison to pre-college experiences.

The findings in this study expand the literature on multiracial college students and provide empirical evidence to support institutional practices that aim to promote a positive interpersonal self-concept in the first college year.

Table of Contents

• DEDICATION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• LIST OF FIGURES
• LIST OF TABLES
• LIST OF APPENDICES
• ABSTRACT
• CHAPTER 1
  • INTRODUCTION
    • Statement of the Problem
    • Purpose and Scope of the Study
    • Significance of the Study
    • Contributions of the Study
• CHAPTER 2
  • LITERATURE REVIEW
    • The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Census 2000
    • Social Construction of Race and Racial Categories
    • Multiracial Terminology
    • College Student Identity
  • Overview of Relevant Studies on Mixed and Single Race Students
    • Multiracial Students in Higher Education
    • Relevant Studies of Multiracial Individuals
    • Relevant Individual Race Studies
  • Theories on Multiracial Identity
    • Linear Racial Identity Development Approach
    • Resolution Approach
    • Ecological Approach
  • Comparisons Between Single-Race and Multiracial Research
    • Theoretical Comparison
  • Indicators of Multiracial Interpersonal Self-Concept
    • Positional
    • Resources
    • Information
    • Relationships
    • Environment
    • Involvement
    • Politics
    • Identity
    • Personal
    • Conceptual Mode
• CHAPTER 3
  • METHODOLOGY
    • Date Sources and Data Collection
    • Sample
    • The 48 Cases
    • Dependent Variable
    • Independent Variables
    • Conceptual Regression Model
    • Data Preparation
    • Limitations
• CHAPTER 4
  • RESULTS
    • Independent t-Tests
      • Single Race Black Students and Mixed Race Black Students (Independent Variables)
      • Single Race Asian Students and Mixed Race Asian Students (Independent Variables)
      • Interpersonal Self-concept (Dependent Variable)
      • Summary
    • Multivariate Analysis
      • Interpersonal Self-Concept for First Year Mixed and Single Race Black Students
      • Summary
      • Interpersonal Self-Concept for First Year Mixed and Single Race Asian Students
      • Summary
      • Comparison of Interpersonal Self-Concept Between Groups
      • Summary of Results
• CHAPTER 5
  • DISCUSSION
    • Summary of Findings
    • Implications to Practice in Higher Education
      • Student Affairs
      • Academic Incorporation
      • Higher Education and Institutional Policy
    • Implications for Research
      • Theory
      • Design and Methodology
      • Future Research
    • Conclusion
• APPENDICES
• REFERENCES

List of Figures

• Figure 2.1 Conceptual Model for Interpersonal Self-Concept
• Figure 3.1 Conceptual Regression Model

LIST OF TABLES

• Table 2.1 Factors Contributing to a Multiracial Interpersonal Self-Concept
• Table 3.1 Sample Size
• Table 3.2 Interpersonal Self-concept Factor Analysis
• Table 3.3 Summary of Variables and Indices
• Table 3.4 Factor Analysis Descriptive Statistics
• Table 3.5 Positive Race/Ethnic Relations
• Table 3.6 Racial/Ethnic Interactions of a Negative Quality
• Table 3.7 Campus Racial Climate
• Table 3.8 Race/Ethnic Composition of the Environment
• Table 3.9 Leadership and Community Orientation
• Table 3.10 Informed Citizenship
• Table 3.11 Satisfaction with College
• Table 3.12 Sense of Belonging
• Table 3.13 Self-Assessed Cognitive Development
• Table 4.1 Frequencies, Means, Standard deviations, and Test of Significance on Independent Variables for Entire Sample by Race (Total Black n=2647 and Total Black+n=485)
• Table 4.2 Means, Standard deviations, and Test of Significance on Independent Variables for Entire Sample by Race (Asian Total n=1927 and Total Asian+n=464)
• Table 4.3 Means, Standard deviations, and Individual and Paired Tests of Significance on Dependent Variables for Entire Sample by Race (Black Total n=2647 and Total Black+n=485) and (Asian Total n=1927 and Total Asian+ n=464)
• Table 4.4 Standardized beta coefficients for blocked entry regression on Dependent Variable Interpersonal Self-Concept (α=.599) for Entire Sample: Black and Black+ (n = 2,434)
• Table 4.5 Standardized beta coefficients for blocked entry regression on Dependent Variable Interpersonal Self-Concept (α=.647) for Entire Sample: Asian and Asian+ (n = 2,158)
• Table 4.6 Unstandardized beta coefficients for blocked entry regression on DependentVariable Interpersonal Self-Concept. Comparison of Black and Black+ (α=.599, n = 2,434) and Asian and Asian+ (α=.647, n = 2,158)

LIST OF APPENDICES

• APPENDIX A: Office of Management and Budget Information
• APPENDIX B: Renn’s Ecology of College Student Development Model

Read the entire dissertation here.

Perceptions, Representation, and Identity Development of Multiracial Students in American Higher Education

Journal of Student Affairs at New York University
Volume VI, 2010
pages 1-6

Roberta Garbarini-Philippe
New York University

In my article I first examine some historical facts and policy issues related to multiracial individuals, giving a few examples of how this population has been perceived and stereotyped by institutions, the media, and American culture. I then look at some of the research on biracial identity development and show how one of the assumptions regarding people of mixed-race heritage, the inability to fit in any monoracial group, has been refuted by many studies that predict healthy and positive psychological outcomes for multiracial individuals. Finally, I discuss multiracial identity development in the higher education context and suggest some ways in which colleges and universities can create inclusive environments and utilize the potential of these border-defying students to introduce a new discourse on race.

Read the entire article here.

HapaSC: A Place Multiracial Call Home

Campus Circle News
Los Angeles, California
2010-08-16

Stephanie Forshee

Multiracial students at USC [University of Southern California] like Lauren Perez are devoting time to create a place where you can express every part of yourself. HapaSC is an organization of about 30 USC students that raises awareness for “mixed” students on campus and allows them an opportunity to embrace world change.

The phrase “hapa haole” means “half.” The term was originally used to describe people who were half Asian/Pacific Islander and half Caucasian. It has now been shortened to just “hapa.” HapaSC’s purpose is to create awareness for the rapid expansion of multiracial people. 

“We understand that identity is something you can choose and it’s always developing, so we don’t put people in a box,” says Perez, last school year’s public relations officer…

Read the entire article here.

The Risks of Multiracial Identification

The Chronicle of Higher Education
2006-11-10

Naomi Schaefer Riley

The comment period has closed on proposed new guidelines from the U.S. Department of Education on how colleges should ask students about race. No longer, the guidelines say, should applicants simply be given the choice of black, white, Asian, American Indian (or Alaska Native), or native Hawaiian (or other Pacific Islander). Now they should be allowed to check off more than one box, as well as note whether they identify as Hispanic. Eugene L. Anderson, an associate director of the American Council on Education, told Diverse, a higher-education magazine, that he expected colleges would be pleased with the new guidelines: “They make sense; they respect peoples’ individual notion of racial identity, which is important.”

No doubt colleges also appreciate the department’s instructions for practical reasons. The proliferation of multiracial options on a variety of forms, including college applications, reflects the new demographic reality in America. On the 2000 census, nearly seven million Americans checked off two or more racial boxes. And a study last year by researchers at Cornell University found that the number of interracial marriages involving white people, black people, or Hispanics each year in the United States has jumped tenfold since the 1960s.

In a sense, these developments represent the realization of the dream of a melting pot. In 1963 Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, penned a controversial essay called “My Negro Problem—And Ours,” expressing despair about the chances for real racial integration in this country. That could not occur, he wrote, “unless color does in fact disappear: and that means not integration, it means assimilation, it means—let the brutal word come out—miscegenation.”…

…But even those mixed-race groups cannot satisfy some students. One told the Crimson that her acquaintances at Harvard’s Hapa group focused too much on East Asian identities, instead of South Asian ones. They went out, she complained, for dim sum, “which I enjoy, but don’t identify with culturally.” But she didn’t feel welcome in the regular South Asian group, either, because in a theatrical performance the group’s leaders cast her in the role of a white person.

The level of specificity that seems to be required for many young men and women to feel comfortable today is bordering on the absurd. Ultimately it’s sad. Advocates of diversity on college campuses insist that they are not just assembling faces of different colors for aesthetic purposes; they are trying to offer students a model of how to live in a multiracial, multiethnic society. But students do not seem to be learning to be more tolerant of people unlike them. They are demanding that they be surrounded and sheltered by people who are exactly like them.

Colleges have long experienced what sociologists refer to as the “lunch-table problem.” That tendency toward racial self-segregation may find its origins in students’ upbringings, but it is surely furthered by campus multiculturalists. Over the years, I have had many students I’ve interviewed tell me that they were never encouraged to identify themselves by their race so much as when they set foot on a college campus. Both administrators and student-run organizations often pressured them to engage in activities that put them in a particular racial box. So it’s not surprising that students now want activities that conform to every contour of their ancestry…

Read the entire article here.

Racial Quotas and the Culture War in Brazilian Academia

Sociology Compass
Volume 4 Issue 8 (August 2010)
Pages 592 – 604
DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2010.00295.x

Stanley R. Bailey, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

Michelle Peria
University of California, Irvine

Dozens of Brazilian universities recently adopted racial quotas for negros, read Afro-Brazilians, in higher education. Anyone familiar with the Brazilian context will recognize this step as a paradigm shift in the state’s approach to ‘race’. State discourse in past decades touted a mixed-race population not beset by overt discriminatory practices. In response to this new approach, two well-defined clusters of professors in Brazil’s universities authored several dueling manifestos supporting and opposing race-based affirmative action. This article suggests a ‘culture war’ framing of the debate and delineates the contrasting historic ideologies of racialism and antiracialism that inform the divergent racial worldviews of each academic camp. It then explores four points of contention from the manifestos that characterize their conflicting perspectives. They differ in terms of (1) their images of the Brazilian nation, (2) their diagnoses of the mechanisms behind non-white underrepresentation in Brazilian universities, (3) their prognoses for a remedy via racial quotas, and (4) their motivations for entering the debate. At the same time, the article locates some possible common ground.

Read or purchase the article here.