Mixed Race Studies

The Social Negotiation of Ambiguous In-Between Stigmatized Identities: Investigating Identity Processes in Multiracial and Bisexual People

University of Massachusetts, Boston
December 2011
234 pages

Vali Dagmar Kahn

A Dissertation Presented by Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston, in partial fulfillment of  the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Clinical Psychology

To date, most bisexual and multiracial identity models in psychology capture a largely internal developmental process (Collins, 2000; Kich, 1992; Weinberg, Williams & Pryor, 1994). However, individuals learn to manage their socially stigmatized identities in social interactions (Goffman, 1963). While the demands to socially negotiate stigmatized identity affect all minority peoples, individuals with inbetween ambiguous stigmatized identities, such as multiracial and bisexual people, must negotiate also being situated at the margins of their own reference groups (e.g. heterosexual and gay/lesbian). Using a comparative grounded theory approach, this study explored the question: How do experiences of socially negotiating an inbetween ambiguous stigmatized identity influence one’s identity development? And the sub-question: What are the similarities and differences in these processes for multiracial and bisexual people?

between the ages of 20 and 36 years participated in semi-structured interviews addressing the following areas of inquiry: (1) Contextualizing current identifications and establishing shared understandings, (2) Experiences of social negotiations, and (3) Effects of these experiences on identities. Issues regarding the rigor and credibility of the study (Morrow, 2005) were addressed through peer debriefing; inquiry auditing; and member check discussions. Analysis followed a constant comparative method (Creswell, 2007) and a multi-step process resulting in a theory describing three negotiation cycles and associated identity effects common to both kinds of identities (multiracial and bisexual), with additional identity specific (multiracial or bisexual) variations: the first cycle was Catalyzing Experiences, the second was Active Negotiations, and the third Emerging Sense of Agency through New Understandings, Perspectives, and Positive Experiences. Cycles were described by multiracial and bisexual participants as fluid, iterative, and interacting. The model developed in this study offers a way of understanding stigma management strategies and their relation to influencing identities and stigmatizing processes. This deeper understanding can help clinicians and community organizers create inclusive environments and develop interventions to assist multiracial and bisexual individuals develop skills to deal with social stigmatizing processes, resolve initial questions, and develop a greater sense of agency in identity choice and performance.

Read the entire dissertation here.

Wealthy free women of color in Charleston, South Carolina during slavery

University of Massachusetts, Amherst
2007
271 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3275800
ISBN: 9780549175599

Rita Reynolds, Assistant Professor of History
Wagner College, Staten Island, New York

This dissertation focuses on the lives and experiences of a small group of affluent free mulatto women in antebellum Charleston, South Carolina. Unlike their enslaved sisters we know very little about their community and the place they occupied in it. To comprehend the everyday world wealthy free women of color inhabited I begin by examining the origins of the wealthy free colored community in Charleston. I then investigate individual case studies of five wealthy free mulatto and black women and how their varying choices, made under differing degrees of societal duress, molded and formed their lives. Biographical sketches of Rachel and Martha Inglis, Nancy Randall, Hagar Richardson and Margaret Bettingall consider the different options each woman experienced under the same social, economic and racial framework. All five women (whose stories are told here for the first time) dealt with enslavement from either a personal perspective as slaves themselves, or as a recent memory in recalling a mother or grandmother’s bondage. Their stories relate how the lives of wealthy free women of color were paradoxical and how they often dealt with triumph and tragedy in the same instance.

Like the majority of wealthy southern white women who spent a portion of their time as sophisticated urbanites, wealthy free women of color also set out to participate as free people in a slave society. To fully share in the economic and social benefits of society these women made deliberate efforts to improve their station through education, religious participation, social institutions and caste and racial identification with their wealthy white neighbors. However, the oppressive nature of Southern slave society greatly thwarted their best efforts. As a result, free blacks basic rights were fundamentally denied. This examination of five wealthy free women of color will analyze the manner in which social, community and family relationships influenced the world these women occupied. Racial and class status were also defining creeds for free wealthy women of color. By probing into the importance of race and class affiliations in the free mulatto community a clearer portrait of racial hierarchy among the wealthy emerges.

Chinese Caucasian interracial parenting and ethnic identity

University of Massachusetts, Amherst
1988
264 pages
Publication Number: AAT 8813254

Jeffrey B. Mar

This exploratory study looks at Chinese-Caucasian interracially married parents’ experience of raising their children. The goal is to characterize these parents’ stances toward their children’s ethnic identity. A semi-structured, clinical interview was developed for the study in order to gather information about the respondent’s family and individual histories, as well as their childrearing practices and beliefs. The sample consisted of 29 interracially married parents who had at least one child older than nine years old. Eight intraracially married Chinese parents were also interviewed for comparison purposes. The interview data was subjected to a content analysis which generated the following six-dimensional conceptual framework of ethnic identity: (1) Group Identification; (2)Ethnic Continuity; (3) Physical Characteristics; (4) Objective Culture; (5) Subjective Culture; (6) Sociopolitical Consciousness.

It was found that parents did not feel that their children’s ethnic identity was the focus of a great deal of concern. Parents also emphasized that it had rarely been a source of psychological or social difficulty for their children. The ethnic identity of the Chinese parent was stressed far more than the ethnic identity of the Caucasian parent. Surprisingly, parents expressed very little concern about their children’s racial marginality or the issue of racial continuity. On a conscious level, parents were more strongly committed to “group identification” and “objective culture.” In actual practice, however, their commitment in these areas carried a great deal of ambivalence. On an unconscious level, parents were most likely to pass down “subjective culture.” This was the one area of regular cultural conflict in these families, particularly around expectations about family roles. These parents’ greatest concern revolved around their children losing their Chinese culture. However, parents were generally unsuccessful when they tried to actively guide their children in an ethnic direction. Parents stressed that their children’s most durable ethnic commitments developed largely independently of their own efforts to influence, emphasizing that their own personal ethnic involvements (modelling) seemed to have the most impact.

The study concludes by offering some integrative comments about the nature of ethnic identity and the forces that propel it across generations. An important area of future research would be to talk with these parents’ biracial children about their ethnic identities.

Purchase the dissertation here.