Mixed Race Studies

Feeling proud and confident in one’s racial-ethnic identity can potentially protect Multiracial individuals from discrimination and the negative mental health consequences associated with rejection or attacks on their identity.

Annabelle Atkin, “Multiracial identities and resilience to racism: The role of families,” Medical News Today, September 14, 2021. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/multiracial-identities-and-resilience-to-racism-the-role-of-families.

Multiracial identities and resilience to racism: The role of families

Medical News Today
2021-09-14

Annabelle Atkin, Assistant Professor
Department of Human Development and Family Studies
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

What challenges do Multiracial people face, and how do these challenges affect their well-being? Dr. Annabelle Atkin explains in this feature. Liliya Rodnikova/Stocksy

In this opinion feature, Dr. Annabelle Atkin — an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN — explores the unique challenges that Multiracial people face in attaining and maintaining well-being and offers suggestions on how to mitigate those challenges.

“I thought you were full Asian,” a professor of color once told me. “I didn’t know you were Asian!” a native Korean friend had told me a couple of years before.

Being Multiracial is often complicated for people to understand. This is especially the case in the context of the United States, where the dominant White group has fought to establish and maintain a clear color line throughout history to justify the oppression of People of Color.

The racial groups we know today are not biological. They were created, or socially constructed. And they are always changing. Just take a look at how the U.S. Census categories have shifted across the decades.

To protect the racial power structure in the U.S., Multiracial people have been erased throughout its history. One of the most well-known examples of this is the one-drop rule, which was created to ensure that anyone with a single drop of “Black blood” be considered Black to justify enslavement and, later, Jim Crow segregation.

As a result, our Multiraciality is often overlooked, and many people still struggle with accepting and acknowledging Multiracial individuals because to do so challenges their Monoracial understanding of the world…

Read the entire article here.

Familial racial-ethnic socialization of Multiracial American Youth: A systematic review of the literature with MultiCrit

Developmental Review
Volume 53, September 2019
DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2019.100869

Annabelle L. Atkin, Graduate Teaching Assistant
T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
Arizona State University

Hyung Chol Yoo, Associate Professor of Asian Pacific American Studies
Arizona State University

Highlights

• Seven types of racial-ethnic socialization messages were identified.
• Most parents do not discuss Multiracial identity with their children.
• The qualitative studies reviewed mostly focused on Black and White biracial youth.
• There are no measures of racial-ethnic socialization for Multiracial families.

Multiracial youth are currently the largest demographic group among individuals 18 and under in the United States (Saulny, 2011), and yet there is a dearth of research examining the development of these uniquely racialized individuals. In this article, we systematically review the qualitative and quantitative research available across disciplines regarding how caregivers engage in racial-ethnic socialization with Multiracial American youth to transmit knowledge about race, ethnicity, and culture. We also critique the use of monoracially framed theoretical models for understanding Multiracial experiences and provide directions for future research using a Critical Multiracial Theory, henceforth referred to as MultiCrit, perspective (Harris, 2016). MultiCrit situates the understanding of Multiracial experiences in the context of the racially oppressive structures that affect Multiracial realities. In light of the findings of this review, we suggest that future studies are needed to learn how racial-ethnic socialization processes look in Multiracial families with different racial makeups and diverse family structures while considering the intersectional identities of Multiracial youth and their caregivers. Furthermore, new theoretical frameworks specific to Multiracial families are necessary to move this field forward, and quantitative measures need to be developed based on qualitative studies to capture the nuances of racial-ethnic socialization messages for Multiracial youth. Suggestions for additional factors to consider in the process of racial-ethnic socialization for Multiracial families and implications of this research are provided in the discussion.

Read the entire article on HTML or PDF format.

ASU student explores how parents in multi-racial families communicate about race

ASU Now
Arizona State University
2017-10-27

ASU doctoral student Annabelle Atkin

It’s First Friday at the Children’s Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Amid the kids exploring giant bubbles, a kiddie car wash, and a paint maze, there is an 8×4 folding table with a red tablecloth draped over it. Behind the table sits the smiling face of Annabelle Atkin, a doctoral student at the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. An assortment of children’s books featuring characters with diverse racial backgrounds is spread before her. To her right is a colorful poster describing her multiracial families project.

Atkin is working on recruiting multi-racial families for her research. She is exploring how parents of multi-racial families communicate with their children about race, as well as the effects those conversations have on their children’s racial identity and development. Her excitement and interest in this topic shines through when she talks about the families she’s met so far…

Read the entire article here.