Mixed Race Studies

Rethinking Multiracial Formation in the United States: Toward an Intersectional Approach

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Volume 2, Number 1 (January 2016)
pages 27-41
DOI: 10.1177/2332649215591864

Celeste Vaughan Curington
Department of Sociology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

This article forwards an integrative multiracial formation perspective that analyzes race, class, and gender as complex social systems, predicated on racism, patriarchy, and economic exploitation. I apply this new framework to three distinct racial projects—slavery, miscegenation law, and the multiracial movement of the 1990s. An analysis of the linkages between the several racial projects that have produced multiraciality over time shows the larger context in which those in power were able to shape the meaning of multiraciality in a way that was created by and constitutive of privilege and power at the intersections of class, gender, and racial hierarchies in the United States.

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Dating Partners Don’t Always Prefer “Their Own Kind”: Some Multiracial Daters Get Bonus Points in the Dating Game

Council on Contemporary Families
Austin, Texas
2015-07-01

Celeste Vaughan Curington
Department of Sociology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Ken-Hou Lin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
The University of Texas, Austin

Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, Professor of Sociology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Celeste Curington, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Ken-Hou Lin, University of Texas at Austin, and Jennifer Lundquist, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Despite growing approval of interracial dating, researchers have long documented the existence of a racial hierarchy within the dating world, with white women and men the most preferred partners, blacks the least preferred, and Asians and Hispanics in between. But where do the growing numbers of biracial and multiracial individuals fit into this hierarchy? Do they too get ranked by descending shades of lightness?

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of individuals who identified themselves to Census takers as being of two or more races increased by a third. These nine million individuals still represent less than three percent of the population. But studies predict that by the year 2050, nearly one in five Americans may claim a multiracial background. How will this affect dating and marriage patterns in the United States?

We recently completed a study of how multiracial daters fare in a mainstream online dating website. Using 2003-2010 data from one of the largest dating websites in the United States, we examined nearly 6.7 million initial messages sent between heterosexual women and men. Specifically, we looked into how often Asian-white, black-white, and Hispanic-white daters received a response to their messages compared to their monoracial counterparts…

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Positioning Multiraciality in Cyberspace: Treatment of Multiracial Daters in an Online Dating Website

American Sociological Review
Volume 80, Number 4 (August 2015)
pages 764-788
DOI: 10.1177/0003122415591268

Celeste Vaughan Curington
Department of Sociology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Ken-Hou Lin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
The University of Texas, Austin

Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, Professor of Sociology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

The U.S. multiracial population has grown substantially in the past decades, yet little is known about how these individuals are positioned in the racial hierarchies of the dating market. Using data from one of the largest dating websites in the United States, we examine how monoracial daters respond to initial messages sent by multiracial daters with various White/non-White racial and ethnic makeups. We test four different theories: hypodescent, multiracial in-betweenness, White equivalence, and what we call a multiracial dividend effect. We find no evidence for the operation of hypodescent. Asian-White daters, in particular, are afforded a heightened status, and Black-White multiracials are treated as an in-between group. For a few specific multiracial gender groups, we find evidence for a dividend effect, where multiracial men and women are preferred above all other groups, including Whites.

Read or purchase the article here.