Mixed Race Studies

“We Have Created Our Own Meaning for Hapa Identity”: The Mobilization of Self-Proclaimed Hapas within Institutions of Higher Education

Amerasia Journal
Volume 35, Number 2 (2009)
pages 191-213

Patricia E. Literte, Associate Professor of Sociology
California State University, Fullerton

This article examines Hapa student organizations on two university campuses—one public and one private. Drawing on qualitative data, this research interrogates the processes whereby young people who identify as Hapa come to: (1) recognize that race has importance in their lives, (2) rearticulate or reinterpret dominant racial thinking, and (3) translate their racial identities and experiences into organizations to negotiate the concrete and symbolic implications of race. This research also examines how institutions of higher education, in particular, student services that have a racial orientation (e.g., Asian Pacific American Student Services), are responding to Hapa organizations.

He’s [Keanu Reeves] the face of globalization. Born in Beirut to an English mother and a father of Hawaiian and Chinese descent, he’s a citizen of the world.

From Keanu Reeves, to Tiger Woods, to Barack Obama, multiracial people have increasingly received media attention, and as reflected in this description of Reeves, multiracial people are perceived as manifestations of the grand melting pot. Yet they can also be unsettling figures, symbolizing the breakdown of racial, cultural, and national boundaries which are central to the construction of identities.

While society often fixates on public figures who are mixed race, the creation of multiracial identities is the story not just of individuals, but of a post-Civil Rights generation. While racially mixed people have always existed, a concurrent rise in interracial marriages and racial tolerance in recent decades has resulted in a population that increasingly seeks to assert multiracial identities. As a group, multiracial people tend to be disproportionately young and concentrated on the West Coast, particularly in California and Hawaii. According to data from the 2000 Census, 26.3 percent of the two or more races population is between the ages of 18 to 34 versus 23.7 percent for the total population. These age based discrepancies are larger with younger persons. 15.5 percent of the two or more races population is between 10 and 17, compared to 11.5 percent of the general population, and 25.2 percent of the two or more races population is under age ten, in contrast to 14.1 percent of the total population. The median age for the two or more races population is 23.4…

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Campus Colorlines: The Changing Boundaries of Race Within Institutions of Higher Education in the Post-Civil Rights Era

University of Southern California
August 2007
675 pages

Patricia Elizabeth Literte, Assistant Professor of Sociology
California State University, Fullerton

A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

The post-Civil Rights era has been characterized by numerous challenges to traditional understandings of race. The dismantling of legalized segregation and discrimination, ongoing immigration from Asia and Latin America, increasing acceptance of interracial contact and relationships, and relatively unceasing conflict between the Western and Arab world, are just some of the socio-political trends and events which have yielded an increasingly fluid, complex, and intricate racial terrain. Given the increasing fluidity of race in U.S. society, the overarching goal of this dissertation is to illuminate the nature and implications of changing racial identity boundaries in the post-Civil Rights era. In order to fulfill this goal, I examine (1) the experiences of university students who defy conventional racial identity categorizations, (2) the processes of organization/mobilization in which these students engage, and (3) the role universities play in shaping and responding to these students, whose racial identities and politics are often incongruent with the institutions’ views of race. The majority of research on college students’ racial identities and racialized political activity focuses on conventional understandings of racial identity, which rely on the assumption that there are five singular racial categories – black/African American, Latino/a, white, Asian American, and Native American. Less is known about racial identities and corollary political activity which falls outside these boundaries. My dissertation addresses this gap through a two-tieredanalysis. First, I comparatively examine how students come to organize/mobilize around two identities which challenge singular or “monoracial” conceptualizations of race: (1) biracial identity and (2) “people of color” identity. Second, I examine how monoracially oriented student services (i.e., black student service offices) respond to such organization/mobilization. Study of these processes within the particular domain of higher education can assist student service practitioners in the formulation and implementation of programming on increasingly diverse campuses and can provide insight into how students can more fully participate in their universities’ public life. My methods of data collection include interviews (N = 90) with students and administrators, student focus groups, observation, and archival research.

Table of Contents

• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Abstract
• Chapter 1: Introduction: The Changing Nature of Race in Post-Civil Rights Society
• Part 1: Institutional Histories: Understanding the Racial Dynamics of Three Universities
  • Chapter 2: Western University: The Long, Strange Path from Racial Leftism to Colorblindness
  • Chapter 3: California University: A Bastion of Conservatism Rethinks its Identity in the Post-Affirmative Action Era
  • Chapter 4: Bay University: A Majority-Minority School Struggles and Embraces Multiculturalism
• Part 2: The Construction and Mobilization of Biracial Identity: Disrupting the Monoracial Landscape of Universities
  • Chapter 5: Western University and California University: Biracial Students: Facing Double Consciousness, Otherness, and the Complexities of Organizing
  • Chapter 6: Bay University: The Force of Working Class Status, the One Drop Rule, and Mestizaje: The Absence of Biracial Students
• Part 3: “We all share the same struggle”: Coalition Building and the Formation of People of Color Identity among University Students
  • Chapter 7: Western University: The Power of Students of Color: A Tradition of Resistance Continues in the Wake of Proposition 209
  • Chapter 8: California University: Contesting Apathy and the Strength of Monoracialism: Students of Color Struggle to Engage New Racial Politics
  • Chapter 9: Bay University: Working Class Obligations, Segregation, and the Black-Brown Conflict: The Diminishment of Coalitions and People of Color Identity among Students
  • Chapter 10: Conclusion
• Bibliography

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Revising Race: How Biracial Students are Changing and Challenging Student Services

Journal of College Student Development
Volume 51, Number 2 (March/April 2010)
pages 115-134
E-ISSN: 1543-3382 Print ISSN: 0897-5264
DOI: 10.1353/csd.0.0122

Patricia E. Literte, Assistant professor of sociology
California State University, Fullerton

This research investigates the relationship between biracial college students and race-oriented student services (e.g., Office of Black Student Services). These services are organized around conventional understandings of race that assume there are five, discrete racial categories, namely, Black/African American, Latino/a, White, Asian American, and Native American. Drawing on interviews (n = 60) with students and administrators at two universities, this article examines the problems that arise when students’ racial identities are incongruent with universities’ views of race. This study can assist practitioners in the development of services on campuses that are characterized by increasingly fluid racial terrains in the post–Civil Rights era.

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