{"id":14172,"date":"2011-06-14T00:30:44","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T00:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=14172"},"modified":"2016-06-10T18:08:42","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T18:08:42","slug":"defining-multiracial-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=14172","title":{"rendered":"Defining multiracial citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defining multiracial citizens<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Boston Globe<\/a>
\n2011-06-12
\n
\nBrittany Danielson<\/strong>, Globe Correspondent<\/p>\n

Evolving ideas about identity mean mixed-race people don\u2019t have to settle for \u2018other\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

n a suburban Massachusetts classroom in 1985, a 7-year-old Chris Olds raised his hand to grab his teacher\u2019s attention; he wasn\u2019t sure which bubble to fill in for race on a standardized test.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what I am,\u2019\u2019 he told the teacher, while other students in the class laughed in the background.<\/p>\n

Olds \u2014 who has white, black, and Native American roots \u2014 wanted to fill in more than one bubble, but was told to pick one. \u201cThe problem wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t know what I am,\u2019\u2019 said Olds, who is now a 33-year-old Cambridge resident. \u201cThe problem was that I knew exactly what I am, but that I wasn\u2019t presented with an option for it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Today, millions of multiracial US citizens like Olds have an option when defining their race through the census, which has helped to paint a clearer picture of one of the country\u2019s fastest growing demographic groups. Since 2000, when people were first allowed to check more than one box when describing their races on census forms, the multiracial population has increased by about 35 percent to 9 million in 2010, representing 2.9 percent of the overall population.<\/p>\n

How the nation defines and counts the multiracial population has evolved. Between 1850 and 1920, the census included a range of categories for individuals of black and white parentage \u2014 which included terms like \u201cmulatto,\u2019\u2019 \u201cquadroon,\u2019\u2019 and \u201coctoroon\u2019\u2019 to describe percentages of black ancestry. That ended by 1930, when those classifications gave way to the \u201cone drop rule,\u2019\u2019 which stated that any traceable minority heritage \u2014 even one drop of blood \u2014 made that person, by default, a minority…<\/p>\n

…John Tawa, a doctoral student at University of Massachusetts Boston who teaches a course about the multiracial experience and is himself of Japanese and European heritage, said multiracial people do have some positive experiences. For example, he said they have an ability to relate in a variety of racial contexts. But multiracial US citizens also can feel marginalized by the racial groups in which they are members, can be constantly questioned about their racial identity, and can sometimes be misidentified by others, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMultiracial people get used as a marker of being in a postracial society. People say soon everyone will be the same, so we don\u2019t need to pay attention to racism anymore,\u2019\u2019 Tawa said. \u201cThat kind of ideology can obscure the reality of racism today, and the challenges that multiracial people face.\u2019\u2019…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defining multiracial citizens The Boston Globe 2011-06-12 Brittany Danielson, Globe Correspondent Evolving ideas about identity mean mixed-race people don\u2019t have to settle for \u2018other\u2019 n a suburban Massachusetts classroom in 1985, a 7-year-old Chris Olds raised his hand to grab his teacher\u2019s attention; he wasn\u2019t sure which bubble to fill in for race on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,33,125,8,20],"tags":[4072,6531,5579],"class_list":["post-14172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-census","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-boston-globe","tag-brittany-danielson","tag-the-boston-globe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47513,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14172\/revisions\/47513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}