{"id":14605,"date":"2011-06-30T00:57:09","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T00:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=14605"},"modified":"2013-10-08T20:56:57","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T20:56:57","slug":"living-out-loud-deconstructing-the-multiracial-individual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=14605","title":{"rendered":"Living Out Loud: (De)Constructing the Multiracial Individual"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living Out Loud: (De)Constructing the Multiracial Individual<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Stanford University
\n2011-05-19
\n55 pages<\/p>\n

Stephanie Otani-Sunamoto<\/strong><\/p>\n

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Department Honors in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University<\/em><\/p>\n

Although mixed race people have existed throughout American history, being mixed race was either stigmatized or an unrecognized identity option until the Multiracial Movement began in the late 1980\u2019s. The past twenty years have brought an unparalleled rise in Mixed Race consciousness. On a political level, advocates successfully campaigned for Census reclassification in the form of a \u201cMark one or more\u201d option on the Census 2000. Mixed Race scholars, activists, writers and artists were active in creating a new, cosmopolitan \u201cMixed Race Person.\u201d All the while they proclaimed that they fighting against racism and representing a largely marginalized community.<\/p>\n

This thesis takes a critical approach to the messages about what it means to be \u201cMixed Race\u201d that proliferate in the media and in academia: Mixed Race people have \u201cthe best of both worlds\u201d and the act of choosing one racial and\/or cultural identity forces the multiracial person to deny part of who her or she is. I argue that the academic and popular conceptualizations of Mixed Race actually reinforce the racial\/racist ideologies Multiracial activists claimed to be so oppressive.<\/strong> These problematic ideas are a direct result of one of the driving forces for Mixed Race activism and scholarship: the desire to legitimize multiracial families. In doing so, one particular narrative of mixed race identity and authenticity has prevailed. I call for a more nuanced vision of Mixed Race personhood that allows for non-traditional family structures and does not impose any ideals of authenticity upon the mixed race individual. I will then present a literary nonfiction piece, Outside\/Inside, based on my own life as a counter-example to the common narratives seen in Mixed Race literature and representations.<\/p>\n

Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n