{"id":31107,"date":"2013-05-15T20:33:19","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T20:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=31107"},"modified":"2015-05-15T19:23:52","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T19:23:52","slug":"halffull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=31107","title":{"rendered":"Half\/Full"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2246546\" target=\"_blank\">Half\/Full<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.uci.edu\/lawreview\/\" target=\"_blank\">UC Irvine Law Review<\/a><br \/>\nUniversity of California, Irvine Law School<br \/>\nVolume 3, Forthcoming<br \/>\nOnline: 2013-04-07<br \/>\npages 101-125<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/law.du.edu\/index.php\/profile\/nancy-leong\" target=\"_blank\">Nancy Leong<\/a><\/strong>, Associate\u00a0Professor of Law<br \/>\n<em>University of Denver, Sturm College of Law<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Research suggests that multiracial identity is uniquely malleable, and I will focus here on the significance of that malleability for mixed-Asian individuals. At various times, mixed-Asian individuals may present themselves as \u201chalf\u201d Asian; other times, they may present themselves as \u201cfull\u201d Asian, \u201cfull\u201d White, or, in some instances, fully ambiguous. Mixed-Asian racial identity negotiation, I will argue, often presents considerable challenges for mixed-Asian individuals. And mixed-Asian individuals are often targets of what I have elsewhere called \u201c<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=22403\" target=\"_blank\"><em>racial capitalism<\/em><\/a><em>\u201d by White individuals and predominantly White institutions. Still, I conclude that the malleability of mixed-Asian racial identity provides unique opportunities for destabilizing existing views about racial identity, reinvigorating stale conversations about race, and ultimately facilitating progress toward a racially egalitarian society.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Introduction<\/li>\n<li>I. Mixed-Asian Identity\n<ul>\n<li>A. Sociology<\/li>\n<li>B. Legal Discourse<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>II. Using Mixed-Asian Identity\n<ul>\n<li>A. Commodification<\/li>\n<li>B. Exploitation<\/li>\n<li>C. Entrepreneurship<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>III. Harms\n<ul>\n<li>A. Intrinsic Harms of Commodification<\/li>\n<li>B. Harms to Individual Mixed-Asians<\/li>\n<li>C. Harms to Society<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>IV. Half Full<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>INTRODUCTION<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>About one out of six new marriages in America takes place between two people of different races\u2014an all-time high. And Asian Americans are ahead of the curve: about one in three Asian Americans marries someone of a different race. Such relationships precipitate what commentators have described as an \u201cinterracial baby boom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Research suggests that multiracial identity is uniquely malleable, and I will focus here on the significance of that malleability for mixed-Asian individuals. At various times, mixed-Asian individuals may present themselves as \u201chalf\u201d Asian; other times, they may present themselves as \u201cfull\u201d Asian, \u201cfull\u201d White, or, in some instances, fully ambiguous. Mixed-Asian racial identity negotiation, I will argue, often presents considerable challenges for mixed-Asian individuals. And mixed-Asian individuals are often targets of what I have elsewhere called \u201cracial capitalism\u201d by White individuals and predominantly White institutions\u2014that is, these individuals and institutions derive value from mixed-Asian racial identity. Still, I conclude that the malleability of mixed-Asian racial identity provides unique opportunities for destabilizing existing views about racial identity, reinvigorating stale conversations about race, and ultimately facilitating progress toward a racially egalitarian society.<\/p>\n<p>In Part I, the Essay examines the social scientific literature regarding mixed-Asian racial identity. As the result of a wide range of factors, including phenotypic characteristics, life experiences, and family dynamics, mixed-Asian individuals often view their racial identity differently from members of any of the traditional socially ascribed racial categories. In particular, mixed-Asian identity is often more fluid and dynamic, shifting from one context to the next. Such fluidity and dynamism is facilitated by a social view of mixed-Asian individuals as occupying a unique racial space. Part I also briefly notes the relative dearth of legal discourse relating to mixed-Asians.<\/p>\n<p>Part II explores the way mixed-Asian racial fluidity is used, manipulated, exploited, and leveraged. Mixed-Asian individuals often engage in what scholars have described as \u201cidentity performance\u201d or \u201cidentity work,\u201d so as to present themselves in the manner most favorable in a particular social or employment context. For example, mixed-Asian individuals may be able to present themselves in a way that is more palatable to employers by displaying greater assimilation into dominant White norms of behavior and self-presentation. But mixed-Asian racial identity is also exploited by White individuals and predominantly White individuals. For example, an employer might count a mixed-Asian person for purposes of its diversity numbers even if that person does not personally consider herself a minority, or might incorporate photos of a mixed-Asian person on its website or in its promotional literature in order to advertise its nominal commitment to diversity without engaging harder questions of structural disadvantage and remediation.<\/p>\n<p>Part III examines some of the negative implications of such uses of mixed-Asian identity, which harm both mixed-Asian individuals and society at large. For example, mixed-Asian individuals suffer identity demands that harm the integrity of their racial identity and submerge their own complex processes of identity negotiation. More broadly, exploitation of mixed-Asian racial identity by White individuals and predominantly White institutions often essentializes mixed-Asian individuals, impoverishes our discourse around race, fosters racial resentment by inhibiting the reparative work essential to improved racial relations, and detracts from more meaningful antidiscrimination goals.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the many negative implications of manipulating mixed-Asian identity in the ways I have described, the Essay concludes in Part IV by suggesting that the fluidity and malleability of mixed-Asian identity also has the potential to serve as a powerful tool for racial reform. Mixed-Asian racial malleability has the potential to destabilize entrenched beliefs about race, to lay bare hidden demands of racial identity performance, and to engender a dramatic improvement in our conversations and policies regarding race.<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2246546\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Half\/Full UC Irvine Law Review University of California, Irvine Law School Volume 3, Forthcoming Online: 2013-04-07 pages 101-125 Nancy Leong, Associate\u00a0Professor of Law University of Denver, Sturm College of Law Research suggests that multiracial identity is uniquely malleable, and I will focus here on the significance of that malleability for mixed-Asian individuals. At various times, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,1467,8,394,20],"tags":[1959,14698],"class_list":["post-31107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-law","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-nancy-leong","tag-uc-irvine-law-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31107","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=31107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}