{"id":53652,"date":"2017-04-24T01:36:54","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T01:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=53652"},"modified":"2017-04-24T01:36:54","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T01:36:54","slug":"the-paradox-of-the-multiracial-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=53652","title":{"rendered":"The paradox of the multiracial identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The paradox of the multiracial identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Adolescent<\/a>
\n2017-04-18<\/p>\n

Sarah Racker<\/strong><\/a>, Graphic Designer
\nPortland, Oregon<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I am a multiracial American; my mother is Okinawan, my father is German and Australian. My grandparents came from four different continents. I identify as both Asian and Caucasian, and although I am often identified on the outside as not quite white and not quite \u201cethnic,\u201d I easily pass for white<\/a> in a world obsessed with color and race.<\/p>\n

Multiracial people face a perplexing paradox. We are not fully white, and yet not fully \u201cnot white\u201d enough to be considered a person of color (POC). Growing up biracial, I identified strongly with Spock<\/a> (yes, from Star Trek<\/em><\/a>). Spock is half Human and half Vulcan<\/a>, and is ostracized by both halves of himself for not quite belonging to either culture.<\/p>\n

Teresa Williams-Le\u00f3n<\/a>, a professor of Asian-American studies at California State University, Northridge, uses Spock as an object lesson in her class, \u201cBiracial and Multiracial Identity.\u201d She sees the parallels between Spock\u2019s inner conflict between his Vulcan and Human identity. \u201cHe had to subdue his emotional side to become more cerebral and logical,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that\u2019s problematic. But it\u2019s an interesting way of looking at how biracial people have had to suppress aspects of themselves, or one part of themselves.\u201d…<\/p>\n

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

I am a multiracial American; my mother is Okinawan, my father is German and Australian. My grandparents came from four different continents. I identify as both Asian and Caucasian, and although I am often identified on the outside as not quite white and not quite \u201cethnic,\u201d I easily pass for white in a world obsessed with color and race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,125,8,6462,20],"tags":[26884,19471,26885,17161,4464,498],"class_list":["post-53652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-adolescent","tag-mr-spock","tag-sarah-racker","tag-spock","tag-star-trek","tag-teresa-williams-leon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53652","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=53652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53656,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53652\/revisions\/53656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}