Multiracial Identities

Multiracial identities, those constructed with relationships to more than one racial group, are global phenomena. They are, however, neither new, nor unique, nor typical. Human blending goes far back in history, although many “racially mixed” minorities had their origin as recently as the past five centuries, the by-products of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, military conquest, and political-economic domination by powerful national or racial groups.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, global human movement through displacement and mobility, along with abolishment of anti-miscegenation laws, has created new multiracial groups. The concept of mixed race highlights the contested nature of race as a scientific idea that creates, justifies, and maintains social inequalities and injustices of differential access to privilege, prestige, and power. The lives of mixed-race people are impacted by global economic and political processes of domination and resistance that place them in social hierarchies based on structural factors such as gender, generation, class, locality, color, and sexuality.

Multiracial groups exist throughout the world, including the Coloureds of South Africa, Eurasians of Indonesia and the Netherlands, Anglo-Indians of India, Amerasians of Japan and Vietnam, Hapahaole of Hawai'i, Metis of Canada, and Aborigines of Australia. Each multiracial group is unique in the historical circumstances of its origin and development, in the status accorded it by the society of which it is a part, and in its relations with other peoples. The social, cultural, and political variations in racial classification systems determine the status of mixed-race people as a new status, similar status, lower status, or higher status than either parent. Or they may become an intermediate group, an assimilated minority, occupy the same position as the lower status parent, or assume an identity negotiated by social class and color. In some countries, global elites claim multiracial identities, whereas those less privileged usually accept minority group identities and others pass as members of the majority group. The relations between their ancestry groups are often unequal, volatile, and full of bitterness, creating difficulties for the multiracial individual in finding community, belonging, and identity. Questions of identity are not easily solved by self-definition in societies in which boundaries are rigid and categories mutually exclusive. Identities of mixed-race people are influenced by others’ perceptions of their physical appearance, but ascribed identities may differ from self-definition, requiring individual negotiation of public and private identities.

In the past 20 years, multiracial group identities have been shifting. In some countries, like Brazil and South Africa, there is tension between those who want to maintain a middle identity as mulattos or coloureds and those who want to reclaim Black identities. In Japan and South Korea, images of multiracial persons are moving from marginal to multicultural, from tragic war babies to people who embody hybridity and celebrate diversity. Multiracial identities became a political and social issue in the United States preceding the 2000 census, when a movement to include a multiracial category generated considerable debate and controversy. Resistance from established ethnic organizations, rooted in fears of reduced numbers of constituents and eroded civil rights protections, resulted in a compromise allowing multiple checking of different racial/ethnic categories on the [Page 1195]census and for other government programs, a choice taken by nearly 7 million people.

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