Record: 1

Title: Multiracial identity.

Authors: Daniel, G. Reginald
Source: Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2022. 2p.
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: Racial identity of multiracial people

Social marginality

20th century history of race relations in the United States

Twentieth century
Geographic Terms: United States
Abstract: The growth in the multiracial population can be traced back to changes
that took place since the dismantling of Jim Crow laws—particularly the
1967 removal of the last laws against miscegenation in Loving v. Virginia
—and the implementation of civil rights legislation during the 1950s and
1960s. The comparatively more fluid intergroup relations led to
increased interracial marriage. Interracial and interethnic marriage
Census data indicate that the number of children born of interracial
marriages grew from less than 500,000 in 1970 to about 2 million in
1990. The majority of these children have one parent who is White.
Interracial couples have used various terms to describe their offspring,
including “rainbow,” “brown,” “melange,” “blended,” “mixed,” “mixed-
race,” “biracial,” “interracial,” and “multiracial.” The 2010 US Census
showed that between 2000 and 2010 the multiracial population in the
United States grew from about 6.8 million to 9.0 million people. During
the same time period, the multiracial population growth rate was 32.0
percent, while the growth rate of the single-race population was 9.2
percent. By 2020, the multiracial population had grown even more
substantially, with 32 million people reporting multiple races on the US
Census—an increase of an impressive 276 percent from 2010. Part of
this increase was due to changes that were made to the race and
ethnicity questions asked by the Census to better reflect how citizens
self-identify, as well as improvements to the way in which the data was
processed and coded. These changes revealed a much more multiracial
population in the US than what had been measured in past years.
Full Text Word Count: 1406
Accession Number: 96397514
Database: Research Starters

Multiracial identity
Significance: In the United States, racial boundaries have historically been drawn so that racial groups and
identities are viewed as mutually exclusive, or “monoracial,” categories of experience, forcing the children of
interracial unions to identify with only one of their backgrounds. During the 1990s, however, growing numbers
of individuals began to view themselves as “multiracial,” or belonging to more than one racial group.

The growth in the multiracial population can be traced back to changes that took place since the dismantling of
Jim Crow laws—particularly the 1967 removal of the last laws against miscegenation in Loving v. Virginia —
and the implementation of civil rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s. The comparatively more fluid
intergroup relations led to increased interracial marriage.Census data indicate that the number of children born
of interracial marriages grew from less than 500,000 in 1970 to about 2 million in 1990. The majority of these
children have one parent who is White. Interracial couples have used various terms to describe their offspring,
including “rainbow,” “brown,” “melange,” “blended,” “mixed,” “mixed-race,” “biracial,” “interracial,” and
“multiracial.” The 2010 US Census showed that between 2000 and 2010 the multiracial population in the
United States grew from about 6.8 million to 9.0 million people. During the same time period, the multiracial
population growth rate was 32.0 percent, while the growth rate of the single-race population was 9.2 percent.
By 2020, the multiracial population had grown even more substantially, with 32 million people reporting multiple
races on the US Census—an increase of an impressive 276 percent from 2010. Part of this increase was due
to changes that were made to the race and ethnicity questions asked by the Census to better reflect how
citizens self-identify, as well as improvements to the way in which the data was processed and coded. These
changes revealed a much more multiracial population in the US than what had been measured in past years.

Racial breakdown of Albany,

New York, at the 2000 census.
White (Blue); Black or African
American (Green); Native
American or Native Alaskan
(Gold); Asian (Red); Native
Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
(Violet); Other races (Gray) Two
By UpstateNYer (Own work)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia
Commons
Former New York Yankees
shortstop Derek Jeter By Keith
Allison [CC-BY-SA-2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licens
sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia
Commons

The Multiracial Identity Paradigm

A multiracial identity is not, however, indicative of someone who simply acknowledges the presence of various
ancestries in his or her background. This identity, therefore, differs from that of other racial groups that may
have multiple racial backgrounds but have monoracial identities, such as African Americans and Latino
Americans. Multiracial individuals seek to replace these one-dimensional identities with multidimensional
configurations. A multiracial identity is similar to, yet not synonymous with, an identity that is multiethnic in
nature. A multiethnic identity is displayed by individuals who consider themselves to be members of several
groups that are thought to be racially similar but culturally different, for example, individuals who are English
and German American or Chinese and Japanese American. Social inequality in the United States has been
determined more by notions of racial difference than by differences that are cultural in nature.

Children with One White, One Nonwhite Parent, by Race

Native American and white 34

Asian American and white 45
African American and white20
Source: Data are calculated from US 1990 Census of Population and appear in “Recommendations from the
Interagency Committee for the Review of the Racial and Ethnic Standards to the Office of Management and Budget
Concerning Changes to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, Notice,” Federal
Register, 62:36901, July 9, 1997.
A multiracial (or multiethnic) identity is not the same as a multicultural identity. A multicultural identity is
applicable to any individual who, irrespective of genealogy or ancestry, displays a general temperamental
openness and sensitivity to racial and cultural differences. These individuals have an affinity with the values,
beliefs, and customs of more than one racial or cultural group because of exposure to multiple racial and
cultural groups. Multiethnic individuals feel a sense of kinship with several groups in direct response to the
multiple cultural backgrounds in their genealogy. Similarly, multiracial individuals feel a sense of kinship with
those groups directly in response to the multiple racial backgrounds in their genealogy. Exposure to these
backgrounds enhances this feeling of kinship. Simple awareness of those backgrounds, however, can also
bring about this sentiment. A lack of contact does not prevent it from being present.

Impact on Theories of Marginality

Because of the multidimensional nature of their identity, multiracial individuals operate on the margins of
several racial groups. However, this marginality, or sense of being “betwixt and between,” does not necessarily
result in the personal alienation traditionally ascribed to this phenomenon. Those traditional frameworks
(particularly misinterpretations of sociologist Robert Ezra Park’s theories) were formulated before the 1970s.
They argued that marginality itself is necessarily pathological and the source of lifelong personal conflict.
Consequently, multiracial individuals supposedly felt divided and ambivalent about their group loyalties. This
interpretation is largely a result of the mutually exclusive nature of United States racial identities and a society
that historically has been hostile to the idea of a multiracial identity. These theorists paid little attention to the
sociological forces that made psychological functioning difficult for multiracial individuals and instead
characterized them as “psychologically dysfunctional” because this image was acceptable to then current
beliefs that sought to discourage miscegenation. These theorists thus distorted, or at least misinterpreted,
Park’s theory of marginality. They also overshadowed other contemporary theorists who argued that
marginality could provide individuals with a broader vision and wider range of sympathies because of their
ability to identify with more than one racial or cultural group.

The traditional theories of marginality were further challenged by data collected beginning in the 1980s. A
consensus was developing that multiracial-identified individuals, in their journey to reach racial and cultural
wholeness, may experience various ambiguities, strains, and conflicts. These phenomena come “naturally”
with marginality in a society that views racial identities as mutually exclusive categories of experience.
However, the negative feelings associated with marginality can be counterbalanced by an increased sensitivity
to commonalities and appreciation of racial and cultural differences in interpersonal and intergroup situations.

Impact on Intergroup Relations

The models of multiracial identity that have emerged since the dismantling of segregation laws in the 1950s
and 1960s challenge traditional US racial boundaries and categories in much the same way that their historical
predecessors did. These historical manifestations of multiracial identity include integration through “passing”
for a White person and the formation of rural enclaves and pluralistic urban elites, such as blue-vein societies
and Louisiana Creoles of color. However, those identities were motivated by the legal system of segregation,
which sought to control the potential “threat” to White dominance posed by individuals of color. Consequently,
they were not so much a response to the forced denial of European ancestry or cultural orientation as they
were a reaction to being subordinated and to being denied the privileges that these criteria implied. These
traditional identities also maintained the hierarchical value attached to racial differences by the larger society.
Such attitudes were the products of Eurocentrism and were responsible for colorism among Americans of
color. Colorism involves the preferential treatment of individuals who more closely approximate White people in
terms of consciousness, behavior, and phenotype within the various communities of color as well as the larger
society.
The “new” multiracial identity is not premised on the desire to gain privileges that would be precluded by
identifying as a person of color and therefore is not synonymous with the psychosocial pathology of colorism.
This identity instead contests the mutually exclusive nature of American racial boundaries and challenges the
hierarchical valuation of racial (and cultural) differences. A multiracial identity thus recognizes the
commonalities among various communities (integration) and, at the same time, appreciates the differences
(pluralism). More important, this identity is premised on an egalitarian dynamic between pluralism and
integration, which are viewed as relative, rather than absolute extremes, on a continuum of grays.

Bibliography

Funderburg, Lise. Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity. New York: Morrow,
1994. Print.

Jones, Nicholas, and Jungmiwha Bullock. “The Two or More Races Population: 2010.” 2010 Census Briefs.
Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, 2012. US Census Bureau. Web. 14 May. 2015.

Jones, Nicholas, et al. "2020 Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country." United States
Census Bureau, 12 Aug. 2021, www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-
reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html. Accessed 16 Dec. 2021.

Root, Maria P. P., ed. The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier. Thousand Oaks: Sage,
1996. Print.

Root, Maria P. P., ed. Racially Mixed People in America. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1992. Print.

Spickard, Paul R. Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in Twentieth-Century America. Madison: U of
Wisconsin P, 1989. Print.

United States. US Census Bureau. “2010 Census Shows Multiple-Race Population Grew Faster Than Single-
Race Population.” US Census Bureau. Dept. of Commerce, 27 Sept. 2012. Web. 14 May. 2015.

Zack, Naomi, ed. American Mixed Race: The Culture of Microdiversity. Lanham: Rowman, 1995. Print.

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Source: Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2022, 2p

Item: 96397514