Mixed Race Studies

The New Color Complex: Appearances and Biracial Identity

Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research
2001
Volume 3, Number 1
Pags 29-52

David L. Brunsma, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Missouri, Columbia

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Illinois at Chicago

Ethnic identity research has largely focused on the identity choices of White ethnics (Alba, 1990; Ignatiev, 1995; Waters, 1990). One key factor in these choices is bodily appearance. We extend this research to Black and White Biracial individuals and examine the role that physical appearance plays in their “choices” of racial identity.  We test Rockquemore’s (1999) taxonomy of Biracial identity using survey data from a sample of 177 Biracial respondents. The results indicate that Biracial individuals do make choices within circumscribed cultural contexts and these understandings are influenced not by skin color, but by an actor’s assumption of how others perceive his or her appearance.

Read the entire article here.

Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America (Book Review)

Pychiatric Services
May 2003
Volume 54
Page 751
Published by The American Psychiatric Association

Maureen Slade, R.N., M.S., Director of Psychiatry
Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago

Brendan Slade-Smith
Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington

Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America
by Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David L. Brunsma; Thousand Oaks, California, Sage Publications, 2002, 178 pages.

Who is black today, and who will be black tomorrow? Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David L. Brunsma, two sociologists, decided to initiate a research project to study this complicated and highly controversial question, in part to provide sorely needed empirical data to facilitate informed discussions on multiracialism. The authors also hope that their book can be used as a resource to guide decisions about the inclusion of a multiracial category in the 2010 census. Rockquemore and Brunsma chose to focus specifically on individuals who have one black and one white parent.

Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America is composed of six chapters and is easy reading, while at the same time being intellectually stimulating and challenging. The first chapter lays the groundwork for explaining why it is necessary to study biracial identity formation in a scholarly fashion. This chapter includes a straightforward discussion of the role of slavery, the “one-drop” rule, miscegenation, the Jim Crow laws, and the civil rights era in the rigid categorization of blacks as a racial category in the United States. However, the most fascinating discussion is the identification and in-depth discussion of possible biracial identities…

Read the entire article here.

Interracial Families and the Racial Identification of Mixed-Race Children: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

Social Forces
Volume 84, Number 2 (December 2005)
pages 1131-1157
DOI: 10.1353/sof.2006.0007

David L. Brunsma, Professor of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

In this article, a nationally-representative sample of kindergarten-aged children is used from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to explore the structure of parental racial designation of mixed-race children. The variation in these parental designations of a variety of mixed-race children is described. Parental racial designations in the three most common majority-minority interracial couplings – White/Hispanic, Black/White and Asian/White – are predicted using multinomial logistic regression models. The results may indicate a movement by the parents of these multiracial children away from minority status through racial labeling and towards “multiracial” and “White” – movements that are predicated upon gender, class and context. Critical discussions of the implications of these results as well as directions for future research are offered.

Read or purchase the article here.

Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America (Second Edition)

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
December 2007
220 pages
Cloth ISBN: 0-7425-6054-6 / 978-0-7425-6054-3
Paper ISBN: 0-7425-6055-4 / 978-0-7425-6055-0

By Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David L. Brunsma
Foreword by Joe Feagin

Beyond Black is a groundbreaking study of the dynamic meaning of racial identity for multiracial people in post-Civil Rights America. Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David Brunsma document the wide range of racial identities that individuals with one Black and one White parent develop, and they provide a incisive sociological explanation of the choices facing those who are multiracial.

Stemming from the controversy of the 2000 Census and whether an additional “multiracial” category should be added to the survey, this second edition of Beyond Black uses both survey data and interviews of multiracial young adults to explore the contemporary dynamics of racial identity formation. The authors raise even larger social and political questions posed by expanding racial categorization on the U.S. Census.

About the Authors
Kerry Ann Rockquemore is associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and coauthor of Raising Biracial Children.

David L. Brunsma is associate professor of sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia and coeditor of The Sociology of Katrina: Perspectives on a Modern Catastrophe.

Table of Contents

• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword: Joe Feagin
• Chapter 1: Who is Black? Flux and Change in American Racial Identity
• Chapter 2: Biracial Identity Research: Past and Present
• Chapter 3: What it Means to be Mixed-Race in Post-Civil Rights America
• Chapter 4 : Sociological Factors Influencing Biracial Identity
• Chapter 5: The Color Complex: Appearances and Multiracial Identity
• Chapter 6: Who is Black Today and Who Will be Black Tomorrow?
• Endnotes
• Appendices
• References
• Index

Mixed Messages: Multiracial Identities in the “Color-Blind” Era

Lynne Rienner Publishers
2006
405 pages
Hardcover: ISBN: 978-1-58826-372-8
Paperback: ISBN: 978-1-58826-398-8

Edited by David L. Brunsma, Professor of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The experiences and voices of multiracial individuals are challenging current categories of race, profoundly altering the meaning of racial identity and in the process changing the cultural fabric of the nation. Exploring this new reality, the authors of Mixed Messages examine what we know about multiracial identities—and the implications of those identities for fundamental issues of justice and equality.

Read the entire introduction here.

Table of Contents

• Mixed Messages: Doing Race in the Color-Blind Era—David L. Brunsma
• SHIFTING COLOR LINES.
  • Defining Race: Comparative Perspectives—F. James Davis.
  • Black, Honorary White, White: The Future of Race in the United States?—Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and David G. Embrick.
  • Racial Justice in a Black/Nonblack Society—George Yancey.
  • Carving Out a Middle Ground: The Case of Hawai’i—Jeffrey Moniz and Paul Spickard.
  • New Racial Identities, Old Arguments: Continuing Biological Reification—Rainier Spencer.
  • Color Blindness: An Obstacle to Racial Justice?—Charles A. Gallagher.
  • Racism, Whitespace, and the Rise of the Neo-Mulattos—Hayward Derrick Horton.
• MANIPULATING MULTIRACIAL IDENTITIES.
  • Race, Multiraciality, and the Neoconservative Agenda—G. Reginald Daniel and Josef Manuel Castañeda-Liles.
  • White Separatists in the Color-Blind Era: Redefining Multiracial and White Identities—Abby L. Ferber.
  • Defining Racism to Achieve Goals: The Multiracial and Black Reparations Movements—Johanna E. Foster.
  • Selling Mixedness: Marketing with Multiracial Identities—Kimberly McClain DaCosta.
• SOCIALIZATION IN MULTIRACIAL FAMILIES.
  • It All Starts at Home: Racial Socialization in Multiracial Families—Kerry Ann Rockquemore,
    Tracey Laszloffy, and Julia Noveske.
  • Racial Logics and (Trans)Racial Identities: A View from Britain—France Winddance Twine.
  • Black and White: Family Opposition to Becoming Multiracial—Erica Chito Childs.
• DILEMMAS OF MULTIRACIAL IDENTITY.
  • Negotiating Racial Identity in Social Interactions—R. L’Heureux Lewis and Kanika Bell.
  • Black/White Friendships in a Color-Blind Society—Kathleen Korgen and Eileen O’Brien.
  • Black and Latino: Dominican Americans Negotiate Racial Worlds—Benjamin Bailey.
  • Finding a Home: Housing the Color Line—Heather Dalmage.
  • Confronting Racism in the Therapist’s Office—Kwame Owusu-Bempah.
  • Culture and Identity in Mixed-Race Women’s Lives—Debbie Storrs.

Race-ing and (E)race-ing the Child: Interracial Families Negotiate Racial Identification for their Multiracial Children

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
Marriott Hotel, Loews Philadelphia Hotel
Philadelphia, PA
2005-08-12

18 pages

David L. Brunsma, Professor of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

In this paper, a nationally-representative sample of kindergarten-aged children is used from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to explore the structure of parental racial designation of mixed-race children. The variation in these parental designations of a variety of combinations of mixed-race children is described. Parental racial designations in the three most common majority-minority interracial couplings – White/Hispanic, Black/White, and Asian/White – are predicted using multinomial logistic regression models. The results may indicate a movement by the parents of these multiracial children away from minority status through racial labeling and towards “multiracial” and “white” – movements that are predicated upon social class. A critical discussion of the implications of these results considers the multifaceted reasons why parents are deciding to racially label their children in the ways that they do.

Read the entire paper here.

Parental Communication and Its Influence on Biracial Identity

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the NCA 93rd Annual Convention, TBA
Chicago, IL
2007-11-15

27 pages
 
Carolyn Brooks

The Biracial identity development process has long been overlooked in society and in research. Few models exist and those models in existence are mostly descriptive. This paper focused on one of the major influential factors in a child’s identity development process – parental communication. The Parental Racial Socialization Communication Model (PRSC) is proposed. A parent’s view of the child’s Biracialness and view of the world impact two dimensions that construct a parent’s communication style. Those two dimensions are the approach technique and valence of racial socialization. Four parental racial socialization styles are created from those two dimensions and are examined as predictors of the child’s ethnic identity label (border, protean, transcendent, and traditional) and their racial-esteem (feelings associated with the label). This model is helpful for counseling practitioners working with this population and for the parents of Biracial children who want information on how best to communicate with their children. The Parental Racial Socialization Communication Model is a needed addition to the limited literature on Biracial identity development.

Introduction

A topic that has gained much interest over the past few decades is that of Biracial identity. The 2000 Census, which was the first Census providing individuals with the option of identifying with more than one racial group, made it clear that the number of Biracial individuals in the United States is increasing rapidly (Buckley & Carter, 2004). Before this, the historical One-Drop Rule, which stated that an individual with as little as one drop of Black blood would be considered Black, was prevalent (Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2004). Therefore, some concluded that Black identity models were sufficient for Black/White Biracial individuals. In the 1980’s, researchers began to recognize that Biracial individuals experience racial issues differently than Blacks and have begun to delve into various investigations to see what factors influence Biracial identity development. (Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2004).

The concept “Bi-racial identity,” however, is rarely defined or understood in any consistent manner in the existing literature. In many ways, Biracial identity appears to be a primitive term. However, various researchers examine Biracial identity in quite dissimilar ways, suggesting that the term Biracial identity is far from being understood. I define Biracial identity as an “emergent category of identification” (Rockquemore, 1998, p. 199) – singular, border, protean, or transcendent – for people with parents that are of “two different socially designated racial groups” (Root, 1996, p. ix). This identification, from which one attempts to gain a sense of self, is a choice based on a continuous process of interactions with one’s family, social network, and society, which are largely influenced by one’s appearance. The central question to be explored here is how parents of Biracial children communicatively influence their child’s Biracial identity development.

This question is not one that appears in most of the literature on this topic. The majority of the models proposed in this field are descriptive, based on qualitative data, and lack process. Thus, an understanding of what factors and how the factors influence Biracial identity has not yet been achieved. Although prior work has primarily been descriptive, they provide a substantial foundation upon which more predictive models can be built (Poston, 1990). The literature on racial identity suggests that parental influence is important in the identity development of their children, as parents are the “primary socializing agents” of their children (Hughes, 2003, p. 15). Hence, the scope of this paper is to examine one of those factors – parental influence and develop a model that has a process and predictive power. The following review of the Biracial identity literature will reveal just how integral parental influence seems to be in the racial identity process for Biracial children…

Read the entire paper here.

Volume 65, Number 1 issue of Journal of Social Issues, (published by The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues) is entirely focused on mixed-race issues.

Journal of Social Issues
Volume 65, Number 1
pages 1-245
2009-03

You can read this issue online for free here or click on the individual articles below.

OVERVIEW AND INTRODUCTION

• When Race Becomes Even More Complex: Toward Understanding the Landscape of Multiracial Identity and Experiences (p 1-11); Margaret Shih, Diana T. Sanchez

MULTIRACIAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION

• Racing to Theory or Retheorizing Race? Understanding the Struggle to Build a Multiracial Identity Theory (p 13-34); Kerry Ann Rockquemore, David L. Brunsma, Daniel J. Delgado
• The Interpretation of Multiracial Status and Its Relation to Social Engagement and Psychological Well-Being (p 35-49); Kevin R. Binning, Miguel M. Unzueta, Yuen J. Huo, Ludwin E. Molina
• Multiracial Identity Integration: Perceptions of Conflict and Distance among Multiracial Individuals (p 51-68); Chi-Ying Cheng, Fiona Lee

MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE’S VIEWS OF RACE

• Multiracial Faces: How Categorization Affects Memory at the Boundaries of Race (p 69-86); Kristin Pauker, Nalini Ambady
• Exploring Multiracial Individuals’ Comfort with Intimate Interracial Relationships (p 87-103); Courtney M. Bonam, Margaret Shih

PERCEPTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE

• Policing the Borderlands: White- and Black-American Newspaper Perceptions of Multiracial Heritage and the Idea of Race, 1996–2006 (p 105-127); Michael C. Thornton
• To Disclose or Not to Disclose Biracial Identity: The Effect of Biracial Disclosure on Perceiver Evaluations and Target Responses (p 129-149); Diana T. Sanchez, Courtney M. Bonam

PUBLIC POLICIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES FOR MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE

• Is Valuing Equality Enough? Equality Values, Allophilia, and Social Policy Support for Multiracial Individuals (p 151-163); Todd L. Pittinsky, R. Matthew Montoya
• Educational Policy, Politics, and Mixed Heritage Students in the United States (p 165-183); Kristen A. Renn
• My Choice, Your Categories: The Denial of Multiracial Identities (p 185-204); Sarah S. M. Townsend, Hazel R. Markus, Hilary B. Bergsieker

COMMENTARY

• Plus ça Change? Multiraciality and the Dynamics of Race Relations in the United States (p 205-219); Frank D. Bean, Jennifer Lee

Racing to Theory or Retheorizing Race? Understanding the Struggle to Build a Multiracial Identity Theory

Journal of Social Issues
2009
Volume 65, Number 1
pp. 13–34

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Associate Professor
University of Illinois at Chicago

David L. Brunsma, Professor of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Daniel J. Delgado
University of Missouri-Columbia

Empirical research on the growing multiracial population in the United States has focused largely on the documentation of racial identification, analysis of psychological adjustment, and understanding the broader political consequences of mixed-race identification. Efforts toward theory construction on multiracial identity development, however, have been largely disconnected from empirical data, mired in disciplinary debates, and bound by historically specific assumptions about race and racial group membership. This study provides a critical overview of multiracial identity development theories, examines the links between theory and research, explores the challenges to multiracial identity theory construction, and proposes considerations for future directions in theorizing racial identity development among the mixed-race population.

Read the entire article for free here.