Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-05-18
Brittany Wong, Bruin contributor
When President Barack Obama got to Question No. 9 on the 2010 Census, he did what mixed-race respondents nationwide were asked to do: pare down and define his complex racial background by checking all the boxes he saw fit.
His decision to exclusively check “Black, African Am., or Negro” and the fractured response that followed speaks to the complex nature of being mixed race today, said Kyeyoung Park, an associate professor of sociocultural anthropology at UCLA who teaches a class about race.
A new generation of mixed-race people are coming into their own this decade, and as they do, many are more comfortable self-identifying in a way that encompasses all of their background, Park said…
…Miguel Unzueta, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management who conducted a study that showed that self-identified mixed-race children were better adjusted in school, said he was somewhat surprised by Obama’s decision. Given the president’s discussion of his mixed heritage during the primaries, he said he expected a census answer more in line with his talk on the campaign trail.
But the decision also speaks to the reality that the way Americans talk about race is not always the way they think, he said.
“I think people are more comfortable with having a mixed-race background, but there still isn’t a label that we’re comfortable with in society,” Unzueta said…
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