Mixed Race Studies

Not keeping up appearances? Mixed race Asian Americans and the use of racial language

University of Utah
December 2009
76 pages

Paul Charles Humbert-Fisk

A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science

There has been a movement to proclaim that mixed race (biracial or multiracial) individuals transcend race or bring about an end to race and racism. In the U.S., many people also believe that they know race when they see it and that race can easily be pointed to, defined, and labeled. This language of race (which I am calling realist racial language) frames racial and ethnic identities as homogeneous, static, and as uncontested in terms of group membership. Many texts written by and about mixed race Asian Americans challenge both of these discourses about race. In this paper, I contend that the way race is commonly talked and written about is harmful to mixed race individuals. I examined the Pacific Citizen newspaper and the books What are you? and Part Asian: 100% Hapa for how mixed race Asian Americans narrate their experiences and contest, question, and subvert common sense notions of race. For many mixed race individuals, questions about race do not go away and instead race becomes pervasive in their lives. I use Foucault’s concept of surveillance to help understand the close scrutiny placed on mixed race individuals, through actions like asking “What are you?” I draw on Trinh Minh-ha’s approach by attempting to highlight and interrupt how “Truth” and validity are discursively created about race through the rules and regulations of (academic) disciplines. I believe that if teachers and scholars continue to rearticulate realist racial language in their discussions and analyses of race, they will continue to create problematic and deficit views of mixed race individuals.

Table of Contents

• ABSTRACT
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
  • Research Question
• DEBATES IN CRT ON ANALYZING ISSUES OF RACE
  • Intricacies of Race and Representation
• LIMITATIONS OF REALIST RACIAL LANGUAGE
  • Positionality
• DISCOURSES AND SURVEILLANCE OF RACE
• METHODS
• INTERPRETING MIXED RACE TEXTS
  • Defensive Interruptions
  • Questioning Interruptions
  • Productive Interruptions
• DISCUSSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR CRT/LATCRIT
• REFERENCES

Read the entire thesis here.