Mixed Race Studies

Stories of Multiracial Experiences in Literature for Children, Ages 9–14

Children’s Literature in Education
December 2013, Volume 44, Issue 4
pages 359-376
DOI: 10.1007/s10583-013-9196-5

Amina Chaudhri, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education
Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago

William H. Teale, Professor of Literacy, Language and Culture
University of Illinois, Chicago

This study analyzed 90 realistic novels written and published in the United States between the years 2000 and 2010 and featuring mixed race characters. The researchers examined specific textual features of these works of contemporary and historical fiction and employed Critical Race Theory to contextualize the books within paradigms about multiracial identity. Findings indicated three broad trends in representations of mixed race identity with an almost equal number of novels falling among three descriptive categories. Books in the Mixed Race In/Visibility category depicted stereotypical experiences and provided little or no opportunity for critique of racism. Mixed Race Blending books featured characters whose mixed race identity was descriptive but not functional in their lives. Mixed Race Awareness books represented a range of possible life experiences for biracial characters who responded to social discomfort about their racial identity in complex and credible ways. This study has implications for research and pedagogy in the fields of education and children’s literature as they expand to become more inclusive of this type of diversity.

Introduction

There has long been, and continues to be, debate about what literature “is” and the roles it plays in people’s lives (Garber, 2011; Kant, 1892): Does it serve social ends? Moral ends? Is it fundamentally an aesthetic experience? But no matter what one’s beliefs about literature’s purposes, theory and research in children’s literature make one thing clear: literature can serve as a tool for growth, a significant factor in children’s identity formation (Gee, 2001; Heath, 2011). Thus, the content of what is available for children to read and what teachers select for use in their classrooms can influence the direction of children’s growth.

Over the past two decades in the United States, as issues of multiculturalism and civil and human rights have become more prominent on the cultural landscape, identity-based movements have received increasing attention. One issue in this realm that is currently taking on increased significance is mixed race/multiracial identity. In the 1990s, pressure from groups such as Project RACE and The Association for MultiEthnic Americans forced Congress to urge a change in the U.S. Census standards. Accordingly, the 2000 Census allowed Americans to “mark one or more” racial categories, and 6.8 million people identified as multiracial. In 2010 that number increased to 9 million. These figures suggest a significant shift in the ways Americans view themselves racially.

Parallel to the ways that feminist, civil rights, and LGBTQ movements have impacted the creation of various bodies of literature, the multiracial movement can be viewed as influencing the work being published as children’s literature. Whether young readers are actively seeking racial affirmation or looking for insights into others not like themselves, representation in bcx)ks can explicitly or subliminally influence understanding of racial identity. Accordingly, we examined all the children’s books we were able to identify using various processes (described below) featuring multiracial characters that were deemed appropriate for 9-14 year-olds and were published between 2000 and 2010 in order to get a sense of what young readers might understand about multiracial identity as imagined by the authors of these works.

Stones of Multiracial Experiences

Novels featuring mixed race characters are generally folded into the larger category of multicultural literature and frequently are classified according to the non-white element in the story. In some respects, in the U.S. context, creators are ahead of researchers in addressing the role of mixed race for readers in the 9-14 age group. Authors such as Jacqueline Woodson, Mildred Taylor, Jamie Adoff, Sharon Flake, and Richard Peck, for example, have been including characters of mixed racial heritage and addressing this heritage as a central feature of their stories.

In general, the hotly of research in multicultural literature makes only sporadic or tangential mention of mixed race issues. Yokota and Frost (2002/2003), Smith (2001a), Sands-O’Connor (2001), and Reynolds (2009) have written specifically about multiracial characters in literature, but this work has not comprehensively examined novels written for the intermediate/middle school student. The relative lack…