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Overview of Literature on Mixed-Race/Multiracial Students

There is little empirical research examining how schools influence the racial identity choices of multiracial students, in particular mixed-race students who identify as American Indian. Even more troubling is the lack of literature on the experiences of mixed-race students using racial identity choice as a social and political tool to negotiate race discourse, actions, and spaces. Therefore, piecing together a concise and appropriate literature review is a challenge. Nevertheless, my aim is to argue the need to look at the relationship between the racial agency of multiracial students and the larger white supremacist social structure. In order to present a broad view of the social and schooling contexts in which mixed-race people operate as active agents of racial classification schemes, this literature review will focus on two areas: (1) the politics of multiracialism, and (2) empirical research on the identity politics of multiracial students. Although I have studied one or more mixed-race categories in my data collection, this literature review focuses primarily on black, American Indian, Hispanic, and white mixedness.

In looking at current research on multiracials in the United States, it is necessary to understand the debate over the creation of a “multiracial” group. The two main factions are those in favor of a government-recognized multiracial category, the “advocates,” and those who are opposed to it, the “refuters” (Spencer 2006a). The key point of disagreement between advocates and refuters lies in the way each camp interprets the meaning and purpose of racial classification. Advocates cast racial classification in individualist terms. They argue that a multiracial category is an identity choice selected from among a variety of racial category options that should be available to individual mixed-race people (DaCosta 2007). Spencer (2006a) explains that “the ‘advocates’ of multiracial identity choice tend to operate from the assumption, necessitated by its fundamental position (whether admitted or not), that biological race exists as a physical reality” (2). Therefore, the advocates assume that individual mixed-race people need a multiracial category that reflects their biological reality. Conversely, the refuters criticize the biological constructs of race, arguing that race is a social and political construct. Refuters oppose a multiracial category also because they believe it takes political strength away from existing races, such as blacks. They believe that multiracials should choose an existing monoracial category.

The most contentious argument dividing the advocates and refuters is based on the situatedness of a multiracial category within the fact that race is a social process. Omi and Winant’s 1994 Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s argued that racial formation occurs at both macro and micro levels. Omi and Winant (1986) note, “The meaning of race is defined and contested throughout society, in both collective action and personal practice. In this process, racial categories themselves are formed, transformed, destroyed, and reformed . . . Racial formation . . . is the process by which social, economic and political forces determine the content of importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings. Crucial to this formulation is the treatment of race as a central axis of social relations, which cannot be subsumed under or reduced to some broader category or conception” (61–62).

Race, then, can be explained as a macro-level social process that is constructed as a collective body focused on the formation of structural sites of contestation, such as economic, political, and ideological (Omi and Winant 1986). Thus, a macro level of larger social forces and political projects influences the racial identity choices of multiracials. At the micro level, the individual identity choice of multiracials can be seen as an individual act of race being used for reasons of self-interest or social and political gain (Omi and Winant 1994). The macro forces operate beyond the micro individual racial identity choice. Currently, the macro forces that are supporting the use of a multiracial category fail to acknowledge the hierarchical system that is in place. The push for a multiracial category must then be seen as a kind of political project in which attention is being diverted from the real issue of racial hierarchy and the interests of whites are being concealed. Therefore, the discourse surrounding multiracial politics must be examined to see how multiracials are being positioned relative to other groups within the racialized US social system.

To critically analyze the debate, we must see the arguments of advocates and refuters through the lens of whose group or individual interests are being assisted or disenfranchised. Who are the stakeholders of each camp and what is their racial agenda? What does each have to gain relative to other racial groups? A common denominator in the majority of these discussions is that both sides ignore how mixed-race politics create divisions among three key groups: blacks who do not see themselves as mixed, blacks who claim a mixed identity, and people who claim a nonwhite mixed identity. Nonetheless, the macro societal and political influences of race create an atmosphere in which a multiracial category does not challenge the overarching racialized social system. For example, the opportunity to choose distinct, more complex identities through support of a multiracial category can create further disenfranchisement for certain race groups; the rules change and along with them so will the racial politics. However, it is important to note that a multiracial category will give certain multiracials a tool to navigate pro-white realms if they align themselves with whiteness.

In examining the factors that influence racial identity choice among mixed-race people, a critical lens is important for questioning the power dynamics at play. Through the use of a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens, one may see how race can be both asserted and assigned. CRT helps to reveal how white supremacy scripts the participation of mixed-race people in both ascribed and asserted racial identifications. It also provides a guide for defining a new discourse for mixed-race people.

According to Allen (2006), CRT explores more deeply the nature of white supremacy. Questioning the reality of whiteness brings to light exactly how and why certain mixed-race individuals are or are not recognized as mixed race. It pinpoints the source of their status within a racial hierarchy. “CRT challenges the ways in which notions such as objectivity, neutrality, meritocracy, and color blindness are used to construct White supremacy” (11).

Since there has been a surge of interest in mixed-race identity choice, it is important to consider if this emerging attention will create space for dialogue on issues of historical processes. For example, the Comanche captivity of girls and women created the historical formation of New Mexican mestizas/os or Mexicanness (of mixed-race Spanish and American Indian ancestry), which served as an identity counterpart to “Spanish American” identity development in New Mexico. Consequently, this new Spanish American identity was the byproduct of white racism targeting American Indians and Mexicans. The outcome was an identity that contextually positioned those who could identify as Spanish American, and thus as more purely European, in a higher group status. The Comanches’ captivity of Spanish/American Indian females in the Southwest “helped to produce and spread influential ideas about ‘Mexicanness’ that tended to transform older colonial hierarchies of Spaniards and Indians in New Mexico” (Marez 2001, 271). The most immediate consequence of Spanish American identity was an increase in racial division. A non-Mexicanness or American Indian identity coincided with escalating levels of racial inequality alongside a slightly altered form of Spanish American white supremacy. Nieto-Phillips (2004) states, “The making of Spanish American identity offers a sometimes discomforting glimpse into the making of whiteness” (11).

When considering the dialectical relationship between Mexicans/mestizas/os and Spanish Americans in New Mexico, the following account by Nieto-Phillips (2004) is instructive: “The initial ‘contaminant’ of Spanish blood in America was ‘Indian’ blood: however, with the spread of African slavery, so-called negros (Blacks) also became an additional referent against which Spanish identity would be cast. Like Indians, African slaves were diverse in origin and culture, yet, in Spanish eyes, they too were seen as a singular, inferior people. The objectified Indian and African represented the antithesis to Spanish spiritual, racial, and cultural identity” (23).

This perspective of certain mixed-race unions and their status within a racial hierarchy is embedded within the existing rankings and inequalities of a white supremacist racial order. Allen (2006) explains, “Various race discourses totally miss the ideological and material dimensions of White supremacy” (12). And the inability of advocates of a mixed-race identity choice to see the permanent imbalances of power blinds them to the reality of how the social distance between mixed-race people and whites is also a function of the social distance between all racial groups. After all, white supremacy “determines relations of power, the re/production of labor divisions and property, the construction of social status, and the context and script of race struggles” (10).

Contrary to the beliefs of many advocates, a multiracial category neither stops white people from being blind to the realities of race nor challenges them to see themselves in explicitly racial terms. Although white people may not want to acknowledge individual and institutional white privilege, whiteness is linked to the reasons why various people of color will use a multiracial category to gain access to white identities and white privilege by identifying with a racial group, that is, multiracials, who are seen as being closer to white. In other words, my argument is that a multiracial category reinforces rather than challenges whiteness. To explain my assertion, I will focus on four main points: (1) the substitution of one race essentialism for another, (2) a color-blind multiracial agenda, (3) expanding the boundaries of whiteness, and (4) the resurrection of racial classification.

First, advocates’ support of a multiracial category ultimately embraces the substitution of one race essentialist notion for another (Spencer 2006a). In other words, “multiracial” paradoxically becomes just one more monoracial category in a classification scheme designed around monoraciality. Also, multiracial would be (is) assigned a higher status than black and gives multiracials with black ancestry the possibility to be something other than black. The result is that it “reinscribes and reproduces Blackness in an essentialized and overtly biological way” (Spencer 2006b, 85). The advocate perspective fails to use a political focus on cross-racial alliances to dismantle the social formation of race, assuming naively that the multiracial category will disrupt the whole notion of classification and thus racism itself. In the process, it only reinforces the existing racial hierarchy by adding one more rung to the middle of the ladder. For example, Delpit (1995) asserts, “If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier” (25). The advocates of a multiracial category clearly believe that whiteness is attainable through the biological aspects of phenotype and skin tone and the cultural aspects of assimilating to whiteness. This requires an understanding to some extent of the white cultural ways of being. It requires cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986), which corresponds to the positionality of whites in the larger racial order. The advocacy for a multiracial category creates insider versus outsider positionalities vis-à-vis the white culture of power.

The reality is that issues of race cannot easily be separated from issues of power that have been historically embedded in society. For example, if advocacy for a multiracial category is blind to the operations of the culture of power, that creates discrimination effects for blacks and those of black heritage. As such, I would argue that those who advocate for a multiracial category are, consciously or not, oppressing others. Furthermore, Spencer (1997) accuses advocates of trying to create a three-tiered racial hierarchy (Allen 2005; Bonilla-Silva 2005) similar to the one in South Africa: whites on top, multiracials in the middle, and blacks on the bottom. Spencer (1999) asserts, “The challenge for America lies in determining how to move away from the fallacy of race while remaining aggressive in the battle against racism” (167). Adding another category will do little to change the problematic relations between racial groups.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the advocates’ position is how they claim to be challenging race essentialism while at the same time reinforcing it. Race essentialism manifests itself in the attempt to define race by physical differences. Race essentialism is used as a mechanism of social division and racial stratification. The term race, in this view, refers solely to a group of people who have in common some visible physical traits, such as skin color, hair texture, facial features, and eye shape (Cramer 2005; Garroutte 2003; Hunter 2005; Lee 2005; Lewis 2005; Lopez 2003). As a result, such distinct phenotypic features are associated with racial membership. One’s membership in a race is questioned if one does not possess these “essential” physical traits. Race essentialism, from a biological race perspective, places people into fixed, seemingly natural racialized categories.

Consequently, phenotypic features are symbols of race identity and status, whether we like it or not, because social interactions are shaped through the lens of biological race. Seeing race this way also plays into assigning differential human value to members of different racial groups, thus reinforcing the white supremacist belief in the inherent inferiority of people of color. Such beliefs eventually became institutionalized, reinforcing and reproducing systems of social inequality and status differences. For example, race essentialism was employed to create an inferior social status for people of African or black ancestry, which was reinforced and perpetuated through social mechanisms worldwide. In the United States, one of these social mechanisms was social Darwinism (Snipp 2002). From a racial perspective, social Darwinism was the idea that white nations had to civilize the “colored” nations of the world. Also, Darwin’s theory of evolution was used to distinguish differences between races based on genetic branching and natural selection. This was modified in such versions of social Darwinism into the belief that the white race was the greatest because it had an attitude of superiority and a will to conquer. Such beliefs reinforced structured white power and privilege. White dominance was considered an example of natural law—survival of the fittest. Race became a societal manifestation of identity and differences, with the white race on top and other races perpetually at the bottom. Also, race became the biological placeholder that labeled and categorized one’s intelligence and human potential within society. As Thompson (2005) explains, “The racial classification developed during and after the colonial era ordered races into a system which claimed to identify behavior expectations and human potential, and hence carried with it an implication for a hierarchy of humankind” (61). The design of racial boundaries was a deliberate attempt to separate inferior and superior races to encourage and legally engrain the principle of purity within a race paradigm. Advocates of a multiracial category strengthen the ideology of biological race when they use notions of hereditary determinism, such as blood quantum and superior versus inferior mixed-race unions, in their alleged “advocacy” for mixed-race people.

There is a debate among the advocates and the refuters about the degree to which even the discussion of multiraciality reinforces existing races as pure, fixed, and static categories (Chandler 1997). The history of the construction of the black and white races, for example, reveals that these groups are anything but pure, fixed, and static. In fact, their construct has been complicated, messy, arbitrary, and political. For example, in order to be classified as white in the United States, an individual needs to have white ancestry. However, through the “one-drop rule,” or hypodescent, even one black ancestor classifies an individual as black. Hypodescent reinforces a race essentialist ideology intended to maintain white racial purity because it focuses on the inheritance of only the lowest-status race of one’s ancestors. Also, Thompson (2005) explains the concerns over mixed-race people as the pollution of the purity of both races. As Zack (1995) points out, “Race always means pure race, the opposite of race is not racelessness but racial impurity” (301). Further, as Goldberg (2001) states, “The concern over race increasingly became about the nature and discipline, aesthetics and morality of public space, about who can be seen where and in what capacity. Thus, the moral panic over miscegenation was driven not simply by the distributed imaginary of mixed sex, with the feared moral degeneracy of black bodies consorting with white, though it was clearly that. Increasingly, such panic was expressed as anxiety regarding mixed offspring, and so the makeup and look, the peopling of and demographic power over public space” (179). Furthering this point, Thompson (2005) says, “With society divided in broad strokes of black and white, any instance of racial mixing was deemed to be a threat to the purity of the white race” (71). More important, the idea of race purity was originated to deny mixed-race people access to privilege in colonial times, such as freedom from slavery (Spickard 1989; Williamson 1995). The boundaries among races were solidified through rules of hypodescent and miscegenation as entrenched mechanisms to protect white purity and privilege. Race essentialism reinforced and reproduced the discourse that multiracials are problems because they are marginalized between two or more races. Stonequist’s (1937) “Marginal Man” was a devastating image for mixed-race people. It cast mixed-race people in the role of being “hopelessly maladjusted,” which supported the race essentialist discourse that unions between “inferior” and “superior” races create offspring who do not know their place and the world and are thus lost souls.

Just as troubling, the advocates, as a group, do not link their efforts with any broader racial or social justice efforts, such as the movement to abolish racial categorization altogether. Furthermore, the advocates are obscure on the political articulation of multiracialism as well as the effort to use the resurrection of racial classification to lessen racial tensions instead of in the service of self-interest.

A refuter’s stance on a multiracial category is that mixed-race people should choose an existing racial category. The category they select should be dependent upon a mixed-race person’s racial inheritance. This inheritance includes social affiliation, behavior, place of residence, and occupation. For example, censuses from the 1920s through the 1960s assigned monoracial status to offspring of “mixed-blood” unions. Racial assignments were based on various factors in addition to perceptions of phenotype. Morning (2003) explains that a mixed-race ancestry could be assigned based on a status position of high or low: “Individuals of White and Indian origin could be designated as white if their communities recognized them as such, and those of indian [American Indian] and black origin could be recorded as indian [American Indian]. In contrast, mulattos were afforded no such options; no amount of community recognition could legitimate the transformation from black to white” (47). However, in the 1930s many of African descent were reclassified as Negro as opposed to American Indian. In all, it is estimated that 75 to 90 percent of the black population is mixed race although historical practices of race construction have lumped them together into a monolithic black category (Wright 1994).

Race historically became naturalized with political positionality. Furthermore, the discourse of race essentialism and racism only reproduces and reinforces the concept of borderism or racial categorization. This tendency ignores how the process of labeling oversimplifies the ways race is experienced and the complexity between individual and social definitions of race. A review of racial essentialism literature finds a lack of dialogue regarding the fact that essentialist thinking and language are so deeply embedded in our society that many new political movements, such as advocacy of a multiracial category, will continue to recycle ideologies upholding a racial categorization that protects white privilege and power.

Jones (1995) critiques the essentialist articulations of many mixed-race advocates: “Are we [i.e., multiracials] special? The census movement and its ‘interracial/biracial nationalists,’ as I refer to them playfully, claim biraciality as a mark of ‘racial’ singularity, one that in America (where most racial groups are multiethnic and multicultural) has little grounding. Their insistence of biraciality’s unique status borders on elitism. They marvel at the perks of biraciality: That biracials have several cultures at their disposal. Can you fight essentialism with essentialism? Are we to believe that all biracials are chosen people, free of prejudice, self-interest, and Republican Christian fundamentalism?” (58–59) Jones’s point of view directly challenges the political divisions created by a polity of multiracial nationalists who contradict their own stated beliefs by substituting one race essentialist notion for another. Therefore, the distinctions based on multiracial labels become political tools to measure strength of identity and how society parcels out resources and privileges. While embracing white notions of race cataloging, some races, such as blacks, are trapped by a system that serves to reinforce what racists have long advocated. In this regard, white definitions of whiteness and race are the determinant of racial status based on race essentialism. A multiracial category, as it has been positioned, is a danger to authentic antiracist endeavors.

In pushing multiracials to pick an existing racial category, the refuters of a multiracial category appear to be arguing for a type of “strategic essentialism.” Spivak (1995) argues that strategic essentialism is “risking essentialism” as a useful tool to achieve social aims and/or goals; essentialism is at times necessary for political action. Strategic essentialism calls for individuals to be accountable to members of a social identity group to which they belong in order to create an organized social movement. The argument is that though an individual can be a member of a number of social identity groups, some identity issues need more immediate attention than others. Therefore, an individual would, to a certain extent, subordinate some identity issues to others for the purpose of political pragmatism. A strategic essentialist view of multiracialism asks mixed-race people to make a political choice and choose sides, so to speak, for the greater cause of antiracist action. After all, multiracial people already exist within the recognized racial groups.

A multiracial category brings to the forefront the power inherent in names, labels, and especially the meanings attached to them. As Thompson says, “Racial identification also presents a practical problem. Racial identification is problematic in terms of labeling because it involves labeling oneself and the people with whom one identifies. This creates the same problem as in any situation. People interact through the filter of the label. They make assumptions about each other” (2005, 104; see also Stubblefield 2001, 341–68). Thorton (1992) brings out an important point: “By definition, racial labels are tools used to categorize and to separate and/or exclude” (325). A refuter’s strategic race essentialist view, though well intentioned, functions to separate distinct racial groups because its focus is on the “proper” placement within a racial group rather than the interracial politics between groups that are part and parcel of the divide and conquer strategy of white supremacy. As such, refuters advance the political and social agendas of the dominant group because they fail to explore how “choosing sides” may accomplish little in undoing the differential statuses of the races.

Multiracial discourse also supports a color-blind agenda. Color-blind ideologies assert a race-neutral social context that stigmatizes attempts to raise questions about addressing racial inequality in daily life (Bonilla-Silva 2001; Taylor 1998). Color-blind ideologies tend to substitute cultural racism for older notions of genetic or biological racism, creating a filtered vision of America in which individuals are allegedly evaluated by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin (Bonilla-Silva 2001). In reality, supporters of a color-blind ideology are primarily whites who discount the existence of systemic racism and structural white privilege. Color-blind ideology normalizes whiteness, thereby reinforcing and reproducing a system of racial division. Individual acts of discrimination are not isolated aberrations but rather reflect a larger white hegemony (Taylor 1998). Taylor further explains, “The danger of color blindness is that it allows us to ignore the racial construction of whiteness and reinforces its privileged and oppressive position. Thus, whiteness remains the normative standard and blackness remains different, other, and marginal. Even worse, by insisting on a rhetoric that disallows reference to race, blacks can no longer name their reality or point out racism” (123).

Color-blindness results in the evolution of new forms of racism, including the whitening of immigrants and reclassification of many newcomers as white or something close to white. Bonilla-Silva and Embrick (2006) describe “a three-tiered ‘new racial reality’ as (1) creating an intermediate racial group to buffer racial conflict; (2) allowing some newcomers into the white racial strata; (3) incorporating most immigrants into the collective black strata” (37).¹ As a result of racialized labeling within society, the acceptance of a buffer group status has led to new specific racial codes that now allow some to become newcomers into the White racial strata while others are deemed as the collective black.

This means that the one-drop rule has, at least for now, been modified. One possible reason for this is that in the 1960s whites felt pressured to give in to the civil rights demands of people of color and were not able to bring in a large group of white immigrants, as they had in the past, to form a large white coalition to subdue people of color. Miller (1992) describes how ancestry is centered on the preservation of the social power of the dominant (white) society: “Part of the function of the ‘one-drop rule’ . . . was to preserve the purity of white society, and thereby limit access to economic (and political) control by people other than whites. When a relationship exists of economic dependency by one group on another group, an interracial or interethnic background may be stigmatized because it represents a threat to the controlling group’s power” (26). The one-drop rule is thus a manifestation of white political power within a given historical context. That historical context has now changed. Whites now need those who may not have been seen as white under the one-drop rule to become members of the white race, or at least close allies, in order to create a dominant antiblack racial coalition.

The refuters of a multiracial category advance a different color-blind point of view. Dalmage (2003) explains that many color-blind advocates suggest that their policies protect individual liberties in a society that asserts that ace does not matter nor determine social outcomes. Zack (1995) included the following testimony of Carlos Fernandez on behalf of the Association of Multiethnic Americans (AMEA) before the Subcommittee on Census, Statistics and Postal Personnel of the US House of Representatives. Fernandez (1995) argued for the acceptance of a multiracial category that would assist those of multiracial classification to “avoid unnecessary and unwarranted government influence and interference in the very sensitive and private matter of personal identity” (195). Fernandez’s statement highlights individual liberties rather than social justice for group liberties. Another example of individual liberties would be Root’s (1996) “A Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People”: “I have the right . . . ‘instead of’ we have the right,” which, according to Omi and Winant (1994), is a micro-level perspective of the social process of racial formation that is individualistic and that also supports individual liberties rather than social justice for group liberties.

A more appropriate contextualization of the notion of liberty is Roberts’s (1997) suggestion: “Liberty protects all citizens’ choices from the most direct and egregious abuses of government power, but it does nothing to dismantle social arrangements that make it impossible for some people to make a choice in the first place. Liberty guards against government intrusion; it does not guarantee social justice” (294). In other words, individual freedom more often than not has negative consequences for others. Having the freedom to choose a racial category does little to change material racist practices of discrimination, inequitable housing, and employment opportunities. Dalmage’s (2003) and Roberts’s (1997) arguments are similar in that they agree that government support for color-blind policies only reproduces and reinforces a system of white supremacy because the material and ideological conditions are not changed.

Another contradictory yet characteristic debate surrounding a multiracial category involves the use of multiracial identity to expand the boundaries of whiteness. Gallagher (2004) argues that the white racial category is expanding to include ethnic and racial groups recognized as socially, culturally, and physically similar to the dominant group. Throughout the history of the social formation of race, groups that were once on the margins of whiteness, such as the Greeks, Irish, and Italians, are now part of the dominant group. The advocates of a multiracial category are rearticulating racial meanings for a multiracial identity, which will create opportunities for some light-skinned, middle-class Latinos/as and mixed-race Asians for inclusion as their ideological views of other mixed-race people and monoracials are transformed in the new tripartite racial system. Also, Gallagher (2004) suggests that as a result of the expanding boundaries of whiteness, “those groups that do not conform to cultural and physical expectations of white middle class norms, namely blacks and dark-skinned Latinos/as who are poor, will be stigmatized and cut off from the resources whites have been able to monopolize” (60).

Advocates of a multiracial category have not attracted a diverse participation racially or socioeconomically to their movement. Instead, a multiracial category serves the social and political agendas of specific camps to create a new form of racial classification that is masked to embrace a racial hierarchy and a biological construct of race. As stated previously, some groups, such as lighter-skinned Hispanics and Asians, have become “honorary whites” and would likely classify themselves as white if they had white ancestry (Allen 2005; Bonilla-Silva and Embrick 2006). However, darker-skinned individuals would not be allowed that same privilege. The larger argument is that while there are rising rates of intermarriage that may indicate fading group boundaries for certain racial groups like lighter-skinned Hispanics and Asians, the experiences of blacks and multiracials with black heritage will often be the opposite: they will find increasing boundaries, such as the changing political attitudes of nonwhites. Although there may be an increase in intermarriages and thus mixed-race babies, a multiracial category can still function as a political symbol for the emergence of a white/nonwhite divide in which blacks will remain disadvantaged relative to other groups.

Alliances between whites and nonblacks help to reinforce the normalcy of whiteness. They also further create a divide between honorary whites, blacks, and dark-skinned Latinas/os because these new honorary whites are given privileges and access that is unavailable to other nonwhites. For example, DaCosta’s (2007) findings on the trajectory of intermarriage suggest that “Asians and Latinos in the United States have fairly high rates of outmarriage (compared to African Americans) . . . Almost 30 percent of Asians (27.2 percent) and Latinos (28.4 percent) outmarry while only 10.2 percent of blacks do. Intermarriage rates with whites for Asians, Latinos, and American Indians are comparable to those of Southern and Eastern European immigrants in the early twentieth century who, through intermarriage with American-born whites, expanded the definition of who is white. Latino and Asian intermarriage appears to be following a similar trajectory” (9). According to the 2000 census figures, blacks are less likely than Latinos and Asians to identify as multiracial. DaCosta states, “Of all those who reported being black, 4.8 percent indicated multiple racial identifications compared to 13.9 percent of Asians” (9). Also, the Latino identification of “some other race” category was 17.1 percent (9).

Gallagher (2004) suggests that once whites and nonblacks establish similar ideological beliefs, interracial relationships between members of these groups and blacks will come to an end. The outcome of disenfranchising blacks is to create political power alliances in numbers to maintain white privilege and reproduce the racial hierarchy. For example, Gallagher states that a 2000 study by the National Health Interview Surveys allowed mixed-race participants to select more than one race. But it also asked them to indicate their “main” race, that is, the race with which they most identified. More than 46 percent of those who marked white and Asian as their racial identity chose white as their main race, 81 percent of those who identified as white and American Indian marked white as their main race, and only 25 percent of those who marked black and white chose white as their main race. In the 2000 census data, 48 percent of the Latino population identified as white. Furthermore, Root (2001) suggests that the remnants of caste status remain most attached to people of observed or perceived African or black descent because race is still a factor in our nation’s racialized history, as suggested by the Nation Health Interview Survey data. The essentializing of multiracials, that is, acting as if all multiracials experience race the same way, thus conceals that multiracialism hides the growing divisions between black and nonblack realities.

Bonilla-Silva and Embrick (2006) predict that the expanding boundaries of whiteness will in the next few decades include “traditional whites, new White immigrants, assimilated Latinos, some light skinned multiracials and some Asian Americans” (33). These boundaries are drawn based on emerging changes in the perception of phenotypic characteristics. For refuters of a multiracial category, the expansion of the boundaries of whiteness and multiracial identity choice will become a process of “whitening” to uphold white ideological dominance with an exacerbated antiblack sentiment. It is foreseeable that lighter-skinned mixed-race people will aspire to become increasingly white generation after generation by choosing partners who are lighter-skinned or white. For example, Williams (1992) found that white/Asian biracials tend to see their racial mix as more glamorous than the blend of black/Asian biracials. Looking to the historical construct of race in the United States in which groups are distinct and well-defined entities, this would mean that exhibiting phenotypic characteristics similar to the dominant model of being human and adopting the ideologies of that model create opportunities to acquire class elevation, greater economic and political participation, and the whitening of peoples who were previously nonwhite.

Refuters have a valid point when they argue that the advocate’s call for a fluid, interchangeable individual identity choice is a form of seeking whiteness. I agree with Texeira’s (2003) fears of the advocate’s political agenda: “My deepest fear is that the multiracial agenda will come to dominate racial discourse and research in the not too distant future. I believe this fear is well founded because of the growing numbers of racially mixed and European American researchers whose mostly middle-class backgrounds give them greater voice and whose work may be more acceptable because this discourse is less likely to challenge institutional racism and its most harmful effects” (33).

The advocates’ resurrection of racial classification as an antiracist agenda can enable the development of a discourse that promotes collaboration among all races to promote racial equality. If indeed the multiracial debate is about the individual versus the group, the problem of individual identity choice for multiracials, and thus members of all racial groups, is the actual act of classification itself. I disagree with DaCosta’s (2007) suggestion that the problem of individual identity choice for multiracials lies within the “new experiences” of classification that have evolved from changes within the existing political, demographic, and social context. I argue that racial classification is not new and has been interwoven within the foundations of our society. DaCosta’s “new experiences” are more accurately termed “quasi–old experiences” with a new façade.

But the advocates grossly overstate the potential effect of creating a multiracial category on the overall classification scheme. To the advocates, multiracial people are difficult to classify. There are no specific boundaries. Root (1996) reiterates this sentiment when she asserts that multiracial people blur the boundaries between races. However, the fact is that these blurred boundaries only continue to assert the very existence of racialized boundaries. After all, the boundaries between races have always been blurry at the borders, yet this blurriness did not sabotage the classification scheme itself. Root’s justification of a multiracial category merely reinforces a racialized hierarchy of “us” and “them” as blacks, descendants of blacks, and those deemed “honorary blacks” are inevitably positioned at the bottom of the racial classification scheme (hereditary determinism, lighter skinned versus darker skinned, etc.).

Furthermore, Root (1996) asserts that mixed-race people “have the right to change . . . identity over a lifetime—and more than once” (13). As a result of colonization and slavery, blacks and descendants of blacks have not been given the privilege to “change identity” even though “mixed-blood” unions of blacks with whites and nonwhites have shaped the ancestry of most mixed-race people in the United States. Regardless of the history of multiraciality, blacks are deemed both monoracial and impure.

Racial classification schemes of the “us” and “them” variety are often not negotiated, especially for mixed-race people with black ancestry. Lawrence (1995) refers to this status as two-faced hypocrisy: “Why is it two-faced hypocrisy? On the one hand, the dominant culture says you are less than ideal because you have a drop of ‘black’ in you, or a ‘touch of the tar brush’ in your ancestry, and no amount of ‘white’ blood is good or strong enough to outweigh that stain. On the other hand, that same dominant culture also says that the more ‘white’ blood you have in you, the closer to the ‘white’ ideal you are, the more we will let you into positions and maybe our houses, but you and your progeny can never attain the ideal status of ‘white-ness’” (28). With race and individual identity choice of multiracials linked to white hegemony, those who maintained a monopoly over truth have defined the meaning of being mixed race. For example, white hegemony plants in the minds of whites and many nonwhites the idea that whites are superior and people of color are inferior. Power can thus be seen as more than simply a force exercised over individuals in society; it permeates social interactions and produces discourse. It creates structures to regulate and script actions and identity choices of individuals and groups. The disenfranchisement or alignment of certain racial groups through a multiracial category is one example of a consequence produced by white hegemony.

The popularity of a multiracial category and individual identity choice has resulted in a growing body of research. Much of this research focuses on reporting mixed-race peoples’ claims about the impact of imposed monoracial labeling within high schools, colleges, and universities as well as its influence on their everyday personal experiences (Bettez 2007; Calleroz 2003; Corrin 2009; Lopez 2001; Lyda 2008; McQueen 2002; Moore 2006; Munoz-Miller 2009; Potter 2009; Renn 1998; Sanchez 2004; Storrs 1996; Thompson 2005). Given the rarity of research focusing on the agency of mixed-race students within a hierarchical white supremacist social structure, the overwhelming picture that this body of research paints of mixed-race students is that they are one-dimensional victims of racial labeling. In contrast, few empirical investigations of mixed-race students have explored how they use their mixedness to gain racial advantage over those with lower social status. For example, to what extent do mixed-race peoples’ knowledge of and interest in the social and political realities of a racial hierarchy explain their racial identity choices?

The empirical research within high schools focuses on the effects of monoracial labeling on students’ self-definition. However, some empirical studies of multiracial college and university students concentrate on their awareness of the opportunities available to them through the manipulation of identity choice as a tool for personal advantage. They also look at how the racial milieu of institutions of higher education pressures mixed-race students to choose monoracial alliances. The research conducted in higher education institutions thus differs significantly and importantly from that which has been conducted in high schools.

McQueen’s (2002) study focuses on exploring the lives of racially and/or culturally mixed individuals. It looks at the relationship between cultural identity and the education participants received in the greater Toronto area. Her study was conducted through a mixed-methods approach (i.e., both quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used). The participants were of mixed heritage, with a Japanese parent and a non-Japanese parent. The total number of participants was thirty-eight, twenty-three women and fifteen men. Their ages ranged from fifteen to forty-five. McQueen expresses her concern about the social and political influence of mixedness: “I wonder how society will perceive my son. More importantly, I wonder how my son will come to identify himself. As a mother and also a teacher who interacts with students with diverse backgrounds, I have been wondering what the lives of racially/culturally mixed individuals are like” (1–2). This statement also shed lights on her motivation for doing the study.

McQueen’s work shows that the complexity of identity issues cannot be examined without reflecting on the multilayered dynamics of lived, everyday experiences in a particular place and at a particular time. Since students’ everyday experiences occur in political institutions that are influenced by societal norms, McQueen used an expanded definition of education that included any learning gained from any experiences students had in school settings. Although McQueen’s interviews indicated that a significant portion of her participants demonstrated a sense of “not-belonging,” close to half of all participants experienced some form of preferential treatment. As Cummins (1996) argues, “Schools reflect the values and attitudes of the broader society that support them and students’ ethnic identity can be endangered during this process of devaluation at schools” (3).

It is also worth noting that McQueen argues that reeducating to erase bias can change the schooling experiences of mixed-race students. She believes that acknowledging and affirming the existence of mixed-race students and addressing their cultural needs can create a more positive learning environment.

McQueen’s study, however, failed to ask participants their views about other racial groups. This is important to note since racial identity is a relational phenomenon. My research will fill this void, but will also ask specific questions about racial identity choices and group associations in both formal and informal learning environments. Since both formal and informal environments involve social relationships and peer influences, it is important to examine how schools as social institutions reinforce and reproduce white spaces (Allen 2006). I also asked specific questions about whether students viewed racial identity as being fluid or fixed, and allowed participants to define the meaning of those terms.

According to most comprehensive studies to date (Bettez 2007; Calleroz 2003; Corrin 2009; Lewis 2005; Lopez 2001; Lyda 2008; McQueen 2002; Moore 2006; Munoz-Miller 2009; Potter 2009; Renn 1998; Sanchez 2004; Storrs 1996), based on a comparative analysis of research that focuses on mixed-race students, no clear-cut statements make comparisons of the influences of individual identity choices within institutions. For example, Lopez’s (2001) mixed-method analysis studies how high school freshman at one racially/ethnically diverse high school in California experience racial and ethnic identification, when filling out forms as well as in everyday life. Lopez’s data included survey results from 638 freshmen and interview responses from a subset of 24 mixed-race and multiethnic adolescents. Students tended to see race as more “primitive,” “made-up,” and “less real” than ethnicity. And mixed students indicated that notions of racial categorization and phenotypic appearance motivated other students to ask the “What are you?” question. Mixed-race students sought to remedy this situation through taking particular types of action. As Lopez explains, “They talked about factors influencing shifts or changes in how they identify themselves, such as moving to more racially/ethnically diverse schools (often at junior high level) or areas/neighborhoods, learning more about their family racial, ethnic, and/or cultural backgrounds, or learning about outsider perceptions of their race/ethnicity.” Lopez also found that mixed-race students based their identity choices on a variety of factors: “They talked about using a range of strategies when answering race and ethnicity questions on forms, from thinking about the context to purpose, to considering how others see them or would identify them, to responding based on what they feel ‘more of,’ to randomly selecting one of the categories that apply to them or responding based on their mood/feeling” (335).

Further, through everyday life interactions of identification, Lopez explored how mixed-race high school students talked about the benefits and advantages of being mixed. As she explained,

Also, some of the mixed-race participants indicated an understanding that “outside perceptions” shape their racial self-identity.

Lopez’s findings are important and relevant to the field of multiracial identity choice in that they show how mixed-race students look upon their racial identity choices as having beneficial advantages. For example, Lopez found that mixed-race participants (1) indicated an understanding of “outside perceptions” of race and how these perceptions can influence their racial identity choices, (2) recognized that some people have more racial identity choices than others, and (3) used their mixedness as a catalyst for a fluid and interchangeable identity. These findings suggest that mixed-race students are aware of the social and political implications of how they self identify and the privileges to be gained depending on which identity they choose.

Lopez gave both a macro and micro perspective to her findings. For instance, her student participants shared no consensus in their definitions of race. Also, the participants’ understanding of how race and ethnicity are socially constructed varied. Lopez explained that “blood/biology, phenotype, culture, ancestry, geography and social relations” are the determinants indicated by student participants for racial/ethnic mixedness (2001, 178). Overall, the participants interpreted and reacted to race/ethnicity definition questions in varying ways, differing not only from one another but also at the individual level—self-identification varied across situation or context. Lopez also explains that mixed-race high school students “often conform their identifications to meet the assumptions of others and other students resist, identifying in opposition to these outside perceptions” (215). This explains how society, schools, and communities influence the racial identity choices of mixed-race students. There is an underlying mechanism that is serving to reinforce and reproduce mixed-race identity choice based on a system of white supremacy.

Lyda’s (2008) correlational study explored the relationship between multiracial identity variance, college adjustment, social connectedness, facilitative support on campus, and depression in multiracial college students. A total of 231 students between the ages of eighteen to twenty-three from numerous universities across the United States completed online surveys. Of the 231 students, 199 participants represented 57 different unique racial combinations, indicating a racially diverse sample of multiracial college students. The multiracial identity component of Lyda’s survey was developed for the purpose of assessing each participant’s self-reported identification. The social connectedness of each participant was measured on a scale (1 = strongly agree to 6 = strongly disagree) based on the degree of interpersonal closeness experienced between participant and his or her social world (i.e., friends, peers, society). The college support of participants was measured by a questionnaire created specially for the purpose of this study to measure participants’ utilization of campus support services and groups/organizations. College adjustment was measured using scores from the student adaptation to college questionnaire (Baker and Siryk 1984).

An important finding of Lyda’s (2008) study was the noted difference between a participant’s self-identity and his or her perception of society’s view of that self-identity. There was a clear discrepancy between how participants identified themselves racially and how they perceived others categorized them racially: “Participants believed that ‘society’ most often categorized them in a monoracial category, with 47.2% of the sample endorsing Traditional Non-white, and 17.6% endorsing white. As such, there appears to be a gap between multiracial persons’ awareness of their own identity options, and what they believe others recognize as their identity options” (69). Across all contexts of Lyda’s study, the results emphasized the role of phenotype as a significant factor that influences self-identity and how others perceive one. It is also worth noting that her research unveils the contextual concept that “phenotype can be both a social facilitator and/or barrier to racial group acceptance and affiliation. And as a result, phenotype can influence a multiracial student’s self-identity, as well as the identity of others (particularly monoracial others) projected onto them, causing racial socialization dilateic that can shape multiracial students’ identity” (70).

Further, Lyda’s (2008) findings also indicated that multiracial identity across various contexts was not related to adjustment, social connectedness, depression, or the influences of facilitative supports, indicating mixed-race identity is fluid. But her results demonstrate rather than refute that phenotypic appearance and race discourse play a significant role in how one is perceived by self and others based on one’s mixedness. The missing variable of this study is an analysis of the deeper meaning of mixed-race identity politics of certain race mixedness and how such a dichotomy mirrors situational identity choices in political institutions that are often not fluid for everyone.

Munoz-Miller’s (2009) study focused on a baseline survey, collected in 1999, and two follow-up surveys collected from 2000 and 2004. Each survey contained measures designed to assess sociodemographic characteristics as well as psychosocial and academic functioning. In sum, Munoz-Miller’s study in year 1 comprised 219 participants, 171 participants in year 2, and the longitudinal data set had 174 participants. Through the use of statistical analysis, the study explored the incidence and proportion of identity types and assessed the predictive relationships between the included net vulnerability and American Indian was viewed as of paramount importance.

Munoz-Miller’s (2009) findings indicate that nonblacks identified with more than one group, whereas black/non–American Indian and black/American Indian groups were more likely to identify monoracially. Because of the pervasive presence of social structures, skin color often returned race discourse to the topic of physical appearance. One must acknowledge that in the case of mixed-race people, skin color alone often assigns a racial identity. Although skin color is a part of race, many argue that they are not synonymous. In equating the role of political institutions to so many variables of societal structures, there is a real significance to race structures in society and how mixedness as well as skin tone are crucial factors in racial designation. The various gradations of brown skin and the numerous descriptors applied to them are very important factors in the external classification and self-classification of mixed-race people.

There were also other measures that influenced self-identification choice: age, gender, status as a first- or second-generation multiracial individual, self-perceived facial skin tone, academic achievement, and perception of the oppression of nonblack minorities in the United States. Findings, in turn, revealed that first-generation nonblacks were nearly thirteen times more likely than second-generation nonblacks to identify monoracially (Munoz-Miller 2009). Specifically, second-generation nonblacks were significantly more likely to identify as multiracial. In other words, the belief that nonblacks are as oppressed as blacks in American society “led non-blacks to maintain multiracial identities rather than monoracial or inconsistent identities in Year 1. No significant relationship between oppression perception score and identification choice was found in Year 2” (151).

Findings within black/non–American Indian groups for generation status, program status, skin tone, and oppression found that those of the second generation or later were eight times more like to identify monoracially. Those with self-reported darker skin tones were significantly more likely to identify as monoracial. Munoz-Miller (2009) found: “Adding oppression perception increased the strength of the relationship between skin tone and self-identification choice. Specifically, darker students were more likely to maintain singular than border identities. In other words, believing that non-blacks are as oppressed as blacks in contemporary American society was associated with maintaining a border identity rather than a singular identity among black/non-American Indians. This result is similar to that found in the non-black group” (153). By and large, among blacks/American Indians, racial self-identification choice was impacted by perception of oppression and skin tone.

Munoz-Miller’s (2009) study provides profound inroads into the analysis of mixed-race identity influences based on mixedness. Her contributions have created a new lens outside of past empirical research that race is fluid and interchangeable for mixed-race people. Although to a certain extent mixedness creates an avenue for inconsistent identity choice based on the political and social context, it also creates opportunities for a race discourse that analyzes why in some cases mixedness has less material value. This is particularly true since the number of multiracial students emerging in America’s public political institutions is growing so rapidly that researchers have predicted by 2050 they will be recognized as a significant majority (Winters and DeBose 2003). To date, the fact that little knowledge of how a multiracial identity choice can significantly impair the capacity of educational institutions to establish an appropriate race discourse in order to identify the academic strengths and needs of multiracial students is indicative of our society’s inability and unwillingness to address race-based discrimination.

Potter’s (2009) exploratory case study approach compared the different practices of two states in the collection of data on multiracial students in schools to determine how public policy decisions regarding accountability affect the reporting of educational outcomes for multiracial students. A comparative analysis was conducted in California, which does not have a multiracial category for data collection for student achievement, and in North Carolina, which does have such a category for purposes of determining academic proficiency levels in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act and adequate yearly progress targets.

The study encompassed two semistructured group interviews conducted with public policy officials in the state departments of education in California and North Carolina. The data collected focused on scaffolded semistructured interviews, student assessment data, the gathering and analysis of documentation, and archival records. Potter’s (2009) comparative qualitative research is a valuable analysis of how race plays a significant role in public policy decisions. Potter’s findings are centered on how public policy decisions regarding academic accountability are affected by the reporting of educational outcomes for multiracial students. She found that to date, federal educational public policies have yet to comprehensively implement a common practice of accounting for multiracial students by allowing for standardized mixed-race classification. More important, a major finding of this study is that “federal public policies have the most significant bearing on whether or not multiracial students and their educational needs are rendered visible or not” (198). A particular multiracial identity choice can determine which mixed-race groups’ (i.e., black/nonwhite versus white/Asian) needs are “rendered visible or not.”

Potter’s (2009) study of the emerging mixed-race student population in political institutions will contribute significantly to research on the specific needs of multiracial students to guide the educational community in the development of curriculum, social and emotional necessities, and staff professional development involving this group of students. The research findings indicate that multiracial students are visible when it comes to accounting for their achievement in schools. The question at hand becomes how will public policy redefine current constructs of race, racial identification, and racial classification?

Corrin’s (2009) study contributes in two ways to data on multiracial youth: it explores schooling experiences and analyzes data from a sample drawn from populations of seventh to eleventh graders in multiple cities, providing for an extensive comparison of many types of monoracial and multiracial youth. Corrin’s sample comprised 40,373 respondent surveys measuring academic success. The three highest-scoring groups were Asian, Asian/white, and white students. The bottom four groups were black, black/Hispanic, black/white, and Hispanic students. This pattern was most pronounced for grade point average. Also, Corrin found that Asian, Asian/white, Hispanic/white, and white groups clustered together for the school outcomes. While the black, black/Hispanic, and black/white groups tended to cluster together, the Hispanic group did so only for the outcome of closeness to teachers. For all other school connection variables, monoracial Hispanic students clustered more closely with the white and Asian groups.

In comparing multiracial group outcomes, Corrin (2009) found that Asian/white students outperformed other biracial groups. The Hispanic/white students did significantly better than black/white and black/Hispanic students. Black/white students tended to be significantly different academically from both the black and white students. An interesting finding is that “the black-white students, who typically rank in the middle academically, score low in regards to school connectedness” (56). Overall, the significance of Corrin’s study for my own is his investigation of how access to resources improves our understanding of racial group differences. More important, he looks at what connections might exist for multiracials versus monoracials to socioeconomic resources, particularly those resources with educational relevance that would impact access to school-related success. Although Corrin’s study will contribute to filling in the gaps of comparative academic achievement, parental support, and connectedness to school of monoracial and multiracial students, there are also missed opportunities to analyze the socioeconomic factors of mixedness as it relates to race having material value.

Moore’s (2006) research looks at the experiences of nine middle-class black/white biracial students in an advanced educational program at an urban high school, Douglas High School. Three of the participants were male and six were female. All were over the age of eighteen. Moore’s study used qualitative methods to gather information through formal interviews in which participants reflected on their high school experiences. She found that biracial adolescents felt pressured by peers to choose racial identities that fit the way others perceived them phenotypically. Her study also examined the way that the formal school setting—teachers, the curriculum, forms, and school activities—created a monoracial label for biracial students. Moore writes: “How race is translated in schools affects biracial students on a daily basis. The curriculum at Douglas is predominantly framed in white, Euro-American traditions, and though there are some classroom text materials focused on different racial groups, there is no mention of biracial contributions” (121). The absence of biracial people in the curriculum creates a push for monoracial labeling and a classroom environment that is not supportive in helping multiracial children develop positive self-images. Moore argues that the outcome is the denial of mixed-race people in the United States that serves to protect a social order that relies on clear racial boundaries. Further, Moore asserts that “the student participants described how being monoracially labeled by others and categorized into a monoracial identity affected how students felt in school and how they defined themselves” (122). Her findings also indicate that biracial individuals are forced to live within “color boundaries” created by the social construction of race. As a result, the biracial participants created a self-image that was affected by how others categorized them racially.

Also, the assumption that mixed-race people tend to view themselves as victims is a result of most either denying or not being aware of the possibility that they are actually assisting discrimination and privilege relative to other racialized peoples. Moore (2006) suggests that multiracials see that they have “crossover power” in “playing the race card.” As Moore says, “The first advantage [to being multiracial] is probably the most obvious to others and that is they get to ‘play the race card’” (2). Later, Moore writes, “Crossover power or not being definable by others” is an example of asserted advantage of a mixed-race identity that supports color-blindness. In both situations, the students use multiracial identity choice as a social and political benefit, yet the students act within the confines of a racial hierarchical classification scheme to choose an identity that fits the particular situation and environment by reinventing a status quo, a continued stigma of race. For example, Jordon, a participant in Moore’s research, uses his light skin tone to navigate between racial groups and boundaries. He says, “You can pretty much do whatever you want when you’re biracial. I’m pretty sure I can go join the Asian Association and say that I’m Sri Lankan and no one would question me. It’s nice to have brown skin and not to be so definable. It’s an advantage when I first walk into a room and not know anybody and I don’t have a group I’m supposed to fit into” (74).

Another example in Moore’s research of using multiracial identity choice as a social and political tool is a mixed-race student choosing a black identity to get into college. As Moore reports, “He said he does not feel it is fair that his White friends do not have this same advantage, even though they may have higher qualifications to get accepted” (2006, 73). From this perspective, Moore asserts that mixed-race students use their mixedness as an advantage and are not affected by how others will be left to stand alone against racial inequality through their racial identity choices.

Moore’s findings indicate that eventually her participants came to understand their own identity through a multiracial lens, embracing the hope of a “raceless” society that supports the idea that everyone will be equal. The key findings of Moore’s study are: “(1) biracial individuals live between color boundaries; (2) biracial people are ‘colorbound’ by a monoracial system; (3) biracial people are labeled monoracially by institutions; (4) some individuals believe they are ‘colorblind’ and so being biracial is not an issue; (5) biracial people learn to define themselves as multiracial; (6) society and schools continue to use monoracial labeling and categorizing; and (7) multiracial individuals have a dream for a ‘raceless’ society (2006, 124–131). Moore’s research offers strong, relevant content on the experiences of mixed-race students, but it also has limitations. First, Moore does not explore the possibility that mixed-race students’ advantages are the result of their own racial opportunism. While she acknowledges that multiracial students do operate in this manner, she does not see it as problematic. Second, she does not critique the participants’ dream for a raceless society, given that they demonstrate racial opportunism themselves. The participants do not problematize the fact that their own beliefs and actions perpetuate the higher social status that they hold over other racial groups.

Lewis (2005) conducted a qualitative study of three schools. One, Metro2, was an alternative, progressive school with a Spanish-immersion program and large Latino student population and staff. Although it was a school in a Latino neighborhood, it had a significant number of white students whose parents wanted them to learn Spanish in the immersion program. Lewis’s research at Metro2 was set primarily in a classroom where English was the language of instruction, but the significance of her study was the role of whiteness in this classroom and in other spaces at the school. The “outside perceptions” at Metro2 created “white spaces” even though the school was only 30 percent white. Lewis states, “Even in a place like Metro2, where people imagined themselves to be antiracist, whiteness still functioned as a symbolic resource, providing all those who possessed it with the benefit of assumed knowledge and ability” (126). For example, Lewis describes the racialization process of a multiracial student at Metro2: “Hector was the son of an El Salvadoran father and white (European American) mother. In a conversation, Hector’s mother reported her son’s frustration that teachers considered him White and assumed that his first language was English. Though Hector was read as white, he was proud of his Latino heritage and of his skill with Spanish. Though his teacher might not deny his Latino ethnicity, in casual classroom exchanges he was regarded as distinct from dark-skinned, working-class Latino children. Thus, no matter how he envisioned himself, Hector was generally associated with whiteness” (125). This is an example of how a student’s self-concept of his identity clashes with pressure to conform to an identity ascribed to him. Examples such as this reveal the persistent power of racialization in the daily influences of schools. In this case, teachers continued to use whiteness as a symbolic point of reference in their perception of Hector’s racial place. He was differentiated as being apart from and superior to dark-skinned Latino children. Lewis’s research reveals the role that schooling plays in the active racialization of student bodies, sorting them into racial polities with varying levels of power and status.

A different example in comparison to Lewis’s study on identity politics influenced by societal measures of race would be Phinney and Alipuria’s (1996) mixed-method study. Their participant sample consisted of 194 ethnically or racially mixed high school students with a comparison sample of 696 monoracial students from the same school. Their results indicate that 34 percent of the students used spontaneous self-labels of mixed heritage, whereas 66 percent of the respondents used a monoracial label associated with one parent. Most nonblack multiracial students with a white parent often identified as white, which created distorted dispositions toward other groups, such as less positive views of monoracial black students. Also, it was perceived that mixed-race students’ decisions to attend a predominantly white university versus a predominantly nonwhite university were determined by their self-label, and that label itself was influenced by various factors. The pattern of which mixed-race students were more likely to attend white universities opposed to non-white university was based on factors that influenced their choice of self-label. For example, physical appearance is a factor that shapes self-label. Those who have identifiable black features are usually labeled black, regardless of whether other types of features symbolizing a different group membership are also evident. Further, the use of a white versus a minority self-label by mixed-race respondents on predominantly white campuses was related to their choice of community, which means that they conform to the race composition of the campus. As mentioned previously, not all mixed-race people will have the choice of self-label and the result would be choosing a university on the basis of their predominant race identification.

The limitation of Phinney and Alipuria’s study is the lack of connection they make between the agency of self-labeling and the macro racialized social system. In what ways did participants’ self-labeling represent conforming to or resisting a white supremacist structure? In ignoring the social and political structures of race within this study, the results normalize the notion of pressure to identify in terms of monoracial hyperdescent because the political realities of the larger, hierarchical social order are discounted.

The research on mixed-race students in higher education offers different perspectives on the influences of learning environments on individual racial identity choices. Renn’s (1998) qualitative study used ethnographic methods and grounded theory analysis to research the experiences and racial identification preferences of multiracial college students on a predominantly white campus. Renn’s twenty-four participants were from three undergraduate institutions: Carberry, an Ivy League college; Ignacio, a Catholic university; and Wooley, a liberal arts college. Renn found that a key factor in how students racially identified was based on “where they felt like they fit in, which was determined largely by the messages they get through the mesosystem of peer culture. It was a matter of trying to figure out not only where they could fit in, but also where they felt like they belonged to a group” (150). College students were sometimes aware of the racialized opportunities available to them through their choice of college. Several students selected their colleges because they believed that they could find certain kinds of welcoming community spaces. For example, Renn explained, “Dan wanted to explore his Chinese heritage and selected Carberry in part because it had an active community of Asian students. Kayla was looking for people who would be a ‘good influence’ on her. Phil chose to live on the multiracial floor at Ignacio because he wanted to be part of a diverse residential floor dedicated to exploration of pluralism” (144). For most students, the desire to find a place to belong was critical in their decision to attend a particular institution.

Sanchez (2004) conducted a qualitative study of multiracial identity expression in a university. She used interviews and self-report questionnaires with a participant sample that consisted of thirty-one multiracial students at the University of New Mexico. Her study explores the factors within a university setting that promote or inhibit the development of a multiracial identity. Some of Sanchez’s participants felt that the tension between racial groups at the university inhibited the expression of a multiracial, as opposed to a monoracial, identity. For example, “groups formed cliques, segmenting the student body primarily by racial and social groups” (161). As one of Sanchez’s participants explains, “From what you hear, there is a power struggle between Native American, Hispanics, and Anglo groups within the state and I think that is reflected here in [the university] as well. And I am not part of that . . . Unless you fit into one of those three groups, and African Americans too . . . well, not unless you fit into one of those three groups, you are pretty much separated. You are isolated within you own little sphere” (161–162). A different reflection by another participant reinforces the existence of racial tensions: “If you go out there between classes, you will see that most [of] the black guys who are athletes—I don’t know if all guys I see out there are athletes, of course—but they congregate in one part, away from the rest. And you see a lot of the white guys and girls, many of them who are in fraternities or sororities, that all congregate on this other side . . . but if you look you can see that they separate from each other” (163). In this example, the climate of the university influenced the individual identity choices of multiracials to choose racial alliances. By giving space for the creation of separateness between groups and encouraging intraracial alliances, cliques on campus were mostly based on monoracial grouping as races competed with one another. Also, Sanchez found that “participants did not generally discuss identity politics in relationship to their personal choice for affiliation; however, they recognized that they played the system to their advantage.” As Sanchez says, “Multiracials problematize classification systems because visual reading (Racial Readings) no longer accurately represents a specific racial group. For example, Darrell, a white-black male, was usually read as white due to his skin tone. Nonetheless, participants used their racial composition to maximize societal benefits” (209). The defined boundaries of racial groups, highlighted in a college or university environment, provide a context for mixed-race students to actively participate in racial identity politics.

One unique finding in Calleroz’s (2003) qualitative study is how the racial identity choices of ten multiracial college students were shaped by the racial organization of their peers. Calleroz notes that their “acceptance into or rejection from a community often determined the crowd with which mixed-race students connected and hung out.” Calleroz’s study describes the experiences of students with their peers: “It is clear that initial interactions were based almost exclusively on visible appearances, and more precisely, visible differences” (123). Dominic Pulera (2002) illuminates the negative aspect of visible differences that reproduce and reinforce inequalities within racial groups: “Observable differences in physical appearance separating the races are the single most important factor shaping intergroup relations, in conjunction with the social, cultural, economic, and political ramifications that accompany this visual divide. These dynamics animate the unceasing struggles for power, recognition, and resources that occur between, among, and within American racial groups” (8–9).

Participants in Calleroz’s (2003) study often experienced how visible differences automatically provided group membership and simultaneous exclusion from other groups. For example, a mixed-raced black and Hispanic participant describes her nonwhite group membership as a result of visible differences based on the expectation to reflect what society views as black, in terms of both appearance and behavior. Once the participant included her black ancestry in her mixedness, she found herself dealing with the racial dynamics between the campus’s racial groups. It is clear that the visible differences of mixed-race students were instrumental in students’ alliances with or disenfranchisement from various racial groups.

Perhaps one of the most important messages of this line of multiracial research is that mixed-race people use their mixedness to become fluid or interchangeable; they learn how to navigate within the confines of a racial hierarchy. Racial identity choice is used as form of agency to access skills, resources, and social capital. One way that multiracials, especially multiracials with white ancestry, maneuver the racial terrain to their advantage is by relying on their relative white/light skin privilege. Most will use their relative whiteness as a tool to provide them access to enter white spaces. Bettez (2007) conducted a qualitative study of sixteen multiracial participants living in Albuquerque, Boston, or the San Francisco Bay Area. The racial mixedness of her participants included black, Mexican, Peruvian, Filipino, Somali, Japanese, and white ancestries. One of Bettez’s participants, Tina, exemplified how a multiracial person uses her whiteness to “pass,” thus gaining relative advantage: “Tina ‘passes’ everywhere she goes; she is perceived as white. Although she doesn’t primarily identify as white, and in fact in several instances in her interviews talked about how she considers herself primarily Mexican, she recognized that other people identify her that way. She takes her liminal space as a white-looking, Mexican-identified person and uses her white privilege to be an ally for people of color” (179). Although Tina portrays herself as an “ally,” she also distinguishes herself as different from people of color by not openly revealing her status as a mixed-race as opposed to white person. Because she uses her “visible differences,” a person of a darker skin complexion is not on an equal level with her. Her skin complexion places her in a position of power in relation to those who cannot access white privilege.

Storrs (1996) explored how thirty women with mixed racial ancestry identified and the reasons for their individual identity choice. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling methods from three cities in the Northwest: Spokane, Washington; Eugene, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington. Storr’s study chose these sites because the Northwest locations share a common regional racial history and makeup. The participants belonged to one of two groups: a younger cohort of mixed-race university students and older mixed women.

Whiteness for many of the mixed-race women in Storr’s study was associated with racism, patriarchy, and oppression. The oppressive nature of whiteness was conveyed through their personal stories. One of her participants had a Chinese mother and a black father. Storr describes how the hypodescent legacy of the one-drop rule erased the participant’s Asian ancestry because her racial identity “was based on her mother’s understanding that race and racial designation was determined by the father’s race” (1996, 119). This story exemplifies how some race groups are more disenfranchised than others due to the political, social, and economic ramifications of being racialized. Also, this reiterates the oppressive and discriminative aspect of blackness and how the individual identity choices of multiracials can reproduce and reinforce the material benefits associated with their nonblackness.

Although most of the authors I have reviewed in this chapter agree that mixed-race people use their mixedness in ways that are fluid and interchangeable, the authors did not connect this to the larger picture of how racial identity choices support racial power structures within both informal and formal learning environments. The phenomenon happens across regions and grade levels. Therefore, it is important for schools to be attentive to mixed-race identity choices and create more awareness and education about mixed-race issues. The school is one of society’s most powerful institutions in reproducing and reinforcing systems of white supremacy. If schools became more aware of mixed-race identity choices, it could impact the biased beliefs and prejudices of other racial groups. Since it is in school that mixed-race students most often choose racial identity choices, teachers and administrators need to be prepared to assist them throughout their schooling experiences. It is important that educational programs begin to address the issues of race in society to become aware of how schools, peers, administrators, and teachers influence and racially label students. The all-important first step is educating people about the social formation of race and its power structures, elucidating how racialized discourse is used to create expectations of how others appear, act, and behave.

The school is the primary institution where young people are categorized and sorted according their racial status (Lewis 2005). Schools can be empowering if they inculcate pride in one’s history and respect for others’. But this is rarely the case. Although antibiased and antiracist education is a step in the right direction, schools need to take a more active role in supporting racial identity choices of multiracial students that take account of the racial hierarchy. It is important to question how mixed-race students’ enactments of individual identity choice influence their schooling experience by either conforming to or resisting racialized social structures within learning environments. As discussed in this review, there are underlying mechanisms that influence the racial identity choices of multiracial high school students. And while a more open system of choice can be positive, these choices must be made in ways that do not reinforce the devaluing of racial groups with lower social status. Moving forward, my research will fill a necessary void connecting the racial identity choices of mixed-race students to the perpetuation of the racial organization of the United States.