Bearing the burden of whiteness: the implications of racial self-identification for multiracial adolescents' school belonging and academic achievement

Previous literature on racial self-identification among multiracials demonstrates that self-identification differs by context. Moreover, among multiracial adolescents, identity, usually measured in school, is correlated with achievement. In addition, a few studies have indicated that for half-white, half-minority adolescents, school achievement falls in between the achievements of their monoracial counterparts. Using the in-school and in-home components of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between racial self-identification and school belonging and achievement. We find that among black/white and Asian/white adolescents, adolescents who self-identify as white are particularly disadvantaged in school, reporting lower grade point averages (GPA) than their multiracial counterparts. Our conclusions suggest that multiple contextual measures of self-identification better capture the relationship between racial identification and academic achievement among multiracial adolescents.     

Pondering Poi Dog: Place and racial identification of multiracial Native Hawaiians

Given the very large proportion of Hawaiians who are multiracial, our research examines Native Hawaiian identification in mixed-race Hawaiian families. We use the 1990 US Census, which affords a unique look at racial identification because multiracial people were required to choose one race over another. The results show support for our argument that place plays a central role in Pacific identity processes, illustrated in this case among Hawaiians. We find that strong ties to Hawai‘i – the spiritual and geographic home of the Hawaiian population – are vital to the intergenerational transmission of Hawaiian identification in both continental and island multiracial families. We compare our results for multiracial Native Hawaiians to prior studies of American Indians and Asian Americans to identify any general patterns in correlates of racial identification choices. In each group, we find that familial and geographic relationships to the cultural and ancestral lands are strongly linked to racial identification.     

Archeology, population genetics and studies of human racial ancestry.

Using traditional classification, many people have tried to determine the place and time of origin of the major human races. Two basically conflicting views have prevailed, one asserting that races developed as local variations in a species evolving phyletically over much of the Old World for up to one million years, and the other view holding that present races are local variations on populations recently expanding into most areas and replacing the previous hominid inhabitants, this occurring since the time of the Neanderthals. Both views are based on the same archeological data. Gene frequency data and time-calibrated genetic distance measures have recently been applied to this problem. Here we show that the probable demographic nature of Pleistocene populations has obscured genetic distances to such an extent that they cannot be used to discriminate between the two viewpoints of racial origins. The racial classifications themselves are probably not useful in this context and obscure the question, so that we presently do not have a scientifically valid understanding of racial origins.     

Knowing something versus feeling different: the effects and non-effects of genetic ancestry on racial identity

Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, there have been pitched debates about its implications and the research it enables. One prominent thread of concern focuses on the role of post-genomic science on technically enabling and generating interest in genetic ancestry testing (GAT). Critical analyses of GAT have pointed to multiple issues, raising the alarm on consumers’ experiences with such technologies. This paper describes the results of a pilot study in which we tracked women’s experiences receiving their genetic ancestry results, and their understandings of, reactions to, and valuing of this information over time. Overwhelmingly, our participants reported a curious combination of anticipation and satisfaction yet no discernable impact on their sense of self or racial identity. We elaborate on the effects and non-effects of GAT for the women in our study, and how we make sense of their simultaneous experiences of ‘knowing something’ but not ‘feeling different.’     

Muslim immigrants and religious group feelings: self-identification and attitudes among Sunni and Alevi Turkish-Dutch

Affective ratings of multiple religious (sub)groups (Muslims, Christians, Jews and non-believers, as well as Sunni, Alevi and Sjiit Muslims), the endorsement of Islamic minority rights and religious group identification were examined among Sunni and Alevi Turkish-Dutch participants. The findings show that both groups differ in important ways. Some Alevi participants considered themselves Muslims but others interpreted Alevi identity in a secular way. The Sunnis were quite negative towards Jews and non-believers, they more strongly endorsed Islamic minority rights and they had very high Muslim group identification. Furthermore, the Sunnis were negative towards Alevis and the Alevis were negative towards the Sunnis. Muslim group identification was positively and strongly related to feelings towards Muslims and to the endorsement of Islamic group rights.     

Racial identity,aesthetic surgery and Yorùbá African Values

The question of racial identity in the process and outcome of aesthetic surgery is gaining increasing attention in bioethical discourse. This paper attempts an ethical examination of the racial identity issues involved in aesthetic surgery. Dominant moral values in Western culture are explored in the evaluation of aesthetic surgery. The paper argues that African values are yet to receive the universal attention they arguably deserve especially in the rethinking of values underlying aesthetic surgery as racial transformation. Through a consideration of some moral‐aesthetic values in the Yorùbá‐African culture, this paper further re‐evaluates the ethics of aesthetic surgery. The paper contends against the propagation of aesthetic surgery as a new form of bolstering racial divides and identity in the evolving cosmopolitan age. The position defended in the paper is that some values from Yorùbá‐African culture are useful in the consideration of the ethics of aesthetic surgery and more importantly, in avoiding the racial identity bias embedded in aesthetic surgery. The paper concludes that if due consideration is perhaps given to some African moral‐aesthetic values in the global aesthetic surgery industry, some of the evolving moral and racial complexities would be better mediated.     

Place,scale and the racial claims made for multiracial children in the 1990 US Census

Multiracial children embody ambiguities inherent in racial categorization and expose fictions of discrete races. Nevertheless, parents of multiracial children were asked for the 1990 US Census to report a single race for their offspring. Using confidential 1990 Census micro-data, we investigate the choices parents made for the three most common racially mixed household types (Asian-white, black-white and Latino-white) in twelve large metropolitan areas. We find that context affects the reporting of children's racial identity. We examine these effects with models that incorporate three spatial scales: households, neighbourhoods and metropolitan areas. Model estimates reveal that racial claims made by parents of Latino- and Asian-white (but not black-white) children varied significantly across metropolitan area. A neighbourhood's proportion white increased the probability that parents reported their children as white, while a neighbourhood's racial diversity increased the probability that black-white parents claimed a non-white race (black or ‘other’) for their children.     

Christian nationalism and white racial boundaries: examining whites' opposition to interracial marriage

How does the convergence of national and religious identities potentially fortify white racial boundaries in the USA? Focusing on openness to racial exogamy as an indicator of racial boundaries, we examine the link between Christian nationalism and white Americans' views towards their hypothetical daughter marrying an African American, Latino, or Asian. Drawing on insights from social identity complexity theory, we argue that the convergence of religious and national identities serves to reinforce in-group boundaries, thereby fortifying notions of white purity, and consequently, strengthening whites' discomfort with potential race-mixing in marriage. Multivariate analyses of national survey data demonstrate that Christian nationalism is strongly associated with an increase in white Americans' discomfort with a daughter marrying any racial minority, and particularly African Americans. We demonstrate how the convergence of religious and national identities in Christian nationalism influences whites' regulating of racial boundaries (evidenced in intermarriage attitudes) above and beyond the independent effects of political conservatism or religious exclusivism.     

Immigrant political socialization as bridging and boundary work: mapping the multi-layered incorporation of Latin American immigrants in Toronto

We present a longitudinal map of three overlapping organizational trajectories developed by Latin American immigrants in the city of Toronto. We propose the concept of bridging and boundary work to specify how new (1) intersectional political identities and organizational agendas are constituted by Latin American feminist women and artists in the interstice of (2) country-of-origin and (3) mainstream pan-ethnic organizations. Boundary work occurs as activists with intersectional priorities carve out a distinct political agenda; the ‘out-group’ relations based on a shared sectoral focus constitute bridging work. Tracing changes in the local and transnational political opportunity structures, we consider how negotiations over resources, representation and agendas between these three Latin American organizational forms generate multi-directional political learning and socialization and the coexistence of different Latin American political cultures. We define political socialization as in-group and out-group encounters between political cultures understood as civic toolkits or ways of doing politics.     

Clubs of culture and capital: immigrant and second-generation incorporation in a new destination school

The influx of Latin American immigrants into the US South since the early 1990s has changed the demographic face of the region, particularly among school-aged populations where the rate of growth among Latinos has been the fastest. Despite an emerging literature addressing changing racial and ethnic relations in the New US South, relatively little research has addressed the incorporation of Latino youths within southern schools. Relying on data from a four-year ethnographic and in-depth interview study in one North Carolina town, findings suggest powerful benefits of ethnic-identity based clubs for Latino youths in new immigrant destination schools. While both Latino and African American respondents faced discrimination within their community, Latino students received more formal support at school, which helped shield them from the negative impacts of discrimination.     

Defensive localism in white and black: a comparative history of European-American and African-American youth gangs

Despite the largely voluntary character of Nigerian immigration to the United States since 1970, it is not clear that their patterns of integration have emulated those of earlier immigrants who, over time, traded their specific national origins for “American” or “White” identities as they experienced upward mobility. This path may not be available to Nigerian immigrants. When they cease to be Nigerian, they may become black or African-American. In this paper, I use US Census data to trace patterns of identity in a Nigerian second-generation cohort as they advance from early school-age in 1990 to adulthood in 2014. The cohort shrinks inordinately across the period as its members cease to identify as Nigerian, and this pattern of ethnic attrition is most pronounced among the downwardly mobile – leaving us with a positively select Nigerian second generation and, perhaps, unduly optimistic assessments of Nigerian-American socioeconomic advancement.     

Sub-state nationalism in Spain: primers and triggers of identity politics in Catalonia and the Basque Country

This article builds on recent attempts to explain divergent uses of sub-state nationalism to push for policies of assimilation or multiculturalism and drive popular support for independence. It analyses the dynamics of discourses and policies in Spain before, during and after peak times of identity politics to provide a more nuanced understanding of the conditions leading to the activation of identity-driven policies. Substantive ethnographic evidence is presented to explain recent alterations to national discourses of identity, surprising reversals of immigration policies, and the modulation of Catalan and Basque independence movements. The main finding is that both identity discourses and resulting policies depend on the affinity for identity politics at the sub-state level, and this affinity is in large part primed by the popular perception of how secure sub-state national identity is against the ‘official’ state narrative.     

Between global racial and bounded identity: choice of destigmatization strategies among Ethiopian Jews in Israel

Abstract

Our research explores how Ethiopian Jews in Israel apply local and global cultural resources when forming their reactive strategies to stigmatization. Drawing on 40 in-depth interviews with adult men and women, we examine class variations in the destigmatization strategies of working-class and middle-class Ethiopian Jews. Working-class Ethiopian Jews rely on their local bounded identity, that of Jews, rather than identity politics, which stresses phenotype in formulating destigmatization strategies. The former provide is Ethiopians of all classes with the network of meaning necessary for active participation in the broader society, whereas the latter is primarily the province of a small number of highly educated middle-class individuals, those who had access to social networks of highly educated liberals and could mobilize valued global black cultural resources (e.g. music, art) to their advantage in the local context.     

Balancing stigma and status: racial and class identities among middle-class Haitian youth

This article examines the identity formation of middle-class Haitian youth. Segmented assimilation theory predicts that the Haitian second generation will integrate into the black American underclass or maintain strong ethnic group identities. The black middle class, however, is an unexplored pathway of cultural assimilation. This paper uses the literature on the racial and class experiences of the black American middle class as a departure point for understanding the boundary work of middle-class Haitian youth. Based on qualitative interviews and a focus group, we uncover the mechanisms of identity formation for this invisible population. Racial, ethnic and class boundaries compel Haitian youths to create strategies of either empowerment or distancing. They negotiate between their middle-class status and ethnoracial exclusion in a racially segregated neighbourhood, an ethnically homogenous church and a mixed-race school setting. This study's findings extend our theoretical understandings of middle-class immigrants and their identity work.     

White families and race: colour-blind and colour-conscious approaches to white racial socialization

This paper examines the role that social context plays in mediating racial socialization in upper-middle-class white families. Outcomes of white racial socialization, as well as the process itself, depend in large part on the distinctive racial contexts designed by parents in which white children live and interact. I examine variation in white middle-school-aged children's common-sense racial knowledge and discuss the importance of exploring the social reproduction and reworking of racial ideologies and privilege in childhood.     

Ethnic identity and psychological adjustment in transracial adoptees: a review of the literature

International adoption is a relatively recent phenomenon and research in this field is emerging, particularly on issues of ethnic identity development and its implications for psychological adjustment and well-being. This article presents a critical review of the literature on ethnic identity in transracial adoptees as it relates to discrimination and psychological well-being. The review results show no clear evidence on the relation between a strong ethnic identity of origin, racial socialization efforts by parents and psychological adjustment in transracial adoptees. Studies investigating the effects of discrimination are too scarce to be conclusive. Results are discussed in light of future research and clinical recommendations.     

Racialized political shock: Arab American racial formation and the impact of political events

This article explores significant factors influencing the process of Arab American racial formation. I bring into conversation theories of racial formation and ‘political shock’ in social movement scholarship to develop the notion of ‘racialized political shock’ as an important factor in how racial and ethnic groups mobilize and organize. Many moments of political shock are highly racialized and have the potential to reorder the racial and ethnic landscape in ways that can open opportunities or introduce constraints to mobilizations around racial formation. Drawing on existing studies of Arab Americans, this paper highlights how Arab American racial formation has been galvanized during moments of racialized political shock. In the Arab American case, these moments have led to a call for recognition outside the category of white. I conclude by outlining ways forward in the study of Arab Americans, who have been overlooked in studies of race and ethnicity in the US.     

Slow food and the politics of pork fat: Italian food and European identity

This paper explores the emergence of the Slow Food Movement, an international consumer movement dedicated to the protection of ‘endangered foods.’ The history of one of these ‘endangered foods’, lardo di Colonnata, provides the ethnographic window through which I examine Slow Food's cultural politics. The paper seeks to understand the politics of ‘slowness’ within current debates over European identity, critiques of neo-liberal models of rationality, and the significant ideological shift towards market-driven politics in advanced capitalist societies.