Racial Identities and Life Choices among Mixed Heritage Asian, American Indian, and Black People in the United States of America

• In Event: 3556 - Multiracial Classification/Identity

Abstract

How does a person’s racial identity link to other aspects of their life such as who they choose to marry and how they choose to identify their child(ren)? We address this question from a variety of angles to get an improved understanding of how race ‘works’ in the United States. This paper is a preliminary report on a multi-method project focused on two groups of people with mixed racial background – Asian/White and American Indian/White people. We begin the project with a three- stage analysis of US Census data from 1980 to 2016 to see patterns in the race and ancestry responses of people of mixed heritage, how that relates to patterns in (the race/ancestry of) who they marry, and how both of those relate to the ways their children are racially/ancestrally identified. Our interviews of people of mixed heritage (60 interviews to be conducted in the first half of 2018) cover these same topics with much more depth and context. In all of the research, we attend to location in an effort to learn how local or regional histories and patterns intersect with and influence identity choices and constraints. By identifying patterns in Census responses and setting them in context with in-depth interviews around the US, we aim to reveal primary factors driving not only the choices a person makes about their own racial identity (i.e., the social construction of their own race), but also how this plays out to produce the racial composition of, and meanings and practices in, the family they create.

Authors

• Carolyn A. Liebler, University of Minnesota

• Miri Song, University of Kent