Official Classification, Affirmative Action, and Self-Identification: Hui-Han Bi-ethnic College Students in China

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Abstract

The existing literature on the self-identity of multiethnic people focuses on Western countries where ethnic identification has become fluid and self-report-based and “mixed” identities have been increasingly accepted. It remains largely unknown how multiethnic people identify themselves in countries where ethnic classification is exclusive and rigid and ethnicity influences people’s life chance in institutionalized ways. Based on in-depth interviews with 20 Hui-Han bi-ethnic college students in China, this paper shows how the official ethnic classification and affirmative action shape the self-identification of multiethnic people and the role that college campus environment plays in this process. I find that most respondents identify themselves as Hui minority regardless of their cultural practices, largely because their parents chose to register their largely unchangeable official ethnicity as Hui and they have internalized this official identity after reporting it repeatedly in bureaucratic processes and experiencing benefits from the affirmative action. Students in China’s special “universities for ethnicities” where ethnicity is a salient topic tend to feel frustrated about this ascribed mono-ethnic identity because of expectations from peers and teachers for them to behave like Hui; whereas, in regular universities where ethnicity is not a salient topic, although students also feel such expectations from others, they have more freedom in choosing the salience of ethnicity in their life and tend to see ethnicity as a symbolic label. Most students from both types of university show an essentialist understanding of ethnicity and many of them express unsupportive attitudes towards institutionalizing multiethnic identities. This study helps us understand the interactions between official ethnic classification and individuals’ self-identification and expands our knowledge about the identity of multiethnic/multiracial individuals beyond societies that take a post-modernist approach in ethnic identification.

Author

• Xiang Lu, New York University