“Where Do I Belong?”: Navigating Bi/Multiracial Community Building amidst DEI initiatives at a Predominantly White Institution

• In Event: 30420 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 13: Multiracial, Transracial Spaces, and Navigations

Abstract

As U.S. colleges and universities rush to accommodate the pressures of becoming more racially diverse, there has been an increase in the number of spaces meant for minority students. However, our knowledge of how bi/multiracial students are accommodated at PWIs is limited and we know little about how these students are incorporated into what John Diamond posits as their “racialized educational terrain” (Diamond, 2006). Thus, this study explores how these students navigate monoracial spaces of higher education and negotiate their own identities to fit into these structures. I demonstrate how collegiate DEI spaces reflect broader institutional deficits in promoting racial diversity and force the consolidation of students’ biracial identities into monoracial ones to assimilate into Lakeshore University’s monoracial structure. To do this, I discuss the various processes and methods, both as a result of internal and externalized pressures, employed by students to reconcile their multiracial identities. These instances occurred among personalized contexts, such as perception of self, code-switching, boundary work, and students’ active choices to self-exclude from DEI spaces. This research aims to demonstrate the detrimental effects that organizational perpetuations of monoracialism have on biracial students seeking proper representation. It also serves to provide insight into the biracial student experience within higher educational spheres by communicating the importance of proper racial and ethnic representation on college campuses.

Author

• Siena Baracsi, Loyola University-Chicago