While pundits point to multiracial Americans as new evidence of a harmonious ethnic melting pot, in reality mixed race peoples have long existed in the United States. Rather than characterize multiracial Americans as a 'new' population, this text argues that instead we should view them as individuals who reflect a new culture of racial identification. Today, identities such as 'biracial' or 'swirlies' are evoked alongside those more established racial categories of white, black Asian and Latino. What is significant about multiracial identities is that they communicate an alternative viewpoint about race: that a person's preferred self-identification should be used to define a person's race.
Natalie Masuoka's Multiracial Identity and Racial Politics in the United States traces the historical forces that created a new cultural norm to racially self-identify as "multiracial" and offers evidence on the possible political implications of this racial identity.
In: Oxford scholarship online
In: Political Science
While pundits point to multiracial Americans as new evidence of a harmonious ethnic melting pot, in reality mixed race peoples have long existed in the United States. Rather than characterize multiracial Americans as a 'new' population, this text argues that instead we should view them as individuals who reflect a new culture of racial identification. Today, identities such as 'biracial' or 'swirlies' are evoked alongside those more established racial categories of white, black Asian and Latino. What is significant about multiracial identities is that they communicate an alternative viewpoint about race: that a person's preferred self-identification should be used to define a person's race
Englisch
Oxford University Press
Problem melden