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Hybrid Racial Identities of Asian/Black, Asian/Brown, and Asian/White Mixed-Race Individuals: A Comparative Analysis
Poudel, Anna
Poudel, Anna
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Abstract
This study elaborates challenges faced and strategies deployed by Asian/Black, Asian/Brown, and Asian/White mixed-race individuals in asserting hybrid racial identities. Specifically, I ask: What factors influence mixed-race Asian Americans’ assertion of racial identities? When comparing Asian/Black, Asian/Brown, and Asian/White individuals, what different strategies and challenges emerge? To address these questions, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 34 participants, and four major points of comparison emerged. First, Asian/Black participants’ assertions of multiracial or Asian identity were more likely to be constrained by perceptions of their appearance because of their perceived blackness. In comparison, Asian/Brown and Asian/White participants’ appearances were seen as more ambiguous, giving them more flexibility to identify multiracially, as Asian, or as some other racial option. Second, Asian/Black and Asian/Brown participants’ encounters with racism tended to reinforce mixed-race identity, whereas Asian/White participants’ racist interactions were more likely to strengthen Asian identification. Third, Asian/Black and Asian/Brown participants’ family members were more likely to engage in conversation to support mixed-race identification. However, Asian/White participants frequently faced derogatory comments and othering behavior from White family members, which tended to increase self-perceptions of being racially Asian. Fourth, Asian/Black and Asian/Brown participants tended to have less cultural knowledge of their Asian heritages, yet this generally did not prevent them from asserting hybrid Asian identities. On the other hand, Asian/White participants felt cultural knowledge was necessary to assert an Asian identity, and they generally had the option of gaining cultural membership.
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Date
2023-01-31
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
Sociology, Asian American studies, Afro-Asian, Asian American, comparative study, mixed-race, mixed-race identities, multiracial