Discography of the Multiracial Experience: A Mixed Kid's Soundtrack

Delving into the intricacies of being multiracial.

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Despite multiracial people being able to look past stereotypes, a majority of the population in the United States often fails to do so, which can be traced back to the deeply ingrained systematic racism and biased western standards that are still upheld. I have always viewed being biracial as either a difficult balancing act or an ultimatum between the different parts of myself. In Drake’s “You & the 6”, he recounts being bullied in his childhood for being black, then compares it to his current life as a rapper whose blackness is being called into question due to the fact that he may not perpetuate a certain stereotype because of his upbringing or the fact that he is biracial. This is an over-simplified, yet efficient depiction of what many biracial and multiracial people undergo. I know I have often felt as though I was in a sort of limbo, because I didn’t fit the profile of most Asian people, nor did I speak Spanish or engage in any of the cultural celebrations; I couldn’t order Dim sum myself, but also didn’t know how to do the Caballo Dorado (Mexican square dancing) at parties. (Though eventually I did learn the dance, the look on the faces of my friends was something I would never forget—a slap in the face that came with the realization that I was not quite like them).

Something important that Drake brings up is the idea that other people often warp mixed kid’s self image and identity, deciding for them who they are before they have a chance to figure it out themselves. I have seen this happen to myself my whole life—when only my father and I are given forks in a Chinese restaurant, despite my sister and I being the same amount of Chinese, just because she looks more like my Asian mother; or when I was asked how I got into an AP class by another peer, just because I was the only brown girl in the room with a Mexican last name, in a majority Asain class. In both these scenarios, someone made the decision for me, they decided I was Mexican, and in the latter situation they even decided how my race was to define me based on racist stereotypes. Conversely, there have also been times where my one friend would sigh about how she needs more Mexican friends, as if that part of my identity did not matter or was diluted by the fact that I was mixed. It is truly polarizing to be thrown back and forth between racial groups when no one will claim you and everyone makes the decision for you.

Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the sociologists who developed the theory of racial formation, note that “when people are racially designated as a card-carrying, uniform-wearing members of a specific racial group, they are expected to look and act a certain way—to be in accordance with their racial formula, to follow the racial script” (Williams, 1996, p. 203). Biracial and multiracial people are constantly subjected to racial stereotypes that people project onto them in order to help categorize their identity. Omi and Winant also add that “Comments such as ‘You don’t look Chicano,’ ‘You don’t talk black’ or ‘You don’t act Asian’ reveal racial expectations” (Williams, 1996, p. 203). While these comments on their own are racist and highlight the long standing prejudice of this country, it is the way people deliver them that is all the more offensive, as if whether or not a person looks, acts, or talks a certain way is better or worse. It’s what sociologist and social theorist Joe R. Feagin coined the “white racial frame”, which is comprised of “racial ideas, terms, images, emotions, and interpretations specifically crafted to uphold white supremacy”; a truly damaging viewpoint that biracial kids are frequently subjected to (Chang, 2016, p.13).

Sharon H. Chang (2016), a writer, activist, and member of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, highlights the fact that “though we may attempt to claim and define our own identities, doing so can become an uphill battle against group categorization assigned to us by the society in which we grow and live” (p. 61). No matter how sure a multiracial, young adult or child may feel about their identity, other’s opinions often have the tendency to determine how they are perceived— “...unowned and involuntary race assignment becomes one of the most prominent characteristics in determining power and privilege” (Chang, 2016, p. 61). This takes a lot of power away from multiracial people, and often causes them to feel as if they have no choice in their own identity.

Now, we cannot thoroughly explore the racism and prejudice that multiracial people face without looking at how the governmental actions heavily influence the subject. Not too long ago, on government forms or standardized testing questionnaires, we were expected to pick one race that best describes us and if not we could pick “other”. “Other”, as in not the same as everyone else; as in separate and different. While it may not be that deep or intentional, to a young person, a kid, it feels like a haunting label and serves to push them even further away from the “norm”. Though today, some forms do allow for people to put multiple races, there still lies a problem in the lack of options available and how long it has taken to get to this point.

The government’s role in racial classification of multiracial people can be drawn back to the 1600s, with the introduction of the “one-drop rule” or hypodescent. The “one-drop rule” was a law created in the United States that essentially declared that if a black and white biracial person had even “one-drop” of black blood in them, they were recoginized as only black; this was created in order to keep children of black and white geneology—who were the often result of white slaveowners raping slaves—from gaining any social status or staking claim to assets their white parent may have had, as only whites could own property. While this rule was ever-present throughout this whole time period, it became even more relevant during times of the Jim Crow South in the early 1900s. White southerners used this to continually keep black, mixed people from advancing in society or being recognized as part white. The government's compliance and support of this law, and their eagerness to twist racial borders in order to benefit their agenda and prejudice demonstrates how their interest’s often take precedence over people’s identity.

The effects of their racist laws still have a hold on the perception of many people today. Research conducted about the “One-drop rule” by Arnold K. Ho, a Ph.D., a student in psychology at Harvard, and James Sidanius, a professor of psychology and African and African-American studies at Harvard aimed to prove this.

Ho and colleagues presented subjects with computer-generated images of black-white and Asian-white individuals, as well as family trees showing different biracial permutations. They also asked people to report directly whether they perceived biracials to be more minority or white. By using multiple approaches, their work examined both conscious and unconscious perceptions of biracial individuals, presenting the most extensive empirical evidence to date on how they are perceived (Brandt, 2010).

Results of this research reported that subjects believed biracial people who were one-fourth Asian to be more white than those who were one-fourth black, “despite the fact that African Americans and European Americans share a substantial degree of genetic heritage” (Brandt, 2010). Whether intentional or not, it is difficult for many people to escape the bias that was once so popularized by the government. The results are also affected by the “racial hierarchy” —“which assigns the highest status to whites, followed by Asians, with Latinos and blacks at the bottom,” which Ho and Sidanius anticipated. They also found that in general, both whites and non-whites associated biracial people with lower class, which speaks not only to the systematic racism, but the internalized racism that many multiracial people carry with them (Brandt, 2010).

Despite a great deal of change taking place between the “one-drop rule” and today, the government still has a ways to go in terms of recognizing multiracial people. In the 1970s, one of the most important keystones that resulted in the limited viewpoint with which we conduct racial statistics was the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Statistical Policy Directive 15. Directive 15 laid the foundation for how “all governmental agencies including the census” should conduct federal data regarding race. It included only five categories from which a person could only pick one: white, black, Asian/Island Pacifier, American Indian/Native Alaskan, and Hispanic (Fernandez, 1996, p. 28). This posed a problem for many mixed race people as it forced them to pick only a single part of their identity, and did not even provide them an “other” box.

Today, the census is much more inclusive thanks to changes over the past couple of decades, however, other government forms still fail to do so.

In fact, some schools today still fail to offer multiracial children an option to identify as more than one race, and if they choose not to pick just one, “as a matter of federal policy, school officials are empowered to visually inspect (the so-called ‘eyeball test’) for purposes of racially classifying a student who chooses not to identify monoracially on a school census form (‘No Place,’1989),” (Fernandez, 1996, p. 28). The idea of the government encouraging school officials to judge a child’s racial makeup based on their looks is backwards, uncomfortable and crams mixed children into a category without their consent. This is something that slid past me while filling out my school forms. I did not notice until I was helping my sister log into her school account that she's only said Asian, while mine, only Hispanic. When I attempted to try and correct this mistake and add Hispanic to my sisters profile it would not let us change it, and had the race category locked. While it may not appear to most as a big deal, the fact that multiracial people have had to—and continue to—fight and petition just to be granted the ability to be properly categorized and recognized is an issue.

A large amount of negativity towards multiracial people can be found within the language we use. I can recount many times in which family members or friends have called my sister and I names like “mutt”, “mixed breed” or “half breed”. Terms like these are often dehumanizing and make it appear as if multiracial people are animals and just have a generally negative connotation. Some terms also go further and expose an even deeper sense of hatred for biracial people, like “race traitor” or “double-crosser”, which also insinuate a racist allegiance to a single race. Having to be addressed by names like these, whether there is malicious intent behind them or not, does take a toll on a person’s mental health. When faced with this kind of language children and young adults tend to internalize it, which eventually affects their self image to the point where they may see themselves as less than, abnormal, or not human. That is why some have called for new terminology, as even the term “mixed” sometimes appears to be limiting. Cammie Kim Lin (2017), a contributor to Engaging with Multicultural Young Adult Literature in the Secondary Classroom: Critical Approaches for Critical Educators, and professor at New York University suggests that we rethink how we view and label multiracial children, thinking of them as alloys rather than a mixture— “using an alloy as a metaphor emphasizes the complex, but unified nature of mixed identity. The metaphor also respects multiple aspects of cultural mixedness (e.g., inter-class or interfaith), in the alloy formation. The parts come together to form a new, unified whole”. By changing the language in order to make multiracial children feel like less of a mismatched puzzle and more of a purposeful and “unified whole”, it helps to improve the way in which they view themselves.

The language we use to address multiracial people is not the only thing that they often have to grapple with. Up until recent years, there has been a large lack of representation in the media for multiracial children—personally, I cannot recall a specific person or character who I felt that I could relate to on TV, or in movies or books as a child—which can be detrimental to their development of self-image.

For young people who are culturally mixed, that means the prototypical coming-of-age tropes don’t always resonate. For example, the common themes of finding oneself, fitting in, and navigating relationships can have very different meanings for mixed youth. Likewise, reading mixed identities and experiences through a monocultural lens can evoke misguided interpretations. Reading the mixed experience requires that we consider different meanings, ask different questions. (Lin, 2017)

Not being able to see themselves on screen or directly relate to the stories that they consume, causes multiracial kids to feel excluded and believe that the happy endings that they see are not for them. The “prototypical coming of age tropes” that Lin refers to can be very inspiring and leave a lasting impression on its young adult viewers that can shape their evolving outlook on life. However it fails to compensate for the unique experience of multiracial children undergo and it leaves them wondering how said trope fits into their life or if they will ever get to see their experiences reflected on the big screen they watch or in the pages they read.

This also means that monoracial people must take a different approach when writing or reading storylines about multiracial people. They need to be examined with a different lens because they are different—a story which resonates with a monoracial person might not really strike a chord with biracial kids.

Though in recent years there has been a bigger effort to include biracial storylines and characters in shows like Andi Mack, Dear White People, and Blackish, in comparison to the representation of monoracial people, multiracial people are still greatly outnumbered. There is also a larger issue with the lack of representation within the biracial cinematic universe. Something that all the respective shows have in common is that one of the parents of the biracial child or character is white. Now, I point this out, not to diminish or invalidate the white and person of color biracial relationships in these shows—it is still important that they are being seen—but to draw attention to the fact that there is a pattern of only ever showing one parent of color on screen, which can be a problem for children who have two parents who are POCs. It also insinuates that there may be a right and wrong way to be mixed. This may be the media’s attempt to make the relationships on screen seem slightly more “socially acceptable” and easier to consume for western audiences who are unfamiliar or uneasy about the idea of multiracial families—though this could be a conversation more about POC representation in the media in general, and not just in on-screen multiracial depictions, as well.

In 2015, one in seven U.S. infants were reported to be multiracial or multiethnic. That’s fourteen percent of all newborns in 2015 in America. That number was triple the number reported 1980 and is only projected to grow. With the future looking so mixed, why should that same representation not be seen on screen?

With all of these obstacles seemingly stacked against them, we must ask: How does being biracial or multiracial affect a person’s mental health and even more interestingly, their outlook on life? We have discussed many of the mental pitfalls that come with being multiracial—being subjected to racist assumptions and the “white racial frame”, feeling alienated from both “sides” of your family and internalizing the pressures from different social groups, the negative language surrounding mixed kids, and the lack of representation in the media—all of which put mixed kids at a higher risk of stress related health problems. It also causes “struggle[s] with identity formation, leading to lack of self-esteem, social isolation and problems of family dynamics” (2003). However, despite their sometimes poor outlook on themselves, multiracial people tend to view others with a more open and welcoming lense. In fact, 59% of the 21,224 adults sampled by the Pew Research Center, felt as though they were more open to other cultures than monoraced people.

Their lack of bias, tendency toward openness, a more accepting nature is what makes multiracial and multiethnic people so important today, especially in the polarizing times of Trump’s America. There is a need for more people who are able to look past westernized stereotypes and combat the racism, which has always been there, but is now rearing its head so publicly once again. Perhaps, biracial and multiracial people can be the key to dismantling the highly racialized reality that we live in today.

References

Bradt, S. (2010). One-Drop Rule Persists. The Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard. edu/gazette/story/2010/12/one-drop-rule-persists/.

Chang, S.H. (2016). Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World. New York: Routledge.

Cher. (1973). “Half-Breed”. Half-Breed. MCA Records.

Drake. (2015). “You & the Six”. If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. Cash Money Records/ Young Money Ent./Universal Rec. Youtube.

Fernandez, C.A. (1996). Government Classification of Multiracial/Multiethnic People. Root, M.P.P. (Ed). The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier (pp. 23-28). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Greig, A. (2013). Seven essential facts about multiracial youth. American Psychology Association. https://www.apa.org/pi/families /resources/newsletter /2013/08/multiracial-youth.

Lin, C. K. (2017). Multiethnic/Multicultural/Multiracial Alloys: Reading the “Mixed” Experience in Little and Lion. Ginsberg R. & Glenn W.J. (Ed.). Critical Approaches for Critical Educators: Engaging with Multicultural Young Adult Literature in the Secondary Classroom. New York: Routledge.

Livingston, G. (2017). The rise of multiracial and multiethnic babies. Pew Research Center.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/06/the-rise-of-multiracial-and-multiethnic-babies-in-the-u-s/.

Logic. (2017). “Black Spiderman”. Everybody. Def Jam Recordings.

Mixed Race Teens Prone to Depression. (2003). The Washington Post. https://www. washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/10/31/mixed-race-teens-prone-to-depression/ff04745b-be4a-473d-ac59-58abdda8845d/.

Parker, K., Horowitz, J.M., Morin, R., & Lopez, M.H.. (2015). Multiracial in America. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/multiracial-in-america/.

Williams, T.K. (1996). Race as Process: Reassessing the “What Are You?” Encounters of Biracial Individuals. Root, M.P.P. (Ed). The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier (p. 203). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.