MultiRacial Erasure 4
Raising awareness of this issue which obstructs multiracial students from experiencing the wholeness of who they are in higher education
Most multiracial & multiethnic respondents indicated that erasure is an issue they’ve dealt with in college, χ2(1, N = 104) = 30.15, p < .001, consistent with our previous findings.
White students also participate in orgs, events, activities, etc associated with White culture & heritage, though it generally seems to be less frequent (and less advertised on university websites) than similar events associated with minority student identities.
As such, a Russian American-Hispanic American student is more likely to report that part of their identity has been erased compared to a White American-Hispanic American student. It may be fruitful to assess half-White Multiracials’ White ethnic background with more specificity in a full study on Multiracial Erasure to assess this hypothesis
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To be clear, Multiracial part-Black people at Lamar University are only allowed to be Black
All non-White students at Boston College are just AHANA now (African, Hispanic, Asian, Native American)
And CA has the Primary Ethnicity Hierarchy to reclassify #Multiracial students into a monoracial identity, mirroring monosexism’s exclusion of bisexual identities
#MultiracialErasure
Note: I’ve included an updated 2021 version of Lamar University’s student enrollment data… and it’s just as problematic… despite last summer 🤦🏻♀️
Ford, K. S., Patterson, A. N., & Johnston-Guerrero, M. P. (2021). Monoracial normativity in university websites: Systematic erasure and selective reclassification of multiracial students. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 14(2), 252–263. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000154
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Khan (2011): The more dissimilar parents the taller & stronger the offspring.
This can occur either via parents descending from different genetic pools & via parents from distant geographical locations.
Marc Johnston-Guerrero et al., 2021 (Book Review)
“In the last Census, over 9 million people — nearly 3% of the population — identified themselves as of two or more races. The proportion of college students who identify as Multiracial is somewhat higher, and growing. Although increasing at a slightly slower rate, Multiracial faculty and staff are also teaching and working on campuses in greater numbers. Together, Multiracial people from diverse backgrounds and in various roles are influencing college and university culture, practices, and climate.
This book centers the experiences of Multiracial people, those individuals claiming heritage and membership in two or more (mono)racial groups and/or identifies with a Multiracial term. These terms include the broader biracial, multiethnic, and mixed, or more specific terms like Blasian and Mexipino.
In addressing the recurring experiences of inclusion, exclusion, affirmation, and challenges that they encounter, the contributors identify the multiple sites in higher education that affect personal perceptions of self, belonging, rejection, and resilience; describe strategies they utilized to support themselves or other Multiracial people at their institutions; and to advocate for greater awareness of Multiracial issues and a commitment to institutional change.
In covering an array of Multiracial experiences, the book brings together a range of voices, social identities (including race), ages, perspectives, and approaches. The chapter authors present a multiplicity of views because, as the book exemplifies, multiracial people are not a monolithic group, nor are their issues and needs universal to all.
The book opens by outlining the literature and theoretical frameworks that provide context and foundations for the chapters that follow. It then presents a range of first person narratives — reflecting the experiences of students, faculty, and staff — that highlight navigating to and through higher education from diverse standpoints and positionalities. The final section offers multiple strategies and applied methods that can be used to enhance Multiracial inclusion through research, curriculum, and practice. The editors conclude with recommendations for future scholarship and practice.
This book invites Multiracial readers, their allies, and those people who interact with and influence the daily lives of Multiracial people to explore issues of identity and self-care, build coalitions on campus, and advocate for change. For administrators, student affairs personnel, and anyone concerned with diversity on campus, it opens a window on a growing population with whom they may be unfamiliar, mis-categorize, or overlook, and on the need to change systems and structures to address their full inclusion and unveil their full impact.”
Census, 2021
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José-Luis Álvarez-Castillo et al., 2021
¨Higher education is espousing ideals of diversity, though such evolution [may be] guided by market principles. Within such a context, this paper explores what attention is given to diversity in Spanish university policies and practices and how it relates to key productivity indicators. To do so, a study with a descriptive and correlational design was conducted, based on analyzing institutional documents and surveying chief diversity officers, techniques which provided evidence about diversity philosophy and practices, respectively.
The results revealed at least an average level of institutionalization of diversity, although it did not demonstrate, in most of the areas, any association with indicators derived from a consolidated ranking by productivity in Spain. The conclusion is that Spanish universities have adopted an asymmetric dual model, in which neo-liberal ideas maintain their hegemony while, although subordinately, certain innovations have been consolidated in parallel under the rhetoric of equity and social justice in order to protect a number of vulnerable groups.
Annie Hikido & Susan B. Murray, 2016
¨In conservative or ‘corporate multiculturalism’ models, members of historically subordinated groups are merely ‘added on’ as tokenized representatives in order to superficially diversify homogenous spaces. In what is sometimes referred to as ‘The Benetton Model’ (Gates 1995, 211; Stam & Shohat, 1995, 299) institutions actively seek to recruit individuals who, via their ostensible difference, foster an image of harmonious plurality while authority remains concentrated among dominant group members. This effectively keeps minorities at the periphery of influence while reinforcing hierarchies and reproducing hegemonic norms.
[Conversely,] “Liberal forms of multiculturalism correctly recognize inequality between groups and seek to reallocate power, but tend to emphasize cultural differences as monolithic entities and thus essentialize ‘otherness.’”
More direct curricular and institutional guidance is needed to shift the campus toward greater racial cognizance and understanding (Reason and Evans, 2007) and by extension, a more democratic and full multiculturalism. Critical multiculturalism Embracing multiculturalism has become the marker and moral imperative of so-called ‘modern’ states, institutions, and individuals (Kymlicka, 2007; Voyer, 2011). As a result, ‘multiculturalism’ has manifested in multiple iterations. Indeed, Voyer (2011) notes that this politically loaded term defies simple definition since its meaning and application depend on the context in which it is rooted.
‘Polycentric multiculturalism’ (Stam & Shohat, 1995), calls for a redistribution of the inequitable organization of power embedded in differences. Rather than an endpoint that cheerfully glosses over distinctions in favor of an uncritical humanism, diversity is recognized as an ongoing process that strives for solidarity through critical self-reflection, engaging difference and struggle, and encouraging alliance building (Mercer, 1990). A crucial tenet of critical multiculturalism is making whiteness visible and accountable. As long as whiteness eludes scrutiny as an invisible standard, it remains the marker against which all ‘others’ are measured, thus maintaining its centered and privileged position. Equally pertinent are proponents’ averments that schools, though traditionally sites of cultural assimilation, might now act as ‘border institutions’ where students can question hegemonic ideologies, learn alternative discourses, create new social identities and meanings, and develop a ‘critical dialogue’ between the school and greater public (Giroux, 1995). As a university that serves a multiracial student body and promotes pluralism quite visibly, the school featured in this research has great potential to become such an institution of change. However, as this article demonstrates, white students can embrace multicultural discourses that conserve the legitimacy and centrality of whiteness.