The Study of Racialism

chasbyrd · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 389 } Location: NYC

Mixed-race children share adults' mixed emotions about cultural identities

By Janie Magruder
Gannett News Service

Aaron Foster was 3 years old the first time the question came.

"What are you?" asked the barber, out of earshot of his mother.

"I'm a boy," Aaron replied, bewildered.

"No, what are you? Black? Chinese?"

"I do gymnastics."

That exchange in 1997 made Christina Cooper-Foster, the preschooler's Taiwan-born mom, realize issues of race haven't changed a lot. Cooper-Foster was raised by white adoptive parents in Florida in the 1970s, and the same hurtful queries and curious stares she got were now plaguing her son, who is of mixed race.

"The good news is there are a lot more people who are different," says the 35-year-old single mom, who now lives in Phoenix. "The bad news is there's still a mind-set that different is not good."

Her sons, Aaron, now 11, Ethyn, 5, and 3-year-old Eli are among the estimated 4.5 million multiracial children younger than 18 in the United States. Given that interracial marriages nearly tripled to more than 4 million in 2000, from 1.5 million in 1990, these kids are the fastest-growing segment of the population. They also represent a large part of the mixed-race population, at 42 percent, according to a report released in April by the Census Bureau.

Yet, despite the popularity of multiracial celebrities such as Tiger Woods, Mariah Carey and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, mixed-race kids often must choose one race over another and may not be welcomed by either.

They also are more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse, sleep problems and various illnesses, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Their 2003 study of 90,000 U.S. adolescents found students who called themselves biracial were more likely to have sex at younger ages, access to guns and poorer experiences at school.

"It did not matter what races the students identified with," says J. Richard Udry, a professor of maternal and child health and lead researcher. "The risks were higher for all of them if they did not identify with a single race."

Udry concluded that multiracial children live with stress that their single-race peers do not.

"The most common explanation for the high-risk status is the struggle with identity formation, leading to lack of self- esteem, social isolation and problems of family dynamics in biracial households," he said.

Multiracial adolescents and teens often suffer through their high school years, wondering if they'll ever meet anyone who looks or is like them.

"Coming to college often is the first time they even get to meet with other people who shared their same experiences," says Michelle Porche, a research scientist at Wellesley Centers for Women in Massachusetts who recently did a pilot study about the development of racial identities. "They are finally with other people who are of mixed race and feel like they can form communities."

Donna Jackson Nakazawa, author of "Does Anybody Else Look Like Me?" (DaCapo, $14.95), disagrees with Udry's results, saying the study's sample was too small. Parents of mixed-race kids have the power to change the outcome, Nakazawa says.

"Parents can help children make that essential leap from 'what's wrong with me?' ... to 'what's wrong with them?' " she says. "Society is confused about who these people are."

Who are they?

They're people like Nathalie Conte, a past president of SIMBA - Students Identifying Multi- racial and Biracial at Arizona State University - who helped host an event for mixed-race students this spring on campus. Conte, a 22-year-old ASU senior, has a black mother and a white father.

"The biggest issue is we have to choose our race on application forms, and it's kind of frustrating when you have to pick 'other,' because you don't think of yourself as 'other,' " she says.

For the first time, the 2000 census allowed Americans to check more than one race box. Of the 281.4 million total population, 2.4 percent, or 6.8 million people, said they identified with two or more races.

Growing up in Hawaii, Jason Skinner was in the majority as a mixed-race kid. The questions started when Skinner, who is Korean and Caucasian, moved to Arizona in 2001.

"Some guy came up to me and started speaking Spanish, and I'm like, 'I'm not Mexican!'," says Skinner, 22, who also is mistaken for American Indian, Filipino and Eskimo.

Cooper-Foster's eldest son currently identifies as black because he doesn't see many Asian faces around him. She plans to take him to Taiwan one day and agrees her sons can benefit from being multiracial.

Citing the African proverb of it taking a village to raise a child, she says, "I get more than one village to raise my children. That's the power of diversity."

Powell · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2462 }