Multiracial Asian Americans and the Myth of the Mulatto Millennium
This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to trace the history and continued significance of multiracial representations, in order to challenge a dominant U.S. cultural narrative that imagines multiracial people as symbols of the declining significance of race. It then turns to a discussion of contemporary multiracial Asian American representations. Multiracial Asian American representations form an especially productive ground to explore the contradictions of racial narratives in the United States. Understanding why Asians, particularly multiracial Asians, have so frequently been held up as examples of the eventual triumph of a colorblind United States can help us see what interlocking racial narratives make this such an alluring story. If we contextualize that story within politics, social hierarchies, and a longer historical trajectory, it becomes clear that leaving Asians out of discussions of color blindness and multiracial meaning in the United States serves only to naturalize and render invisible racial inequalities and power hierarchies.