Commonwealth Princess?

Prior to the Sussexes’ departure from their roles as senior royals, there was a significant attempt to construct for the Duchess of Sussex the persona of the “Commonwealth Princess”. There were two main purposes to this persona. The first was to use both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their popularity to leverage a more modern face to monarchy in the Commonwealth. The second purpose, stemming from this, was to maintain and strengthen contemporary relations with Commonwealth nations. Markle’s biracial identity was an important part of this strategy and persona as it became a means to connect to colonised people of colour.

EXPLORING BIRACIAL IDENTITY THROUGH ROOTS TRAVEL FOR AFRICAN DIASPORAS

This auto-ethnography, grounded in my experiences as a biracial, bicultural black woman, is written as an exploration of how identity formation is impacted through travel. It considers my lived experiences with Du Bois’ double consciousness in a traditionally hegemonic society. Using Poston’s (1990) biracial identity development model as a framework for my inquiry, I examine a roots tourism trip to Ghana as a reflection of my lived experiences to demonstrate how the utilization of auto-ethnography as a critical method of inquiry can provide important insights into the intersectionality between roots tourism and identity. Results from this study suggest that exposure to roots travel can be the catalyst for personal internal and external reflection on one’s patterns of behavior and thought about their identity.

In Brief

“Biracial identity, lgbtq+ and latinx, how suicide spreads, and embodying intersectionality. New research from the journals.”

Biracial Identity Development at Historically White and Historically Black Colleges and Universities

This study explores the relationship between biracial identity development and college context. I draw on interviews with 49 black-white biracial first- and second-year students attending historically black colleges/universities (HBCUs) or historically white colleges/universities (HWCUs) and follow-up interviews with the same students at the end of college to explore how and why their racial identities changed over time. Most participants experienced racial identity change over the course of the study, and this change was most often in the direction of a strengthened black identity for both HBCU and HWCU students. An increasing understanding of racism led students at both institutional types to develop stronger black identities. The processes that led to this heightened awareness of racism, however, differed across institutions. Reflected appraisals (HBCU students’ impression that their peers included and accepted them as black and HWCU students’ impression that their white peers excluded and labeled them as nonwhite) also played a role in students’ strengthening black identities, as did increased contact with black peers (especially for HBCU students). This article describes the implications of biracial identity development for biracial students’ psychosocial well-being, campus social adjustment, and college persistence.

Meet the Twentysomethings

Four young adults with thoughtful religious, spiritual, and secular views are profiled. Maria, a devout Catholic Latina who is a graduate student in speech pathology; Jeremy, an enthusiastic Mainline Protestant whose gay and biracial identity left him wary of religion; Lee, an Evangelical convert who switched from a Chinese to a multiracial congregation; and Abby, who rejected the White middle-class Evangelicalism of her childhood for atheism and then adopted an eclectic spirituality. Emerging adulthood is then described, as is the book’s qualitative and survey methodology and its focus on 91% of American twentysomethings who identify as Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical, or religiously unaffiliated (i.e., Nones). The book’s seven scholarly contributions are stated and the next six chapters are introduced.

Whose Side Are You On? Asian Americans’ Mistrust of Asian–White Biracials Predicts More Exclusion From the Ingroup

We investigated Asian Americans’ perceptions of Asian–White biracials. Because the Asian/White boundary may be more permeable than other minority/White boundaries, we reasoned that Asian Americans are more likely than Black Americans to be skeptical of biracials, perceiving that biracials would prefer to identify as White and would be disloyal to Asians, consequently categorizing them as more outgroup. We further reasoned that Asian Americans’ concerns about and exclusion of biracials would be predicted by greater perceived discrimination against Asian Americans, which increases the incentive for biracials to pass into the higher status racial group. Studies 1 and 2 provided correlational support for these theorized relationships among Asian Americans. Study 2 showed that perceived discrimination did not increase Black Americans’ concerns about biracials’ identity preferences and loyalty. Studies 3 and 4 provided causal evidence for the roles of perceived discrimination and biracial identity preferences, respectively, in Asian Americans’ exclusion of biracials.