Support for the Ecological Framework for Understanding Multiracial Identity using Latent Profile Analysis

The current study presents a statistical model of the roles of racial identity, racial identification, and racial category under the ecological framework for understanding multiracial identity. The purposes of this study were threefold: (1) to identify distinct profiles of how multiracials understand their racial identity using latent profile analysis; (2) to investigate whether racial identification variables predicted profile membership; and (3) to examine whether profile membership differentiated multiracials across racial category and adjustment outcomes. Using a sample of 269 multiracial adults (77% female, Mage = 23.10) recruited from a southwestern university in 2018, we identified three profiles of racial identity orientations: Singular-oriented (9%; n = 23), Border-oriented (45%; n = 120), and Protean-oriented (47%; n = 126). The Singular-oriented profile was characterized by the highest level of racial distance, and the lowest levels of multiracial pride, challenges with racial identity, and creating a third space. The Border-oriented profile was characterized by the lowest level of racial distance, and the highest level of multiracial pride. The Protean-oriented profile was characterized by the highest levels of racial conflict, challenges with racial identity, and shifting racial expressions. Several racial identification variables significantly predicted profile membership, including gender, Black racial heritage, and perceived racial ambiguity. Furthermore, the three racial identity profiles predicted variation in racial typology choices, proximity to whiteness, distress, collective efficacy, and sense of belonging. These findings attest to the importance of using person-centered techniques to empirically support the ecological framework for understanding multiracial identity.

In/Visible POC: Narratives of a Brown Professor in Teacher Education

In this article, I reflect on experiences of Brown (or South Asian) in/visibility in teacher education. Using an autoethnographic approach, I share reflexive personal and professional counternarratives of my experiences as a Brown person and Brown teacher-educator committed to issues of justice in the diverse context of Toronto, Canada. I explore how Brown invisibility operates in desiring recognition, insider knowings, investments in ambiguity, and relational harm and liberation. I trouble the ways in which theoretical frames open and limit experiences and expressions of Brownness, locating myself in between postcolonial and anti-colonial theorizing and notions of racial ambiguity in DesiCrit. I conclude with the importance of making visible the experiences and constructions of Brownness in faculties of education and education more broadly, as a form of solidarity that both resists Brown invisibility and exposes Brown complicity in an aspirational whiteness that maintains racial hierarchies through its invisibility.

The neural basis of ideological differences in race categorization

Multiracial individuals are often categorized as members of their ‘socially subordinate’ racial group—a form of social discrimination termed hypodescent—with political conservatives more likely than liberals to show this bias. Although hypodescent has been linked to racial hierarchy preservation motives, it remains unclear how political ideology influences categorization: Do conservatives and liberals see, feel or think about mixed-race faces differently? Do they differ in sensitivity to Black prototypicality (i.e. skin tone darkness and Afrocentric features) or racial ambiguity (i.e. categorization difficulty) of Black/White mixed-race faces? To help answer these questions, we collected a politically diverse sample of White participants and had them categorize mixed-race faces as Black or White during functional neuroimaging. We found that conservatism was related to greater anterior insula activity to racially ambiguous faces, and this pattern of brain activation mediated conservatives' use of hypodescent. This demonstrates that conservatives' greater sensitivity to racial ambiguity (rather than Black prototypicality) gives rise to greater categorization of mixed-race individuals into the socially subordinate group and tentatively suggests that conservatives may differ from liberals in their affective reactions to mixed-race faces. Implications for the study of race categorization and political psychology are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'.

Framing racial position and political standing: Hmong Americans in the Wisconsin State Journal and the Chico Enterprise-Record

Although membership is regarded as an important condition of immigrants’ capacities to influence the political system, the literature on immigrant political incorporation has tended to focus on formal citizenship status, giving the impression that other forms of membership matter less for immigrants’ political capacity. Arguing for the need to account for ethnic groups’ perceived racial position within local contexts, this paper explores how media outlets, as public institutions, construct the identity of Hmong Americans in ways that affect their political standing. Using a textual analysis approach, we examine how two newspapers within two US communities frame Hmong’s group identity. Our findings show that the papers situate Hmong within a field of racial positions, albeit, not in the same ways that past research predicts would apply to Asian Americans. While differing in the particulars, the two newspapers are quite similar in the frames they use to depict Hmong Americans: civic ostracism, racial ambiguity, and threat. The media neither refer to Hmong as Asians nor valorize them vis-a-vis another racial category. Nevertheless, media representations frequently sully Hmong as a threat to the community. We discuss the implications of our findings for immigrant political incorporation.