‘I’m a different kind of biracial’: how black/white biracial Americans with immigrant parents negotiate race

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, multiracial families have garnered scholarly attention. However, the roles of ethnicity and immigrant ties are largely absent in bi/multiracial studies. Drawing on 17 in-depth interviews with black/white biracial Americans with at least one immigrant parent, this study analyzes the dynamic interplay of race, ethnicity, and immigrant roots in the bi/multiracial community. Our findings show that participants struggle to articulate the meaning of race, and they assert specific racial/ethnic identities to circumvent stereotypical connotations of whiteness and blackness. We highlight how biracial Americans with immigrant ties – those who we might assume would have a limited understanding of race – voice clear understandings of racial superiority and inferiority, racial relations, and racial stereotypes. Emphasizing their ethnic roots is not only an attempt to accurately describe their ancestry; it also allows them to avoid the social consequences (i.e. stereotypes, discrimination, etc.) of being (half) white or (half) black.

KEYWORDS:

• Bi/multiracial Americans
• immigrants
• ethnicity
• racial identity
• multiracial families

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Root (1996) uses this terminology to refer to the increase in bi/multiracial births following the 1967 Supreme Court case that declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

2 We use the term ‘bi/multiracial’ to refer to individuals of African/Black and European/White ancestry, or to refer to the larger population of Americans whose racial heritage includes two or more backgrounds. Using ‘bi/multiracial’ is an attempt to be inclusive of individuals who identify with ‘biracial’ and/or ‘multiracial.’ We are deeply committed to inclusivity given the long history of ignoring or misidentifying this community (Root, 1996). We use the term ‘biracial’ when referring to our respondents because most of them identified with this term. 

3 Although Samuel’s mother and grandmother were socialized in a country where they were members of the racial majority group, it is important to underscore the significance of the skin color hierarchy in the Caribbean (Telles, 2009). In fact, scholars have argued in Latin American and Caribbean countries, skin color functions much like race functions in the United States, yet citizens of these nations tend to deny the potency of race and racism (Telles, 2009), which corresponds with Samuel’s assertion about the Caribbean. As is often the case with privilege, Samuel’s relatives’ light skin privileges might have been less visible to them than to their darker-skinned counterparts.

4 She is using the plural form of the word ‘you,’ meaning Americans in general, not the interviewer.

5 Although Danes do not have a violent history with African-Americans as white Americans do, it is important to mention that Danes have expressed anti-immigrant sentiments to non-white immigrants (Reddy, 2002). In addition, it has been argued that in Denmark, racism is often (mis)understood as or conflated with nationalism (Jenkins, 2014). Therefore, Everett’s assertion about Danes not being racist is likely a message from his white Danish mother since he did not spend much time in Denmark as a child or adult. Similar to Samuel’s messages about race, this parent might be less aware of her privileges as a white Dane than, for example, a black or brown immigrant who grew up in Denmark.