Ate scholars: Cultivating community amongst multiracial women of color in graduate school

ABSTRACT

This critical duoethnography examines the experiences of Multiracial Women of Color graduate students in order to inform best practices when advising and working with Women of Color in graduate school. As Multiracial Women of Color the authors navigate not feeling racially enough, essentialism, exotification, and a desire for community, membership, and sister solidarity.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiracial women
• graduate students
• duoethnography
• MultiCrit

Our narratives

In Tagalog (a language spoken in the Philippines), the word ate means older sister. We begin our duoethnography emphasizing this meaning because of the need for sister spaces in the academy as graduate students. Academia is an intense space that often exudes competitive characteristics. Our narratives and duoethnographic work uniquely contribute to the scholarly conversation focused on graduate students in higher education because it serves as a disruptive counter narrative to the contentious spaces in graduate studies. Rather than focusing on zealous competitiveness, as co-authors, friends, colleagues, and ates we build intentional sisterly solidarity by supporting one another in our doctoral endeavors. We share our first encounter with one another as a way to offer insight into how we cultivated a sisterhood and how this research ultimately unfolded.

In February 2020, our doctoral program hosted an on-campus visit for prospective students. At the time, Lisa was a prospective student and Rebecca was a first-year doctoral student. After introducing ourselves to one another, we realized we were both Multiracial Filipinas and shared similar research interests. We truly felt an instant connection. Rather than approaching our conversation and research from a scarcity mindset, we intuitively recognized that there is space for both of us in academia and have spent the last three years lifting one another up both through our individual goals and our collaborative efforts. We share resources, opportunities, and genuine love for one another. It is our intention that our collective narratives and synergistic energy inspire a rupture to the competitive culture in academia. Our deep connection has helped us continue to persist. Without each other, we would not have made it through our program. Overall, our friendship has helped us grow personally and academically in so many ways that we are eternally grateful for.

Introduction

The history of higher education demonstrates that institutions were created for the purpose of serving and supporting wealthy, white,¹ Christian men (Holmes, Danley Land, and Hinton-Hudson 2007; Rudolph 1990). During the establishment of higher education, women were declared intellectually inferior and expected to complete tasks at home assigned by men in their households (Rudolph 2011). Therefore, women were denied access to higher education opportunities solely based on their gender. Although higher education institutions initiated the inclusion of women within seminary education in the 1800’s, People of Color were not included in scholarly roles such as teachers or students, during the formation of American colleges and universities. People of Color were denied access to higher education opportunities solely based on their race (Holmes, Danley Land, and Hinton-Hudson 2007). We find it imperative to commence this paper with the recognition that higher education is rooted in white supremacy and patriarchy.

The oppressive values engrained in higher education continue to exist; within graduate school environments, Students of Color often experience marginalization and dehumanization due to racism (Felder, Stevenson, and Gasman 2014; Gay 2004; Gildersleeve, Croom, and Vasquez 2011). A core component of this marginalizing experience is the lack of Faculty of Color representation in graduate programs. Consequently, graduate Students of Color often look for support systems outside of their program, contributing to added stress (Fernandez et al. 2019). This population of students may also face imposter syndrome due to isolation, pressure from the stresses of the academy, and hostile learning environments (Chakraverty 2020). Additionally, Women of Color graduate students experience overlapping systems of oppression due to their race and gender (Matias, Walker, and Del Hierro 2019; Patterson-Stephens and Hernández 2018; Squire and McCann 2018).

Experiences with systemic inequalities and microaggressions in higher education have also influenced Multiracial populations. Scholarship on Multiracial students indicates that they may experience racial microaggressions and monoracism, a unique form of oppression that operates within the paradigm that students have only one racial identity (Harris 2017a; Johnston and Nadal 2010). Racial microaggressions and monoracism are rooted in white supremacy. Multiracial women, specifically, experience both racial and gendered systems of oppression simultaneously (Crenshaw 1989). While there have been studies on undergraduate Multiracial women (Harris 2017b) and Multiracial women faculty (Jackson et al. 2020; Murakami and Núñez 2014) experiences with racial microaggressions, more attention is needed to understand the experiences of Multiracial women across varying contexts. It is imperative to note that all Multiracial women and Multiracial communities do not hold the same racialized experiences; different racial makeup, time, and context may impact Multiracial individuals’ identities and how they move through the world (Harris 2016). Therefore, Multiracial identities must not be essentialized.

Throughout this paper, we deliberately choose the term Women of Color as an explicit and political choice to demonstrate solidarity across the different racialized experiences in Communities of Color. As authors, we also assert and emphasize that Multiracial people are People of Color. It is crucial to recognize that the Women of Color experience is not a monolithic one to prevent essentializing these experiences; however, we choose this language to focus on building sister solidarity by acknowledging both the similarities and differences amongst Women of Color graduate students. In this manuscript, we specifically highlight Multiracial Women of Color as a part of the larger discourse on Women of Color graduate student experiences.

The purpose of this duoethnography is to examine how Multiracial Women of Color graduate students navigate these interlocking systems of oppression (Crenshaw 1989) through the lens of Multiracial Critical Race Theory (Harris 2016). We contribute to the literature on multiraciality in higher education by examining the experiences of Multiracial Women of Color and the ways in which they navigate their racial and gender identities within graduate school at a Predominantly white Institution. The research questions that guide our work are: How do Multiracial Women of Color graduate students navigate a Predominantly white Institution? How do Multiracial Women of Color graduate students make meaning of their racialized and gendered identities on campus?

Review of literature

There is a dearth of published peer-reviewed literature exploring the experiences of Multiracial Women of Color in graduate school. Therefore, we approach this literature review as a way to situate the experiences of Multiracial Women of Color. First, we explore Women of Color graduate student experiences more broadly, and then we delve into Multiracial Women of Color undergraduate student and faculty experiences in higher education.

Women of color graduate students

While the literature exploring graduate Students of Color illuminates the racism embedded within graduate school socialization (Felder, Stevenson, and Gasman 2014; Gay 2004; Gildersleeve, Croom, and Vasquez 2011), it is also critical to understand the ways in which interlocking systems of oppression may influence graduate students’ experiences. Scholarship on Women of Color in graduate school conveys the oppressive racialized and gendered values ingrained within the academy (McKee and Delgado 2020). Women of Color in doctoral programs receive fewer professional development opportunities such as access to fellowships, apprenticeships, and collaborations with faculty members (Turner and Thompson 1993). Women of Color doctoral students may feel isolated, tokenized, disengaged with their program, or unsupported by their institutions (González 2006). Moreover, Women of Color graduate students experience covert and overt messages implying low academic capabilities and sometimes face derogatory remarks related to race and gender (Ramos and Yi 2020). However, the growing literature on Women of Color graduate students has extended to demonstrate the ways in which Women of Color engage in forms of resistance within the academy (Squire and McCann 2018). For example, collaboration and community for Women of Color pursuing graduate-level degrees has demonstrated to be critical for their persistence and resistance. Engaging in critical discussion and reflection on lived experiences within graduate education (Ashlee, Zamora, and Karikari 2017; Matias, Walker, and Del Hierro 2019; McKee and Delgado 2020) and cultivating hermandad or sista’ scholar bonds (Patterson-Stephens and Hernández 2018) function as forms of resistance to uplift and validate one another. The published works on Women of Color in graduate school are paramount to challenging racist and gendered systems of oppression.

Multiracial women of color

More specifically, the literature on Multiracial Women of Color in higher education is limited; however, some studies focus on this experience (Harris 2017a; Jackson et al. 2020; Murakami and Núñez 2014). For example, Harris (2017b) conducted a critical qualitative narrative study with ten undergraduate Multiracial Women of Color that revealed specific racial stereotypes experienced on college campuses, including assumptions about appearance concerning exoticism and conjectures about participants identifying as monoracial. Harris (2019) also investigated the social interactions of undergraduate Multiracial women at historically white institutions. This study illustrates how whiteness, as a construct, creates racist environments that limit Multiracial women’s interactions in social settings and classroom spaces.

In addition, there has been an exploration of the Multiracial Women of Color faculty (Jackson et al. 2020; Murakami and Núñez 2014) through collaborative autoethnographic studies that have revealed the ways in which their Multiracial and Multiethnic identities have contributed to their professional work to support students and contribute to social change. Most importantly, these studies have highlighted the importance of counterspaces for Multiracial Women of Color faculty as they navigate racism, monoracism, colorism, and sexism within the academy. These studies illuminate a pivotal time in Multiracial research that has exposed monoracism, multiracial microaggressions, and the unique experience Multiracial Women of Color share. While groundbreaking work related to Multiracial Women of Color experiences has been shared in the realms of undergraduate students and faculty life, our study intends to extend this literature and focus on Multiracial Women of Color at the graduate level at a Predominantly white Institution.

Methodology

Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework that grounds our work is Critical Multiracial Theory (Harris 2016), an extension of Critical Race Theory (Delgado and Stefancic 2001). While Critical Race Theory asserts the existence of racism and centers the lived experience of People of Color (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995), MultiCrit expands upon this framework to center Multiracial voices in scholarship and research (Harris 2016). MultiCrit has eight tenets: challenge to ahistoricism, interest convergence, experiential knowledge, challenge to dominant ideology, a monoracial paradigm of race, racism, monoracism, and colorism, differential micro-racialization, and intersections of multiple racial identities (Harris 2016). However, for this paper, we delve deeper into four of these tenets. To begin with, MultiCrit asserts that the world operates within a monoracial paradigm. Additionally, there is a focus on the existence of monoracism as a system of oppression and the relationship between monoracism, racism, and colorism. Next, it examines micro-racialization and posits that Multiracial students are racialized differently based on context, environment, and time. Lastly, MultiCrit calls attention to intersectionality. Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) that delves into the overlapping systems of oppression that function simultaneously for Black women. Though the term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, it is also imperative to acknowledge the Black women and Women of Color who contributed to conversations of interlocking systems of oppression such as Sojourner Truth, The Combahee River Collective, Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga (Harris and Patton 2019; Ray 2022). Since, intersectionality has expanded to examine how power structures impact the lived experiences of people with multiple marginalized social identities (Museus and Griffin 2011). Within MultiCrit, Harris (2016) employs intersectionality to examine how different racial makeup may impact Multiracial peoples’ identity and how they move through the world.

MultiCrit is key to understanding our study because we explore our own experiences as Multiracial Women of Color under the assertions that monoracism and monoracial paradigms exist. Monoracism (Johnston and Nadal 2010) is a unique system of oppression that privileges those with one racial identity at the cost of oppressing those with multiple racial identities. An example of monoracism is when questions on demographics forms require respondents to indicate only one racial identity. MultiCrit asserts that this system of oppression is real. This assertion is critical in understanding how we situated our study and our epiphanies because it validates monoracism as a lived experience.

Additionally, our experiences are situated in the different ways that we are racialized, depending on the context of graduate school education. As co-authors, we must also examine that our different racial makeup may influence how we experience our Multiracial Women of Color identities when navigating our graduate student identities. Our different racial makeups as a Mexipina Woman of Color and as a Biracial Filipina and white Woman of Color impact how we move through the world and our graduate school experience. Harris (2016) explores the importance of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989), and our study’s purpose directly relates to this tenet because we intend to capture the intersectional experiences of Multiracial Women of Color.

Duoethnography

The methodology we utilize in this study is duoethnography, a dialogic research methodology that allows two or more researchers to engage in a conversation, critique, and question social issues (Sawyer and Norris 2013). The researchers ‘are the site of their own inquiry, interpretations, and representations’ (Sawyer and Norris 2013, 10). Additionally, duoethnography has its own set of tenets. These tenets include focusing on a phenomenon, a dialogic process, disrupting metanarratives, prioritizing difference across narratives, using the past to inform the present, pushing against one universal truth, accessibility to the audience, and building trust and vulnerability. Duoethnography is distinct from other collaborative forms of research because the focus of each author is made explicit, and texts are in conversation with one another (Sawyer and Norris 2013).

Duoethnography is a transformative methodology because it uniquely evokes empathy, vulnerability, honors individual stories, embodies innovation, invites subjectivity by acknowledging authors within the study, pushes methodological boundaries, and offers reflective and therapeutic opportunities for the authors (Custer 2014). Autoethnographic work, like duoethnography, inherently expands the boundaries of traditional qualitative research because it centers the researchers’ narrative as a form of knowledge generation. As a methodology, duoethnography inspires crucial interventions and implications for educators because it highlights individual stories and experiences that might not be captured in larger datasets. Specifically, this method distinctly matters for Multiracial Women of Color because it calls attention to the experiential knowledge (Harris 2016) that is often diminished within the scholarship focused on graduate Students of Color.

Our study aligns with duoethnographic tenets for the following reasons: (1) We focus on the Multiracial Women of Color graduate student experience as a phenomenon, (2) engage dialogic process as our data analysis, (3) prioritize our different identities (different racial/ethnic makeups, and call attention to colorism), (4) share both our past and present experiences in our narratives, (5) push against universal truth through anti-essentialism, present our narratives to be accessible to our audience, and (6) build trust and vulnerability through our narratives an relationship with one another. This methodology allows for researchers to present their narratives through dialogue or journaling as data (Snipes and LePeau 2017). Furthermore, as writers, we share our duoethnography to convey larger stories connected to the culture of the Multiracial Women of Color experience. We believe that our duoethnographic efforts can be a systemic intervention for interrupting societal norms related to monoracism. Through data collection such as journaling, recorded conversations, and responses, we both employed vulnerability by sharing the innermost parts of our narratives related to childhood, imposter syndrome, and not feeling racially enough (Ashlee and Quaye 2020). As authors, we built trust with one another by creating small moments of interconnectedness and shared experiences throughout the process (Ashlee & Delacruz Combs, 2022). Our paper aims to contribute to the larger body of work that highlights Multiracial Women of Color and emphasizes the isolated experience of Multiracial women in graduate school.

Data collection and analysis

We collected data through one extensive journal entry written by both authors, responses to both journals through the comments feature in the word processor, and multiple recorded Zoom conversations to process the shared narratives. We co-constructed journal prompts and discussion questions which were informed by our research questions, theoretical framework, literature review, and lived experiences. For example, our research questions the gap in scholarship that highlights Multiracial Women of Color graduate student experiences. Our individual journal entry questions are in direct response to the gap in the literature, asking for direct reflection about the gendered and racialized experiences of Multiracial Women of Color. Additionally, our study specifically focuses on graduate school experiences, therefore; we focus our discussion questions on higher education contexts and environments. Examples of questions we asked one another during our data collection process include:

• What does being a Multiracial Woman of Color mean to you?

• How has your identity as a Multiracial Woman of Color impacted your experience in higher education? Within your graduate program? Within a PWI?

After we completed our written journal entries, we responded to each other’s narratives and had three separate joint analysis conversations, which led to a co-created community space. We drew upon the dialogic process tenet from dueothnographic methodology and engaged in multiple analysis conversations. According to Sawyer and Norris (2013), duoethnographies are different from traditional research because ‘there are few or no conclusions … meanings are contextually situated’ (93). Instead, duoethnographies report transformations, temporal insights, placeholders, or epiphanies (Sawyer and Norris 2013). Therefore, we make sense of our duoethnographies through our telling of our stories and epiphanies we find from our dialogic process.

Our Narratives

A key component of duoethnography is the telling and coanalysis of stories in both conversations and writing (Sawyer and Norris 2013). First, we present parts of our conversations related to our individual understandings about our Multiracial identities in theatrical script and polyvocal text formats to invite readers into our dialogic conversations and process (Sawyer and Norris 2013). Then, we share epiphanies we identified from our conversations, journal entries, and responses to one another.

Lisa’s understandings of her identity as a multiracial woman of color

Rebecca:

How do you racially identify?

Lisa:

I identify as a biracial Filipina Woman of Color, specifically, as Filipina and white. I have spent a lot of time feeling like my identity is fragmented and feeling like there are few spaces where I can show up as my full authentic self. I have struggled with feeling like I must choose depending on context and how others see me.

Rebecca:

Navigating spaces in terms of how you feel like you belong or do not belong because of context and how others see you … I can fully relate to this! What are your familial experiences as a Multiracial Woman of Color?

Lisa:

My mom is from the Philippines and immigrated to the U.S. when she was 20. She became a nanny and moved to San Diego, California, where she met my dad, who was in the military at the time. My mom and I weren’t close when I was growing up. I tried to push her away to have closer proximity to whiteness, and experienced internalized racism. Over the past few years, I have beautifully reconnected with my mom and my Filipina identity through Tagalog lessons and a recent trip to the Philippines. My dad and I were close growing up, but our relationship has become strained as I have started to reflect upon how controlling he was of my mom. He didn’t let her include my Filipinx roots in my name. He didn’t let her teach me Tagalog. He didn’t let her cook Filipino food in our home. This, too, led to broken roots and connections between me and my Filipina identity.

Rebecca:

I have so much to say about this! Did you ever find out why he was controlling of your mom and your connections to your Filipinx culture? My dad has done the same. We grew up speaking Spanglish but we never really learned how to speak Tagalog. It wasn’t until I had to personally ask my mom herself to teach me words and phrases. My mom cooked Filipino food at home, but my dad always had a preference for Mexican food. We also had more access to Latinx grocery stores because the area we lived in was predominantly Latinx. There’s definitely patterns with patriarchal power in our relationship to our cultures. What about your experience in higher education? What is your experience being a Multiracial Woman of Color in higher education?

Lisa:

Being a Multiracial Woman of Color has impacted my experience in higher education. During my time as an undergrad, everyone saw me as an either-or. They made assumptions about my identity, depending on the context or who I was with. When I was in a monoracial Panhellenic sorority, people viewed me as white. Within that sorority, I was seen as other. They viewed me as different and often tokenized me as the Woman of Color that could teach them about diversity. I often feel that because of my Multiracial identity, I am seen as more palpable to others, specifically the people in my sorority and other white folks. White folks and People of Color view me as an in-between and an answer to racial inequities.

Rebecca:

The tokenization and extra labor placed on you to teach folks about diversity is a lot to put on someone. I am so sorry you experienced that in undergrad. Was your experience the same in your master’s program? How did you explore what multiraciality meant to you in this educational space?

Lisa:

It wasn’t until I started to read Renn’s (2008) work about Multiracial identity development that I started to feel like an entire person. Reading Marc Johnston-Guerrero’s (2016) work about embracing my identity’s messiness made me feel seen, heard, and valued in ways I never have before. Seeing my story represented in scholarship inspired me to continue to write my Multiracial story into existence. Higher education was not built for someone like me. I always describe it as trying to fit into a pair of jeans that aren’t your size. These jeans were not built for me, and it often feels like I am trying to contort my body to fit. You can alter the jeans, but they still weren’t built or made for me. The irony of this is that I have felt seen and heard in the very place that was not made for someone like me. My Multiracial identity informs my ability to hold multiple truths, and, in this case, I recognize that higher education was not built for me, and it has expanded my access to stories. It’s because of higher education that I finally saw myself represented. Through this exploration, I finally started to find myself and see myself as a whole person rather than fragmented pieces of a puzzle that I tried to fit together, but it never really worked. I learned that there isn’t one way to be Filipina, and there isn’t one way to be Multiracial. I still struggle with confidence and feeling like I am enough for certain spaces. To be honest, this is something that I will likely continue to work on throughout my life. However, I also know that I am enough, even when the world tells me I am not.

Rebecca:

First of all, Kris Renn’s work was also the first Multiracial identity development scholarship I read about Multiracial individuals. I often wondered why Multiracial scholarship wasn’t included in my undergraduate courses that talked about race! I am also a low-key fan girl over Kris Renn because if I hadn’t read her work, I don’t know when I would have come across Multiracial scholarship. I am so happy that you reached out to Marc Johnston-Guerrero and were able to cultivate a mentorship relationship with him and see yourself represented in a faculty member. I also appreciate your metaphor about higher education not being built for people like you and us. It really hit home and touched my heart. I can relate to this so much!

Rebecca’s understandings of her identity as a multiracial woman of color

Lisa:

Thank you! What about you, Rebecca? How do you racially identify? And what does being a Multiracial Woman of Color mean to you?

Rebecca:

I identify as Multiracial and specifically, Mexipina – both Mexican and Filipina. Being a Multiracial Woman of Color to me means embracing the different cultures rooted within my family. It also means continuously learning the histories of Spanish colonization in Mexico and the Philippines to understand the experiences of generations before me. It means asking my papi about the stories of my abuelito and abuelita and asking my inay about the stories of my lolo and lola. It means learning about two different countries across the world from each other and the history of my family’s emigration.

Lisa:

I love this! I relate to this, too. I often think about how colonization also impacts my lived experience as a Multiracial Woman of Color. What has your experience been like in higher education?

Rebecca:

To me, being a Multiracial Woman of Color in higher education has been a journey towards learning about my overall racial identity. During my undergraduate career, I attended a Predominantly white Institution, in which I felt like I did not belong. I took Chicanx Studies courses to learn about my Mexican American identity and surround myself with a community that I could relate to. However, my institution didn’t offer Filipinx courses that I was aware of. So, I still felt like there was no place on campus where I racially belonged as a Multiracial woman.

Lisa:

Wow, I hear you. I resonate with you on this, too. I also majored in Political Science and had a similar experience. I feel like I did not have access to learning about my Filipinx identity until I found the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment (AFIRE) and started taking Tagalog classes after I graduated with my master’s. What was your experience like when you started your master’s program?

Rebecca:

I had no knowledge about scholarship or practice around the topic of Multiracial identity until the second year of my master’s program when I was assigned a few readings on the experiences of Multiracial students in higher education. Those readings inspired me to want to pursue a doctoral program because I was concerned why multiraciality wasn’t discussed in higher education, especially within courses on race.

Lisa:

Isn’t it interesting that we both didn’t start learning about our Multiracial identities until our master’s programs? This makes me wonder about having to have access to education in order to have access to stories about your own experience. After finally engaging in Multiracial scholarship, what do you think about your Multiracial identity now?

Rebecca:

With time, I have learned to be proud of my racial identities because I am both. I encompass both. My family and cultures encompass both. Sometimes, I feel like I am not racially enough with monoracial communities; however, I try to remind myself that I am enough – and not being fluent in a language or knowing all my histories, cultures, and/or traditions still means I am enough.

Lisa:

This comes across in both of our narratives. This idea that we are not racially enough. I hear you.

Epiphanies

Duoethnographies report epiphanies that emerged through conversations and storytelling (Sawyer and Norris 2013); therefore, we offer our primary epiphanies in which we encountered: not feeling racially enough, the significance of capturing intersectional experiences, experiencing fetishization and exotification in the academy, and the importance of building community amongst Multiracial Women of Color.

Not feeling racially enough

One epiphany we identified was not feeling racially enough (Ashlee and Quaye 2020). We both wrote about and discussed not fulfilling racial expectations that others had for us due to our racial identity. For example, Rebecca shares,

Sometimes, I feel like I am not racially enough with the monoracial communities I identify with; however, I try to remind myself that I am enough … I am not well versed in Filipinx history, so I feel like being involved in a Filipino American group as a doctoral student … I may not be enough of an expert to say things or take lead on certain tasks. Even within the Latinx community … I’ve written for the Latinx student magazine on campus, but I feel like I have to write about multiraciality because I’m not qualified to write about only my Latinx experience.

This idea of not feeling racially enough is connected to a lack of knowledge around culture and language and ultimately begs the question of who gets to gatekeep and decide who has experiences belonging in Communities of Color. The experience of not being racially enough also demonstrates the monoracial paradigm we live in. These internal dialogues depict a policing phenomenon that may be happening within Communities of Color, and which may be symptomatic of more extensive socialization (within a monoracial paradigm) about what it means to be a Multiracial Woman of Color.

Additionally, not feeling enough transcended to other parts of our lives as Multiracial graduate students. We both expressed not feeling like we were enough in the academic space concerning our writing and overall confidence levels, which led to imposter syndrome during our graduate school experience. This imposter syndrome transcended to our experience in graduate school and is captured when Lisa states,

Being a Multiracial Woman of Color has impacted my confidence, self-esteem, and my relationship with imposter syndrome. As a Woman of Color, I often hear voices in my head that tell me I am not enough. They say you are not a good writer. You will never be successful … You are stupid. How could you make that mistake? No one else would. My life continues to be a battle in which I work to silence these voices in my head.

Not only did Lisa not feel racially enough because of lack of access to language, traditions, and cultures, but this concept that she was not enough to claim her identity informed her race and became embedded into her internal thoughts about her writing and her very being as a graduate student. When one does not feel enough within their own identities, this may lead to increased imposter syndrome and decreased self-esteem and confidence in graduate school. Moreover, we call into question how our intersectional experiences with racialized and gendered oppression contribute to not feeling enough in graduate school. Rebecca reflects on an incident during her first week of her doctoral program,

I was asking around about how to get access to funding for a higher education conference I was attending later that semester. The two white men in the room were shocked … like, so surprised that I was presenting at a national conference. They basically interrogated me and the proposal I helped submit because they couldn’t believe that a first-year Woman of Color graduate student got their proposal accepted. It felt invalidating, and I experienced imposter syndrome … like maybe my proposal shouldn’t have gotten accepted?

As women, we are made to question our legitimacy and intersectionality is about the unique experience of being women of color that is not additive, but cumulative. As People of Color, we are made to doubt our existence. As Multiracial people, our liminal being makes us wonder if we are enough in monoracial spaces. We explore intersectionality and anti-essentialism in the next section.

Capturing anti-essentialism and intersectionality

Another epiphany we found within our narratives was the need for this unique intersectional experience to be acknowledged within graduate school education. Being a Woman of Color is not a monolithic experience and being a Multiracial Woman of Color provides its own challenges and sources of empowerment as graduate students. We interrogate intersectionality and anti-essentialism as key tenets in MultiCrit (Harris 2016). Intersectionality is not about examining individual experience; rather, it is about acknowledging interlocking systems of oppression. For both of us, there were examples of overlapping systems of sexism and racism that uniquely shaped our experiences. For example, we both named experiences related to exotification and fetishization that we explore with more depth in the next section. Moreover, our narratives reveal nuance related to intersectionality when discussing the ways sexism, racism, and colorism all interact in our graduate school experiences. Essentialism is essentializing Communities of Color as one monolithic experience. This is a limiting perspective because individuals navigate identities differently based on context, other identities, and individual lived experiences.

For example, Lisa identifies as a light-skinned Multiracial Woman of Color so while she may navigate monoracism, racism, and sexism she has privilege within the system of colorism because she is lighter skin. We emphasize this difference in our identities and experiences with systems of power to align with the tenets of duoethnography.

On the other hand, this may manifest differently for Rebecca, given that she identifies with two minoritized racial identities and has a medium complexion, so as she navigates graduate school, she navigates colorism, racism, sexism, and monoracism not as separate systems of oppression but as interlocking forces. To be specific, Rebecca describes a harmful experience in graduate school,

During my first semester of my doctoral program, I was in class crying about the racism and sexism I was experiencing on and off campus on a daily basis … and the white professor did nothing. Shortly after, a white woman cried about feminism and the professor ran to her during break to ensure she was okay. I felt hurt and neglected…like my feelings and experiences weren’t valid. My white woman classmate’s feelings were deemed as more important, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

In alignment with MultiCrit, we argue that while monoracism, racism, and colorism are inextricably connected; they are distinct systems of oppression, and more attention is needed to capture this nuance. Moreover, duoethnography is a methodology that inherently calls for anti-essentialism by honoring individual lived experiences.

Exotification and fetishization

Furthermore, another epiphany that arose was how as Multiracial Women of Color we experienced being fetishized and exoticized within academia. Exotification is illustrated by the persistent question of ‘What are you?’ and compliments regarding appearance. These questions and comments created discomfort when navigating higher education as graduate students and aspiring scholars. For example, Rebecca shares,

Being a Multiracial Woman of Color means always being questioned … “What are you?” in educational and professional settings … in addition to being told my “mix is interesting/cool” or that I “look exotic” …Like, during my first year in my doctoral program, I was casually dating another graduate student on campus who is a white man. When talking about his “type”, he said he was more into white women–which made me think that people like me … a Multiracial Woman of Color was being fetishized, exotified, sexualized and not thought of as something more.

Rebecca’s experience illuminates what it means to be asked multiple questions concerning one’s appearance and being exotified as a graduate student. This experience is often exhausting and contributes to the additional labor that Multiracial Women of Color carry as they navigate graduate school. This finding is reinforced with Lisa’s response,

I am often uncomfortable about the ways people talk about the way I look. I know I should be happy that people are calling me beautiful, but it feels as though they are exoticizing me. I remember dating someone in college who told me my name should be Jasmine because my name should be more exotic. It’s incredibly frustrating, and it just makes me feel uncomfortable.

We have both been called exotic. The fact that the same language was used to describe our appearance conveys the fetishization and focus on what Multiracial Women of Color look like, therefore diminishing their holistic brilliance and dehumanizing them within the academy. This focus and attention to our appearance is a result of not only racialized oppression, but gendered oppression and demonstrates how intersectionality shapes our experiences as graduate students. For Lisa, this attention on her appearance has transcended from college into graduate school where other students question her validity as a Woman of Color based on her clothing choices. This focus on Lisa’s appearance became exhausting because of fear of judgment, an emphasis on her choices, and distraction from academics and other rigors of her graduate education.

Community and mentorship: sister solidarity

Lastly, we uncovered the power of Multiracial Women of Color communities within graduate school. We shared stories of having Multiracial mentors and feeling heard, seen, and validated within Multiracial communities. Lisa shares this in her journal entry,

Through communities with other Multiracial and Multiethnic Women of Color in the academy, I have laughed, cried, learned, unlearned, found myself, lost myself, and then found myself again. We are there to support one another. I have found a space for Multiracial Women of Color at work. We call ourselves 3LW. These women have been there for me through it all. They make me feel loved, especially on those days where I don’t feel like I am enough.

Through mentorship and communities with other Multiracial and Multiracial Women of Color in higher education, Lisa felt heard, seen, validated, and that she was enough. It is the power of community that elicits strong emotional responses such as laughing and crying. Rebecca shares similar notions,

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an online Mixed-Race Women of Color Leaders workshop, where Multiracial women in higher education came together to build community. This was my first time ever being in a space specifically for Multiracial people—even more specific, Multiracial women. It felt comforting to be connected with individuals who may not share the same racial identity as me, but who have similar experiences with their racial identities. From feeling like we were not racially enough to having to prove to ourselves towards our racial groups…I feel like we were able to share, resonate, and validate one another’s experiences.

Rebecca’s story illuminates the importance of specific Multiracial Women of Color spaces and how being in community with one another may work directly against feelings of not being enough. However, we also discussed the difficulties in finding Multiracial Women of Color and spaces among liminal racialized experiences for Women of Color in academia because of how different this experience is. In her narrative, Lisa conveys this when she says, ‘I have not found a space for Multiracial Women of Color. I think being Multiracial adds a nuanced layer to the Woman of Color identity’. Access to these unique spaces is difficult yet empowering for Multiracial Women of Color in graduate school. Overall, feeling valued and acknowledged cultivate moments of joy for us as Multiracial Women of Color and is imperative to our motivation and success within the racist and gendered norms that constitute academia.

Additionally, as we wrote and discussed our own experiences into existence together, we cultivated a deep connection. We grew love for one another, thus, leading to the creation of us constructing our own community of support both personally and academically. Through the sharing of our stories, we found solidarity amongst each other in our graduate school experience. Because academia was built on the frameworks of white supremacy and patriarchy, academia can have a competitive environment where the pressure to publish, faculty expectations, and environmental factors can pit minoritized Women of Color, and specifically Multiracial Women of Color against one another. However, we utilized our solidarity to build a coalition of Sista’ scholars (Patterson-Stephens and Hernández 2018) in order to push back against the competitive nature of academia. Inspired from the term Sista’ scholars, we established ourselves as ate scholars to embrace our shared Filipino culture. Rather than competing against one another, we are supporting one another and working together to challenge the racist and sexist values we both experience in graduate school. Our experiences as Multiracial Women of Color and research interests on multiraciality have bolstered our aspirations to work with one another and with other Multiracial Women of Color to promote continued scholarship on this subject matter. As Multiracial Women of Color, our experiences are valid. Our stories should be shared and acknowledged by others in the academic community. We are enough.

Discussion

Our epiphanies work with and build upon previous research about Multiracial Women of Color and graduate Students of Color, particularly concerning socialization. The literature emphasizes the importance of support systems for graduate Students of Color (Fernandez et al. 2019). Our duoethnography demonstrates this importance for Multiracial Women of Color in graduate school. However, our study also builds upon this argument by exploring the nuances and difficulties accessing these spaces because they don’t exist or can be challenging to find, especially because of the intersecting gendered, racialized, and monoracialized oppressions we navigate due to white supremacy and patriarchal values instilled within the foundations of academia. We both discussed not feeling racially enough as graduate students (Ashlee and Quaye 2020). What is particularly compelling about this finding is that it is an innate feeling that transcends multiple identities across Communities of Color. Our study strengthens Ashlee and Quaye’s (2020) ‘s work because it illuminates the fact that other People of Color, specifically monoracial People of Color, may also share this feeling of not being racially enough. Therefore, this calls to question the very systems and rigidity of race put forth by white supremacy culture and calls for examining how People of Color are socialized to understand what it means to claim their racial identity. Moreover, our study nuances the concept of ‘enoughness’ because it demonstrates that it is not only the ways we are racialized in academia that create this phenomenon, but the gendered and monoracialized experiences as well.

When situating our epiphanies within MultiCrit, they demonstrate how Multiracial Women of Color navigate colorism, racism, and monoracism. While we assert that these systems are interlocking and connected, more scholarship is needed to nuance the differences between these systems and examine how they overlap and function as interlocking systems. Additionally, our epiphanies call attention to the rigidity of race that serves as a function of white supremacy to pit racial groups against one another in order to prevent solidarity building across and between communities. Specifically, in our study we highlight sister solidarity as a form of resistance against the scarcity mindset prevalent in higher education that is a function of white supremacy and patriarchy. As Multiracial Women of Color who have similar research interests, we could have been in competition with one another. However, we remain ate scholars connected through our mixed Filipina identities and push against white supremacy. This intentional separation due to white supremacy leads to upholding systems of power and whiteness. Enforcing racial boundaries within monoracial communities illustrate how white supremacy continues. Our very existence as Multiracial Women of Color transgresses the rigidity of this system and challenges hegemonic whiteness.

Furthermore, our epiphanies enhance Ashlee and Quaye’s (2020) ‘s work because they demonstrate how feelings of not being racially enough extend across a person’s life, therefore creating imposter syndrome and low confidence because of gendered, racialized, and monoracialized oppression. Our epiphanies also suggest a need to capture this unique anti-essentialist experience individually for Multiracial women graduate students to feel heard, validated and seen. Moreover, our epiphanies indicate that Multiracial Women of Color navigate multiple systems of oppression such as colorism, sexism, monoracism, and racism. These systems are deeply connected. How can the individual meet the systemic to honor an individual lived experience situated in interlocking systems of oppression?

Implications for practice

Within duoethnography, duoethnographers report how to implement their findings into practice (Sawyer and Norris 2013). Therefore, we offer the ways in which these epiphanies can provide implications of practice for faculty and administrators who work with Multiracial women graduate students. This study also calls attention to how monoracism manifests within graduate school education and academia. It illuminates the importance of Multiracial Women of Color community, representation, and mentorship in the academy. It also exposes the distinct symptoms of intersectional oppression that Multiracial Women of Color experience. This oppression is elucidated from exoticization, imposter syndrome, and an innate feeling of not being racially enough. This feeling can then expand into other facets of a Multiracial person’s life, leading to low confidence and self-doubt. Faculty and graduate school program coordinators should consider intentional community building for Multiracial Women of Color and representation and mentorship when hiring faculty to join their departments. These communities may work in direct opposition to alleviate imposter syndrome, gendered and racialized oppression, and feeling like one is not racially enough. When advising Multiracial Women of Color in graduate school, advisors should also consider that this population is not monolithic. They are all individuals working with a racist, monoracist, and patriarchal system. Honoring their unique individual lived experiences, voices, and stories while simultaneously emphasizing the assets and power of Multiracial women is the first step in creating a strong mentor/mentee relationship. Moreover, our narrative is an example of building sisterly solidarity in hyper competitive graduate student spaces. We recommend that faculty and administrators intentionally create similar community mentorship spaces that foster collaborative efforts across graduate Students of Color in order to focus on amplifying community assets and diminishing the competitive characteristics in the academy. Summatively, this duoethnography demonstrates the importance of sharing Multiracial stories to disrupt monoracism as a system of oppression that impacts higher education more broadly. Disrupting monoracism can lead to creating more inclusive spaces for Multiracial Women of Color in academic spaces.

Conclusion

This study is significant because it begins to capture the anti-essentialist and unique experience of Multiracial Women of Color in graduate school missing from the literature. This duoethnographic study shares our own personal narratives that extend to larger stories about Multiracial Women of Color cultural experiences. We explicitly expand upon the scholarship of not feeling racially enough by affirming and enhancing the argument that this may be a lived experience across all Communities of Color and gendered experiences. We argue for sister solidarity across and between Multiracial Women of Color. Additionally, this work strengthens the growing scholarship on Multiracial Women of Color concerning undergraduate students, faculty, and staff by including our narratives as graduate students. Our study continues to exemplify the genuine ramifications of monoracism and white supremacy within the academy and how graduate programs and faculty can contribute to Women of Color graduate student socialization to create environments where Multiracial Women of Color feel valued in the academy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We do not capitalize “‘white’ in order to resist against white norms and ‘reject the grammatical representation of power capitalization that brings to the term “white”.’ Instead, we capitalize terms People of Color, Communities of Color, Women of Color, and Multiracial people as a ‘grammatical move towards empowerment and racial justice’ (Pérez Huber 2010, 93).