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Columbia University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Human Rights Studies Master of Arts THE MIXED RACE EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA: DOUBLE EXCLUSION Kimberly Cohen Advisor: Dr. Daniela Ikawa Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts January 2017 “The Mixed Race Experience in America: Double Exclusion” Kimberly Cohen Abstract The mixed-race population is the fastest growing minority in the United States. The current racial stratification system does not adequately account for the diversity of this group nor properly recognize multiracial minorities. This flawed system leads to social and cultural exclusion for this population as well as a lack of recognition in race-based policies. With inaccurate or non-existent data, the multiracial population is not properly protected or served. In addition, the current political trend around race is becoming more conservative and less open to discussions beyond the white/non- white binary. This trend will continue to leave out multiracial Americans from the racial narrative and have implications for race- based policies in the future. This paper aims to illuminate the growing needs of the fastest growing American minority. This paper shines a light on the struggle of mixed race people in America’s rigid, dated, racial system and also acts as a wake-up call to lawmakers, pointing to a lack of inclusive policies, recognition and protections that will need to be addressed as this population grows. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction……………………………..……………………………………………..4 Background………………………………………………………………………..7 II. Chapter 1: Exclusion from above………...………………………………………….8 A missing category: mixed-race…………………………………………………..9 Official statistics…………………………………………………………………11 Civil society……………………………………………………………………...14 A monoracial preference…………………………………………………………16 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….17 III. Chapter 2: Exclusion from below………………………………….………………18 Terminology………………………………...……………………………………18 Perception of interracial couples…………………………………………………22 Social discomfort………………………………………………………………...23 Fluid identities…………………………………………………………………...27 Barriers to entry within minority groups………………………………………...28 Monoracial preference…………………………………………………………...31 A deeper look: Barack Obama……………………………………..…………….35 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….…37 IV. Chapter 3: Public policy and protections ………………………………………...39 Interracial policies -a historical snapshot………………………………………...39 Discrimination……………………………………………………………………41 Legal protection and access to services………………………………………….41 Civil society activism and its effects………………………………….…………44 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….48 V. Final comments and conclusion…………………………………………………….51 Challenges to governance………………………………………………………..51 A new paradigm? A comparison from across the pond……………………….…53 The road ahead …………………………………………………………………..56 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….59 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….63 3 “I am large, I contain multitudes” —Walt Whitman I. INTRODUCTION The year 2000 was the first time in over 200 years of collecting data on race that the United States census included an option for choosing more than one race. Since that first year, the multiracial population has grown significantly – in terms of numbers, prominence and visibility. In 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that about 9 million Americans chose two or more races in the 2010 census, a large increase from 6.8 million reported in 2000.1 This has been a steady trend, as the percentage of multiracial children born in the U.S. jumped from 1% to 10% between 1970 and 2013.2 Between 2000-2010, the number of individuals who chose white and Asian grew by 87% and the number of white and black biracial Americans more than doubled.3 In that same decade, the nation elected a biracial president Barack Obama – a man born to an African man and a white woman from Kansas. There are also many other prominent American public figures of mixed race such as Tiger Woods and Collin Powell. With interracial marriages also on the rise, experts predict that this trend will continue, making the population of mixed-race Americans the fastest growing minority.4 As reported in a 2015 Pew Research Center report: 1 Pew Research Center (2015). “Multiracial in America: Proud, Diverse, and Growing in Numbers.” Washington, D.C., June. at http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/multiracial-in-america/ 2 Ibid. 3 Jones, Nicholas A. and Bullock, Jungmiwha (2012). “The Two or More Races Population: 2010 / 2010 Census Briefs.” U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Sept. 4 Pew Research Center (2015). “Multiracial in America: Proud, Diverse, and Growing in Numbers” Washington, D.C., June. at http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/multiracial-in-america/ 4 “Multiracial Americans are at the cutting edge of social and demographic change in the U.S.—young, proud, tolerant and growing at a rate three times as fast as the population as a whole.”5 This shift in recognition of mixed raced people in 2000 seemed to strike down the notion that the American tradition of the ‘one-drop rule’ (or hypodescent) persisted. It fell in line with the changing norms of racial equality fostered by the civil rights movement and the landmark case Loving v. Virginia, which struck down miscegenation (anti-racial mixing policies) in the 1950s and 60s. Today, it would seem, especially with a biracial president, that acceptance, recognition, and inclusion of this growing population is also on the rise –that being of mixed race is widely seen as ‘normal’. However, 17 years after the Office of Managements and Budgets introduced official recognition of multiracial people, this group reports discrimination at similar rates as monoracial Americans.6 People of mixed race experience social discomfort in interpersonal settings; their ambiguous physical features often invite unwarranted assumptions about their identity or origins; and they are sometimes subjected to ‘authenticity tests’ to prove their loyalty or membership in one of their racial groups in order to gain acceptance. The difficulties faced by multiracial Americans in social and cultural settings are also reflected in official and legal structures. The option to choose two or more races does not actually ensure that multiracial people are recognized as a group or as a minority. When official governmental agencies report on various sectors of society, such as education levels, mixed race Americans are often absent from the reports. Without proper 5 Ibid. 6 Campbell, Mary E. and Herman, Melissa R. (2010). “Politics and policies: attitudes toward multiracial Americans”. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33:9, p.1511- 1536. 5 recognition or accurate data, race-based policies and programs do not actually apply to multiracial people. Evidently, multiracial identity is not as widely accepted in American culture – socially, culturally, or legally – as it might seem: the multiracial population is America’s invisible minority. To develop a theory of ‘double exclusion’, this paper will tackle the challenges that the mixed-race community faces under the current racial stratification system to demonstrate that the framework does not adequately recognize, protect, or serve this rapidly growing population. A two-pronged approach will be employed as the framework to examine the de jure and de facto experiences of this racial group. First, a discussion of how the current system is inherently set up to exclude persons of mixed race will exemplify exclusion ‘from above’, or official exclusion. Second, in the shadow of this flawed system, exclusion ‘from below’ will be discussed --within society, both socially and culturally. After establishing ‘double exclusion’ from above and below, there will be a review of how current racial policies and programs do not properly protect or serve this population. This paper concludes with a brief look at current trends in the national racial narrative, which are becoming increasingly insular and siloed (the re-rise of the white ethnic group and rise of the Black Lives Matter movement), moving away from inclusion of mixed race Americans. This paper seeks to identify a blind spot in society – both officially (from above) and social/culturally (from below), which leaves this population vulnerable and without proper rights or legal recourse. The dated 5-box racial classification system is failing this group and actually perpetuating a monoracial preference. Being the fastest growing minority, this group will require more attention from lawmakers and neighbors alike. 6 Background The racial makeup of the U.S. population had changed dramatically after the Immigration Act of 1965, the civil rights movement, and various waves of immigration in the 1980s and 1990s, but the official racial categories had not been updated since the 1930s.7 As a result of the changes, the conversation around reorganizing racial categories and mixed races re-opened towards the end of the 20th century.8 In the 1990s, many civil society groups began lobbying for the adoption of multiracial reporting on the census since this group was increasingly writing in ‘multiracial’ onto the census’ ‘other’ line and quickly outgrowing the dated categories.9 Thanks to the advocacy of such groups such as the Hapa Issues Forum and the Association of Multiethnic Americans, and even the influence of a Mademoiselle magazine article in favor of recognizing multiracial people, in 1997, the Office of Management and Budgets (the governmental
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