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Racial Ambiguity and the Social Construction of Race in the US

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Racial Ambiguity and the Social Construction of Race in the US “WHAT ARE YOU?”: RACIAL AMBIGUITY AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE IN THE U.S. Starita Smith, BA, MA Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2012 APPROVED: George Yancey, Major Professor Erma Lawson, Minor Professor Amie Moore, Committee Member AnaLouise Keating, Committee Member Daniel Rodeheaver, Chair of the Department of Sociology Thomas Evenson, Dean of the College of Public Affairs and Community Service James D. Meernik, Acting Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Smith, Starita “What are you?”: Racial ambiguity and the social construction of race in the U.S. Doctor of Philosophy (Sociology), May 2012, 165 pp., 3 tables, 5 figures, references, 111 titles. This dissertation is a qualitative study of racially ambiguous people and their life experiences. Racially ambiguous people are individuals who are frequently misidentified racially by others because they do not resemble the phenotype associated with the racial group to which they belong or because they belong to racial/ethnic groups originating in different parts of the world that resemble each other. The racial/ethnic population of the United States is constantly changing because of variations in the birth rates among the racial/ethnic groups that comprise those populations and immigration from around the world. Although much research has been done that documents the existence of racial/ethnic mixing in the history of the United States and the world, this multiracial history is seldom acknowledged in the social, work, and other spheres of interaction among people in the U.S., instead a racialized system based on the perception of individuals as mono-racial thus easily identified through (skin tone, hair texture, facial features, etc.). This is research was done using life experience interviews with 24 racially ambiguous individuals to determine how race/ethnicity has affected their lives and how they negotiate the minefield of race. Copyright 2012 by Starita Smith ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank the 24 people who allowed me to interview them. They shared with me their stories of overcoming challenges, of being hurt by others, of triumphing over adversity, of finding themselves and of coming to a strong, healthy racial identity under often difficult circumstances. They spurred me on to do this research because they believe that race is still too much of a painful and divisive issue in the U.S. to pretend as if it is not important. I wish to express my deepest appreciation to my committee chair Dr. George Yancey for his mentoring, his advising, his challenging me to think deeper, and his encouraging me through tough times. I thank Dr. Erma Lawson, Dr. Ami Moore, and Dr. AnaLouise Keating for their patience and hard work on my committee. I am especially grateful to Dr. Keating for encouraging me to study about transgressive identities and race. I thank Dr. Cynthia Cready for her help on my committee early on. I am most deeply appreciative of my strong, supportive and understanding sons Emory and Evan and my daughter-in-law Stephanie for your love and patience through this long process. I remember with much love and gratitude the lessons of my late mother Velma Carter Smith. I also thank my sisters Rhonda Liggians and Lyrica Smith, my brothers Victor and Karl Smith and my stepmother Victoria Smith, as well as my cousins Cecilia and Tzena Smith, Donna Carter, Leslie Edwards, Diana Henry and their families. I am grateful to my ex-office mate and good friend Qi Sun, as well as Johnnie Dollarhide, Elizabeth Keith, Gary Reese, Donald Cox, Yawo Bessa, Linnea Lose, Inshirah Nabhan, Fariba Mirhaba, Myron Strong, Lindsey Johnson and Rodney Bales for their unstinting encouragement. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... III LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES............................................................................................. VI CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 3 CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ......................................................................... 4 Changing Definitions of Race ............................................................................................. 4 Race under European Domination ...................................................................................... 7 The One-Drop Rule or Hypo-Descent ................................................................................ 8 Color Stratification among Blacks ...................................................................................... 9 Passing as White ............................................................................................................... 10 Challenge to the One-Drop Rule....................................................................................... 12 Biracial Identity ................................................................................................................ 13 Racial Classifications have Porous Borders ..................................................................... 14 Race as a Sorting Mechanism ........................................................................................... 15 Tri-Racial Isolate Groups .................................................................................................. 17 The Case of the Mississippi Choctaw Rejected ................................................................ 18 Racial Misclassification and Native Americans ............................................................... 19 Mixed Race Individuals and Kinship Networks ............................................................... 21 Racial Fusion and the Hispanics ....................................................................................... 24 The U.S. Census and the Social Construction of Race ..................................................... 26 CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES........................................................................ 28 Racial Formation Theory .................................................................................................. 28 Assimilation Theory.......................................................................................................... 31 The Latin Americanization Thesis .................................................................................... 32 Theoretical Perspectives: Discussion ................................................................................ 37 CHAPTER 4 METHODS ............................................................................................................. 45 Recruitment ....................................................................................................................... 45 Data-Gathering Instruments .............................................................................................. 47 iv Interview Locations .......................................................................................................... 48 The Interviewees ............................................................................................................... 48 The Interview Script ......................................................................................................... 49 Reflexivity......................................................................................................................... 52 CHAPTER 5 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RACE ENDURES IN A “COLORBLIND SOCIETY” ....................................................................................................................................................... 56 Race in Work and School ................................................................................................. 58 Family life ......................................................................................................................... 62 Romantic and Spousal Relationships ................................................................................ 66 CHAPTER 6 CONSTANT OBJECTIFICATION ...................................................................... 71 Objectification of Native Americans ................................................................................ 75 Being Constantly Doubted ................................................................................................ 79 CHAPTER 7 STUBBORN STEREOTYPES .............................................................................. 83 CHAPTER 8 DEVELOPING AN ADULT CORE RACIAL IDENTITY ................................. 93 “We’re All the Same in God’s Eyes, Then How Come I Don’t Look Like You?” .......... 94 Black is Bad ...................................................................................................................... 97 Making up Your own Racial Identity ............................................................................... 98 CHAPTER 9 NAVIGATING THE RACIAL LANDSCAPE: THE MULTIFOCAL RACIAL IDENTITY .................................................................................................................................. 100 Pride in Minority Identity ............................................................................................... 101 Learning to be Resilient .................................................................................................
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