Born ‘mixed’ in the USA: An emic/etic review

Abstract

This article traces the way ‘mixed’ as a category of racial discernment travels through global spaces and interpersonal situations, and showcases the changing norms around difference and diversity, particularly as it plays out in American multiculturalism and racial equity policies and practices. Biographical moments of my life as a person with African and European parentage point out how multilingualism, multinational affinities and refugee life experiences impact the context-specific nature of this identity category. In what ways do classifications of ‘mixed’ uphold assumptions about the multi-, or mono-, racial demographics of place, home, communities and nations? Analytical engagement in Mixed-Race Thought has historically focused on narratives of identity formations that respond to either/or choices; in the United States, this means identification with Black or White. I will shift focus to the in-between space of the perceived and the perceivers and will draw from discourse on ‘halfie personhood’ to explore a kind of volatile positionality that has been intellectually productive for anthropologists. I want to consider how asserting mixedness can be both a liberating and entrapping act, particularly as it pertains to institutional politics of race and representation. I propose that this category necessitates a departure from absolutist positions of individualism and solidarity, as well as offering a potential vision of race categories that subvert civic homogenizing and cultivating languages for those who seek to assert their mixedness.