Examining the Dimensions of Malleable Racial Identification

Abstract

Because of the essentialist construction of race in the U.S. as discrete immutable categories, Multiethnic-racial (ME-R) persons, those with parents from two different ethnic-racial backgrounds, find themselves navigating many monoethnic-racial norms. When faced with these norms they must choose how they will express their ethnic-racial identities to others. One way they may shift their identity is through malleable racial identification, the act of aligning with different racial identities across different social situations. The purpose of this study is to examine malleable racial identification strategies, including cognitive, communicative, and labeling strategies, through participant voice. One hundred twenty-three ME-R individuals shared their malleable racial identification experiences and results suggest that ME-R individuals experience different feelings, as well as employ several communication patterns and identification strategies, in order to navigate feeling forced into monoethnic-racial spaces.