Multiraciality at a Crossroads: Reinforcing Racial Categories or Challenging Racial Boundaries? by Brendon M. Soltis

Research on multiraciality in higher education has grown significantly over the past 20 years. Many facets of multiraciality have been explored, with a focus on identity development and the experiences of undergraduate students (e.g., Ozaki et al. 2020). More recently, higher education scholars have expanded their scope to examine the experiences of graduate students (e.g., Elsheikh et al. 2020), staff (e.g., Harris 2020a), and faculty (e.g., Harris 2020b); interrogate how we collect and use racial data (e.g., Johnston-Guerrero and Ford 2020); and theorize a critical approach to multiraciality (e.g., Harris 2016). After over twenty years of higher education research on multiraciality, there is a need to evaluate the present and future directions of multiraciality. We are at a crossroads: One path supports the construction of a legitimate multiracial identity, and the other path subverts constructed racial categories and boundaries. Through interrogating these divergent paths, we can critique our reliance on racial categories and at the same time acknowledge their importance.

The Crossroads

Many of the first efforts to create a model for multiracial identity development followed the same structure as monoracial identities (e.g., Poston 1990). Multiracial identity started with linear models and progressed to ecological, environmental, and intersectional perspectives (Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe 2021; Renn 2008). This work helped establish a legitimate multiracial racial identity, which added a discrete racial category within the dominant system of race (Johnston-Guerrero and Ford 2020; Osei-Kofi 2012).

Many scholars have used identity development models to examine the experiences for multiracial students in higher education (Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe 2021; Renn 2008). This research highlights the everyday impact of monoracism[1] and recommends changing policies and practices within higher education to better support multiracial students (Harris 2016; Ozaki et al. 2020). However, other scholars caution that only focusing on support for multiracial individuals disconnects our understanding of multiraciality as implicated in larger interlocking systems of oppression (e.g., racism; Johnston-Guerrero and Chaudhari 2016; Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe 2021; Osei-Kofi 2012).

An alternate discourse in multiraciality argues that multiracial individuals inhabit a liminal space between racial categories—a borderland—challenging the very notion of constructed racial categories (Anzaldúa 1987; Chang 2016; Root 1996). Root (1996) argues multiracial people can engage in border crossings in many ways: an individual can inhabit multiple communities simultaneously; shift their identity to the foreground or background based on their current community; “sit decisively on the border, experiencing it as the central point of reference” (xxi); or find a home community for an extended period. These types of border crossings may be more intuitive for multiracial individuals than for monoracial individuals. While existing in a borderland or liminal space can be isolating, multiracial individuals can also find agency, create stronger coalitions between monoracial communities, and (un)consciously subvert the dominant racial hierarchy (Chang 2016). By thinking of multiracial experiences as fluid border crossings rather than a racial category, scholars can “reopen a potentially different dialogue about race” (Root 1996, xxii).

Can We Have It Both Ways?

How does one simultaneously advocate for a valid multiracial identity and at the same time argue for the deconstruction of racial categories? Centering multiraciality clearly disrupts monoracial paradigms in higher education policy and practice (Harris 2016). Yet the reliance on a racial schema to dictate multiracial authenticity reinforces the dominant social construction of race (Chang 2016; Osei-Kofi 2012). The discourse on multiraciality is evolving and has shifted, moving towards a more critical approach and perspective. However, most of the scholarly recommendations suggest the same actions: support for students, faculty, and staff in higher education; collect and use multiracial demographic data; and infuse multiraciality in the curriculum (Ozaki et al. 2020). While all three recommendations deserve discussion, the most common recommendations address student support.

These recommendations focus on supporting multiracial students by affirming a multiracial identity and supporting their experiences through college and university structures. For example, a university can support their multiracial students by establishing a multiracial student organization (Renn 2000; Harris 2016; Ozaki et al. 2020). While a student organization may provide support for individuals, this type of practice reinforces the idea of discrete racial categories (one being multiracial). Often, this ignores the historical and political forces (e.g., hypodescent[2]) that dictate multiracial identity (Harris 2016; Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe 2021; Morning 2000). The slow uptake of recommendations to support multiracial students by colleges and universities illuminates the dissonance felt with (multi)racial identity-based work.

Reimagining Recommendations: Support for Multiracial Students

What if we approached multiraciality, not as a constructed racial category, but by building coalitions through contextual lived experiences? Let us reconsider the recommendation of establishing a multiracial student organization. As I discussed previously, this type of organization may reinforce discrete racial categories. I argue that a more critical approach to identity-based student organizations would be to eliminate them entirely. Dismantling identity-based organizations could support the equitable redistribution of resources, disrupt racialized labor, and give agency to people of color in the university (Ray 2019). For multiracial students, this would break down barriers that measure racial authenticity (Chang 2016).

Understandably, this idea will be met with intense challenge—policies, practices, and resources in academia are complexly tied to established (mono)racial categories (Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe 2021; Ray 2019). Monoracial communities of color have fought for decades to secure resources within higher education (Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe 2021). Moreover, simply eliminating identity-based organizations does not address larger interlocking systems of oppression and would need to happen in conjunction with larger systemic change (Ray 2019). Where can colleges and universities start to subvert mutually exclusive racial categories through student support efforts?

The last recommendation from Ozaki et al. (2020), and possibly the most difficult to implement effectively, deviates from this schema. They suggest colleges and universities should establish a culture to support boundary crossing and name two specific strategies: (a) cultivate awareness of monoracism to ensure multiracial individuals can participate in their communities of choice; and (b) incentivize and support intergroup collaboration. These two suggestions partially align with Root’s (1996) ideas of border crossing but do not address the further entrenchment of race. While these strategies may reduce instances of horizontal monoracism (e.g., monoracism enacted by people and communities of color; Harris 2016), both strategies still uphold boundaries between monoracial communities of color. The idea of boundary crossing acknowledges the existence of two discrete categories, two distinct spaces, two distinct communities—with the allowance for multiracial people to exist within and across multiple communities. What would a true borderlands or liminal space outside of racial categories look like on a college or university campus?

One idea is to offer programs and spaces around lived experiences and identity interconnections rather than (or in addition to) racial identity (Keating 2013; Ashlee and Combs 2022). For example, a multicultural center could offer a dialogical program centered on the topic of navigating multiple cultures, traditions, and/or heritages. This program could simultaneously attract a multiracial student who wants to discuss their mixed race home life, a transracial and transnational adoptee who is seeking to learn more about their heritage and country of origin, and an international student navigating the culture shock of coming to the United States. While their identities differ greatly, they share a commonality in their lived experiences (Ashlee and Combs 2022).

The Future of Multiraciality in Higher Education

I challenge us to think about how we are reinforcing the same social constructs we seek to deconstruct. Johnston-Guerrero and Chaudhari (2016) question why multiracial people are often tasked as the ones who are expected to address the legacy of constructed race. I contend that we (I include myself as a multiracial person) are uniquely placed on the borderlands of constructed race and the possibilities of liberation from a system that was built to uphold white supremacy. In other words, we need multiracial identity development and support as a response to the consequences of socially constructed (mono)race and simultaneously, interrogate how multiraciality can “point out the archaic and destructive use of race…constructed in the eye of the beholder of power” (Root 1996, xix). While it is not the sole responsibility of multiracial people, we do have a role to play. As race and social identity scholar Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe concludes:

The lives of Multiracial people provide a central and critical lens for examining and reexamining identity. Research and theory on diverse Multiracial people reveal insights and questions about the effect of evolving political, social, and cultural landscapes on identity. (Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe 2021, 51)

Let us take a step forward today and commit to implementing more policies and programs in higher education that disrupt (mono)racism, and in turn, disrupt white supremacy.

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[1] A system that oppresses individuals and communities that do not fit in mutually exclusive constructed racial categories (Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe 2021).

[2] The automatic assignment of multiracial, mixed race, and mixed heritage individuals into a minoritized racial category (Morning 2000).

About the scholar

Brendon Soltis is a PhD student in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education program at Michigan State University. He is a research assistant with the Neighborhood Student Success Collaborative, supporting college access programs. His research focuses on multiraciality discourses in higher education, multiracial identity and categorization, and multiracial college student experiences. Before joining Michigan State University, he served as the Assistant Director for Residential Education at Tufts University. Brendon earned a BS in Computer Science from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and an MA in Student Development Administration from Seattle University. 

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