Multiracial Identification

Perceived discrimination, group identification, and life satisfaction among multiracial people: A test of the rejection-identification model.

Giamo LS, Schmitt MT, Outten HR.

Source

Department of Psychology.

Abstract

Like other racial minority groups, multiracial people face discrimination as a function of their racial identity, and this discrimination represents a threat to psychological well-being. Following the Rejection-Identification Model (RIM; Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999), we argue that perceived discrimination will encourage multiracial people to identify more strongly with other multiracials, and that multiracial identification, in turn, fosters psychological well-being. Thus, multiracial identification is conceptualized as a coping response that reduces the overall costs of discrimination on well-being. This study is the first to test the RIM in a sample of multiracial people. Multiracial participants' perceptions of discrimination were negatively related to life satisfaction. Consistent with the RIM, perceived discrimination was positively related to three aspects of multiracial group identification: stereotyping the self as similar to other multiracial people, perceiving people within the multiracial category as more homogenous, and expressing solidarity with the multiracial category. Self-stereotyping was the only aspect of group identification that mediated a positive relationship between perceived discrimination and life satisfaction, suggesting that multiracial identification's protective properties rest in the fact that it provides an collective identity where one "fits." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
Source: PubMed

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."
 William Feather
We have seen the demise of many other multiracial advocates. AMEA is gone, and MAVIN was not really an advocacy group, but it is not doing anything now.  Loving Day is one day, and too many advocates have just stopped being advocates. Academics, authors, and talk show hosts are not necessarily advocates. As I have said many times, "It's not just you or your child, it's also about the generations to come. "New groups" have come and gone, mostly gone. Project RACE not only hangs on--22 years now--but expands, influences, and remains the key national advocacy organization for multiracial children, teens, adults and our families. -Susan Graham

Multiracial Identity: The Multiracial Advocacy Blog

"I wish my identity weren't so wrapped up with who I am." 

Source: The New Yorker - 2012