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Title: MULTIRACIAL POLITICS OR THE POLITICS OF BEING MULTIRACIAL?: RACIAL THEORY, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, AND SOCIO-POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN A CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2010

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Abstract: This dissertation examines the impacts of historical and contemporary racial theories, socio-political movements, and grassroots mobilization efforts of communitybased organizations in transforming the politics to define multiracial identity and the “two or more races” population in the United States. Using an interdisciplinary and mixed methods research approach, I investigate the shifting and contested ways the multiracial population is defined in public and private discourses, paying particular attention to the complexities this community raises within and among monoracial identified communities. Examining the multiracial population in the U.S. has a significant and critical place in the larger trajectory of social scientific scholarship on race, gender, class, and other intersecting identities. This body of research counters the argument that multiple identity formation is inconsequential to theory, civic engagement, and sociopolitical participation in a contemporary society. This study urges scholars to (re)examine how race and ethnicity continues to be framed, analyzed, interrogated, and understood in ways that are restricted by historically racist/racialized moments that still linger today. These moments, I argue, are sharpened and more pronounced when centering the politics of what it means to claim a multiracial identity in America in the twenty-first century. The theoretical model for this study was Grounded Theory. Principle data collection methods were the “insider-outsider” and case study research approaches using extensive face-to-face audio and/or photographed interviews; participant and field observations of key local, state, and national events, including U.S. Census proceedings and California Senate Judiciary hearings; and content analysis of primary and secondary documents, including media coverage and organizational archives. Data was collected between 2004 and 2009 in Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago, New York, and Sacramento. These cities exhibited the most heightened multiracial activity across the country in this timeframe. I also investigated exclusive, never before documented, behind the scenes initiatives to recognize the unmet needs of this emerging population through an in-depth case study of the Association of MultiEthnic Americans (AMEA)—one of the oldest leading national advocacy organizations for multiracial, multiethnic, and transracially adopted individuals, families, organizations, and allies.

Url: http://jungmiwha.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Jungmiwha_Bullock_DISSERTATION.pdf

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Authors: Bullock, Jungmiwha Suk

Institution: University of Southern California

Department: American Studies and Ethnicity

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Race and Ethnicity

Countries: United States