Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials3to the older generation millennials have attained a higher level of education at the same relative time both generations would be in the young adult life (Frey, 2018). More than one third of millennials ages 25-34 has attained a college education by 2015, up from less than 30 percent for comparably aged young adults in 2000 and not quite a quarter for those in 1980 (Frey, 2018).According to research, millennials are said to be the diverse generation (Frey, 2018). The reason for this was the large wave of immigrants that came to the United States in the 1980s and 90s. Immigrants came from places such as Latin America and Asia, coupled with the aging white population made millennials more racially and ethnically diverse generation (Frey, 2018). Overtime the white population will experience a decline because millennials are diversifying the population. Millennials are said to be a bridge between the generations. This gap was credited to social issues such as, the legalization of marijuana, and millennials approval of same-sex marriage (Frey, 2018). Those reasons play a role, but the biggest reasoncame from race and culture. Frey explained that baby boomers were “sometimes uncomfortable with some of the demographic changes that are going on” (Frey, 2018).Biracial ethnicity can be defined as mixed heritage of any assortment. This can be an inclusion of, African American, White, Latino, Asian, and Native American but it is not reduced to those. “Biracial,” “interracial,”” multiracial,” and “mixed-race” are used interchangeably and are regularly self-prescribed by individuals and their families (Baxley, 2008). Over the last 30 years, biracial individuals have become one of the fastest growing populations in the United States, but they are just beginning to be acknowledged among monoracial groups in academia ("New Way," 2001; Root, 1996; Wardle, 2007). It was not until the 2000 census were people allowed to classify themselves as multiracial (Census Scope, n.d.; "New Way," 2001). Members of monoracial heritage often marginalize biracial families, specifically the leaders of minority
Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials4communities (Root, 1996; Wardle, 2006). Frey state that the older generation (baby boomers) do this because they do not approve of social changes taking place. The older generation is against progression, they rather stick to the old traditions that they grew up in.Research states that biracial identity development is different from other identities. When discussing biracial identity development, the factor that should be considered are individual personalities and phenotype, familial relationships and racial identities, and geographical locations and local communities (Root, 1996; Tatum, 1997). When it comes to identifying, a biracial individual can take several routes, accept the racial identity given by society, identify with the minority race, identify as white, if the individual physical features allow, identify as biracial which is not identifying as an individual race and identify with more than one race (Root 1996).In the classroom, biracial students face similar problems but in a different setting. Educators have trouble discussing certain topics and ask question that come off as sincere and nonjudgmental (Harris, 2002). Educators need to include an array of approaches and practices that will allow them to instruct and encourage peers to acknowledge and accept biracial children. As well as supporting children who are trying to develop positive identities (Baxley, 2008). Educators must also incorporate way in which students can engage in discussion centered around similarities and differences. Multicultural education is an approach that educators have a problem adapting, being able to teach a classroom with students from different cultural backgrounds. Educator should also surround the students with a curriculum that involves multiracial individuals. People such as George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, as well as more modern-day ones, such as Bob Marley, Tiger Woods, Colin Powell, Halle Berry, Derek Jeter, Alicia Keys, and Barack Obama (Wardle & Cruz-Janzen, 2004).
Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials5Having these figures in the classroom shows that educators have an understand that their classroom is diverse and will give a sense of support to multiracial students.SettingSince millennials are widespread and functioning already within their lives the best way to reach out to this demographic is to hold an event which they can interact with other biracial millennials and all other races.For the setting,we wanted to focus on places that would be best to reach millennials. The first place we wanted to reach is the local neighborhood park or rec center. This is a place where millennialsoften gather to hold events such as parties, mixers, etc. They also just go to have fun, play sports and hang out. Wewould work with the center or park to plan a night entitled “Who are you”. The emphasis would be to get those involved to come and participate in the activities we have planned. Those activities include team building exercises. They are designed to help those participating get to know other participants and also help with their own identity. We believe that this type of interaction is vital to the success in helping learn about each other as well as learn about themselves.The next setting,we decided to target is at local colleges and universities. Most colleges offer different ethnic centers on campus. Take UIC for an example. We have the African American cultural center, Latin American cultural center as well as Asian American Cultural center. We also host the only Arab American center in the country. Taking our program to these centers while also getting feedback is very important. Each culture or ethnicity face very different challenges and we believe by simply having a conversation about race and self-identitywouldbe very important to bringing awareness to different issues.The last setting,we believe is important not only when it comes to race but religion. We would like to include local Churches or places of worship. In today’s climate, race and religion is
Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials6in the forefront and it is becoming a huge issue especially in the Muslimcommunity. The Muslimcommunity is unique because most of their racial identities go hand and hand with their religion. Islam is one of the biggest religions in the world and it spans tons of different races so it's important to help with the identity in that group. We could ask the clergy to assist with spiritual guidance to coincide with the self or identity issues that are being faced.Self and Identity IssuesFindings acknowledge that biracial identity development is distinctive from that of White and minority millennials. Regularly in schools there is a colorblind ideology where “everyone is the uniform,” yet disregarding the distinctions rather than incorporating them, doesn't let millennials to mature with a convincing sense of self. Some characteristics should be unrushed when racial identity is developing, counting individual phenotype, hereditary bonds and racial identities, and local neighborhoods. Biracial millennials have constantly been a topic for American people because they are in contradiction of the structure of racial order in the U.S. Biracial and multiracial individuals are increasingly becoming the majority, nonetheless there are lacking resources centering on how to promote these individual’s development. There is an active confrontation of interracial families and multiracial individuals who are becoming more insistent about their justices and accountabilities. As limited specialists, have critically presented, interracial families must tackle and overcome common myths, problems, and hurdles. Many interracial parents maintain that biracial children have an identity built on the mutual ethnicity of both parents (Wardle, 1992). However, this is not a "dual" identity; it is far beyond that. A biracial millennial must be supported with a family tree that integrates every outlet of his or her background. While dual implies two independent, opposing, connected lines of an individual's’ setting, its use is reasonably incorrect. The biracial child's ethnicity is a
Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials7separate unit, including an unlikely mixture of intersectional races. Counselors’ support of one individual discriminations in their classrooms begins with their own prejudices and comfort level with the variation of students. Coaches must uncover their attitudes about biracial children; they must consider whether they believe in any biases and, if so, whether they are open to changing those mindsets. This is the predominant basis of any multicultural school program (Wardle, 1992). Interracial parents hold an array of judgements about the identity of their children. Minority families and biracial families, raise more confident children if they assist their children to recognize the battle required to become successful (Wardle, 1992).Racial socialization includes practices that start children to navigate experiences connected to social rank. There are limited reports on biracial families’ socialization practices, so it seems probable that there is a restricted racial socialization arranged for these children. Rollins and Hunter’s 2013 report acknowledged two intersectional factors of racial socialization: racial ecology and cultural adaptations. Racial ecology is outlined as the structure which the child or person is enclosed that influence experiences of racism and discrimination. While racial socialization defines their groups social position, biracial youth are disadvantaged as they are between “hierarchically organized racial groups” (Rollins, 2013). It is essential to note that mono-racial identities that parents precondition children for expose how racial groupings are constructed, including phenotype, as well as linkage to “Whiteness,” as the most privileged race (Rollins and Hunter, 2013). Living in a what is deemed a “post-racial society,” in terms of biracial children contains parents labeling their child as just “human” and maintaining that racial categories are senseless and societally used to separate. Fundamentally becoming supporters for the colorblind ideology, which belittles the trials they face when being discriminated. Rollins and Hunter established that mothers of biracial youth with Black race, involved in self-development
Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials8racial socialization, which stresses “striving, working harder, and being one’s best.” Not only could it counter the effects of bias, discrimination, and stereotypes encountered but also are advances that can inform millennials to be comfortable despite prejudices they might face. Compared to mothers of non-Black biracial children are more inclined to not delivering racial socialization to precondition youth for racial discrimination. Mothers with non-Black biracial children often fail to comprehend the weight of guiding and protecting their biracial child from race-based prejudices (Rollins and Hunter, 2013).From a young age, children frame and generate social preferences from daily interactions. They are attentive to social group information and can adjust their learning and social preferences to anyone relianton a mutual social group or not. Gaither et. al.’s 2014 report observes how belonging to two groups in the same domain affects children’s learning and social inclinations. Earlier reports had exclusively concentrated on mono-raced children but biracial children’s learning and social inclination can be impacted by the racial groups which they identify to. Itis possible that since biracial children can view both races as members of his/her social preferences, there will be less discrimination and greater readiness to learn from members of both racial groups. Cognitive elasticity concerning biracial millennials can be attributed to numerous effects. By the age of 4, biracial children start to identify the social relations of skin color, which leads to anxietyabout labeling themselves with only one of their races since they could be insulting or refusing one of their parents. This might prompt a pro-White prejudice like that of mono-racial children, and face the added problem of frequently having to choose amongst their racial identities (Gaither et. al. 2014). The results of this report uncovered that the identity inclinations of biracial millennials can be changed reliant on the visibility of their related racial identities. Biracial children are swayed by those identity inclinations when they establish who to
Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials9relate across two domains: learning and social affiliation domain (Gaither et. al., 2014). These deductions highlight the significant result of racial priming on learning preferences for biracial children. Fascinatingly, it was only the priming of a biracial child’s minority identity that regulated clearer in-group inclinations in distinction to their mono-racial counterparts. The conclusions stress the need for future work examining how the out-group positive preconception to Whites could function comparably or contrarily for the growing biracial demographic.RecommendationsThroughout research findings, several themes have developed in understanding the impact of racial identity among biracial millennials: avoiding a colorblind principle, and the roles of families. When it comes to any setting that biracial millennials are a part of, approaches on how to confront these themes will be critical when dealing with racial identity. The importance of a strong sense of racial identity will permit for superior overall self-identity within this demographic. This will help them in all qualities of life, since there will be less of a struggle to uncover this identity when it has previously been started at a young age. Since millennials are widespread and functioning already within their lives the best way to reach out to this demographic is to hold an event which they can interact with other biracial millennials and all other races. The event should include friends and family that the biracial millennial feels would gain the most from interacting in this setting. Primarily, a colorblind attitude when interacting with students individually or in a group, reduces their capabilities to handle discrimination but also their relations with a strong awareness of self. Considering each student in a counseling session or while coaching the same would only impede the encouraging environment in which young children particularly need to develop into adolescence identity searching. Therefore, a colorblind approach is no longer necessary in this
Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials10post-racial society. So, a fun activity to play with other races includes a game published on YouTube by Harvard Business Review based on research done by M. Norton. They demonstrate a variation of the classic game “Guess Who?” where the characters that are to be used are a variety of different races. The game involves two people and they each pick a character for their partner to guess who it is by only asking yes or no questions. Challenges that may come with this game are people are very reluctant to ask questions about race. Only 57% ofpeople playing with white partners used the word “black” or “African American” while only 27% of people playing with a black partner used those phrases. There were also players who avoided asking about race and they were perceived “to be more biased than players who asked about race.” (Norton, 2013) This game will help whoever plays realize that socially avoiding race has the opposite of their intended effect of not appearing racist. In terms, of biracial people understanding races can coexist in one identity and acknowledging race openly can create better communication among all millennials.Ultimately working with the families, will simply support these biracial millennials advance themselves throughout life. Since nearly all the socialization around raceoriginates from contact with family, it is a valuable strategy to work with parents on what they are saying in the house. If it is not beneficial the strategies can be redirected to produce productive students. The best way to understand one’s racial identity is to fully explore their heritage by sorting through their family tree. As we plunge into family pasts, we see occasions evolve both a large scale and a personal scale. Knowing, logging, maintaining, and partaking in family records can provide limitless benefits to individuals, families, and entire demographics, such as biracial millennials. The relationships we form with other people can be incredibly durable, not only with people in our present, but also with people in our past and future. The more we discover about
Racial Identity among Biracial Millennials11our past, the greater a connection we feel to our ancestors. The activity that would incorporate the importance of these findings would be to have the participants write down their family tree or complete an ancestry website search. Thereare several easy outlines to follow but one that is paired along with theTV show“Roots”to show the heritage of African Americans specifically. (Behrman, 2000) This will allow them to explore their full biracial identity while also gaining more awareness of all aspects of each separate component. Challenges that would be faced while implementing this activity would limited amount of accessibility to the required information. For example, if their family is unable to come it would be difficult to fully discover their family tree on their own with the use of an ancestry website. Yet, the downside of ancestry websites is they cost money that may not be available to all or fit their budgets. To fully understand, the importance of family histories among biracial millennials it is critical to explore them to the greatest extent.There is still minor research on biracial millennials, there unquestionably needs to be a force for a more understanding of this demographic. The steady increase of biracial people in larger cities and dense populated areas, must bring notice to researchers as all the studies on mono-racial demographics need to be redone in terms based on biracial identity. It is understandable that biracial students’ needs are distinctive than their mono-racial equivalents and being able to identify these needs will create a better racial identity