Multi-Ethnic & Multiracial Organizations

Multi-ethnic and multiracial organizations emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as students with multiple racial or ethnic identities created specific spaces addressing their experiences and identities. For many decades, students with mixed racial heritage had been expected to choose one racial identity, often through pressure from families, communities, or institutions expecting monoacial identity claims. Multi-ethnic and multiracial student organizations emerged as spaces where students could claim all aspects of their heritage, reject forced choices between identities, and find community with others navigating similar experiences. A distinctive aspect of multiethnic and multiracial student organizing has been grappling with questions of identity, belonging, and allegiance to single-race organizations. Mixed-race students have sometimes felt like outsiders within single-race student organizations, faced questioning about whether they "belonged," encountered pressure to claim one identity over others, or experienced discrimination from within communities of color based on skin color or cultural authenticity assumptions. Multiethnic organizations emerged as spaces where students could fully claim their multiple identities without being asked to perform or prove authenticity. Multiethnic and multiracial organizations have also addressed particular challenges including dealing with family members' potentially conflicting cultural traditions, navigating racial and ethnic discrimination from multiple directions, experiencing pressure from communities about cultural loyalty or authenticity, addressing colorism and intra-community racism, and managing identity questions during different life stages. For students with multiracial heritage including African American ancestry, organizations have specifically addressed anti-Blackness—the ways that multiracial identity can sometimes be used to claim distance from or superiority to Blackness—while centering Black identity and Black liberation as central to multiracial justice work. Contemporary multiethnic and multiracial organizations have increasingly worked on what is sometimes called "family acceptance work." Many multiracial students have extended families with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and family members may hold stereotypes about other groups or express disapproval of multiracial identity. Organizations provide support for students navigating family dynamics, facilitate dialogue between students and family members around race and identity, and create family-centered programming affirming multiracial identities. Contemporary organizations have also worked on institutional representation and recognition of multiracial identities. For many years, data collection systems forced multiracial students to choose single racial categories, rendering them statistically invisible. Organizations advocated for institutional systems allowing students to claim multiple racial identities, for curriculum including multiracial history and experience, and for institutional recognition that multiracial students represent a legitimate and growing demographic. A particularly important aspect of contemporary multiethnic and multiracial organizing has been addressing anti-Blackness and colorism within communities of color and within multiracial communities specifically. Scholars have documented how multiracial identities have sometimes been positioned as a way to claim distance from or escape Blackness, and how lighter-skinned mixed-race people sometimes benefit from colorism and anti-Blackness while darker-skinned multiracial people experience discrimination. Progressive multiethnic organizations explicitly center Black multiracial identities, work against anti-Blackness, and position multiracial work as inseparable from Black liberation.