Racial Identity
By David D. Medina
Many of us see the race options on the census and other forms and unthinkingly make our mark in one box or another. But for children of mixed racial parentage, checking white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or some other option can be more problematic because their racial identities are not so clearly defined.
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| Holly Heard |
There are, however, some important internal guidelines that multiracial children use in forming personal racial identity, as discovered by Rice sociologists Holly Heard and Jenifer Bratter. Most important, multiracial children are more likely to adopt their father’s race, especially if the father is black and is highly involved in raising the children.
“Identity is an important aspect of well being,” says Heard, assistant professor of sociology and assistant director of Rice’s Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life. “Therefore, the relationship that fathers have with their children may have important consequences in how their children construct racial identity.”
Heard and Bratter used a study called the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to assess the involvement of fathers with racially mixed children. They sampled 886 adolescents and asked them three questions about how they classified themselves racially: Do they identify exactly with the father’s race? Do they include their father’s racial identity? Or do they not include their father’s race at all?
Jenifer Bratter |
As it turns out, how the father identifies himself racially plays a key role in forming the racial makeup of the child. “In situations where you have an interracial couple, the identity of the child is more likely to be similar to the identity of the father,” says Heard.
This is especially true when the father is black. In seeking racial composition, children with black fathers tend either to accept black as the main racial identity or to include black as one of the racial components. For example, if a child has a black father and a white mother, that child will identify as black or multiracial. However, if the father is white, Asian, or Hispanic, the chances of passing on the father’s racial identity is less likely.
According to Heard and Bratter, other factors have a hand in shaping a child’s racial identity. Some of these are the family’s overall racial composition, whether the parents are immigrants or the extended family is present, and the parents’ socioeconomic status. Another factor that can make a child more aware of his or her racial formation is the local community. “A child’s identity,” the study states, “will generally reflect the population that is most represented in the local area.”
But such factors, Heard and Bratter point out, “do not entirely explain the tendency for children to match their father’s racial classification.” There is another, perhaps stronger, reason for this occurrence: the quantity and quality of the interaction between father and child. The more time a father spends with his child doing different activities, such as sports, the more likely a child will identify with the father. Although providing emotional support and supervising the social networks of children also are important aspects of parenting in general, these do not directly impact racial identity.
Activities provide an opportunity for what the sociologists call “direct racial socialization,” which means the father seeks to inculcate the child with values and racial identity. “This is a chance for the father to dialogue with the child about the meaning of race,” Heard says. Or the father may take the opportunity to talk about cultural traditions, symbols, and history. A Hispanic father, for instance, might teach his child Spanish, or a black father may teach his child the historical significance of slavery.
In the study, Heard and Bratter conclude that the importance of activities is not race-specific but extends across all races of fathers. Therefore, while black fathers appear to be more successful in passing along racial identity to their children, spending more time and engaging in direct racial socialization is something that most fathers do.
But a new trend in racial identity is growing. While adolescents who have a black father and white mother generally identify themselves as black, they are now more likely to identify themselves as multiracial. This is a fresh development in racial classification. Traditionally, the United States has adhered to the “One Drop Rule,” which means that a person with one drop of African blood is considered black. But today, adolescents want to include the races of both parents and are calling themselves multiracial, especially those with African American fathers. “This is the new multiracial movement that started when people wanted to give voice to the multiracial identities of their parents,” Heard explains. “Some of the parents were saying ‘Hey, this is my child, too, and I want my race to be included. And now that the U.S. Census Bureau has decided to allow people to choose more than one race, the multiracial movement has been legitimized.”
Heard and Bratter’s study, “In the Name and Race of the Father? The Role of Father–Child Interactions in the Identity of Multiracial Adolescents,” was published in the proceedings from the conference “Multiethnic Families: Development, Identity, and Well Being.”
