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Raising Mixed Race
Research continues to uncover early childhood as a crucial time when we set the stage for who we will become. In the last decade, we have also seen a sudden massive shift in America s racial makeup with the majority of the current under-5 age population being children of color. Asian and multiracial are the fastest growing self-identified groups in the United States. More than 2 million people indicated being mixed race Asian on the 2010 Census.
Yet young multiracial Asian children are vastly underrepresented in the literature on racial identity. Why? And what are these children learning about themselves in an era that tries to be ahistorical, believes the race problem has been solved, and believes that mixed-race people are proof of it? This book is drawn from extensive research and interviews with 68 parents of multiracial children. It is the first to examine the complex task of supporting our youngest around being 2 or more races and Asian while living amongst post-racial ideologies.
Yet young multiracial Asian children are vastly underrepresented in the literature on racial identity. Why? And what are these children learning about themselves in an era that tries to be ahistorical, believes the race problem has been solved, and believes that mixed-race people are proof of it? This book is drawn from extensive research and interviews with 68 parents of multiracial children. It is the first to examine the complex task of supporting our youngest around being 2 or more races and Asian while living amongst post-racial ideologies.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2015
11 people are currently reading
278 people want to read
About the author
Sharon H. Chang
4 books19 followersSHARON H. CHANG is an award-winning Author Photographer Activist with a lens on racism, social justice and the Asian American diaspora. She is author of the critically acclaimed academic book Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children In a Post-Racial World and her newly released memoir, Hapa Tales and Other Lies: A Mixed Race Memoir About the Hawai’i I Never Knew. Her writing has also appeared in BuzzFeed, ThinkProgress, Racism Review, Hyphen Magazine, ParentMap Magazine, South Seattle Emerald, The Seattle Globalist, AAPI Voices and International Examiner. Sharon was named 2015 Social Justice Commentator of the Year by The Seattle Globalist and 2016 Favorite Local API Author / Writer by International Examiner readers. She is currently working her third book looking at Asian American women, gender, and race, to be co-authored with preeminent sociologist Joe R. Feagin.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 29, 2022
A challenging yet important book for all parents, and especially for parents of multiracial children. It can be painful for us to be self-reflective about our place in the racial hierarchy and to realize how our actions or words (or lack thereof) may be reinforcing systemic racism and oppression, but this book highlights why it is critical do so.
That said, I do wish that the book offered more by way of what parents can do and how, both for themselves and for their children. While the concluding chapter does offer some jumping off points, I could have done with more practical steps and concrete resources.
Also, at the end Chang mentions that being mixed/multiracial is a strength and a source of pride, but the book is sorely lacking in demonstrations of how or why. Another chapter on this would have been bracing and motivational after the thorough discussion on all the ways minorities and mixed people have been marginalized through history.
That said, I do wish that the book offered more by way of what parents can do and how, both for themselves and for their children. While the concluding chapter does offer some jumping off points, I could have done with more practical steps and concrete resources.
Also, at the end Chang mentions that being mixed/multiracial is a strength and a source of pride, but the book is sorely lacking in demonstrations of how or why. Another chapter on this would have been bracing and motivational after the thorough discussion on all the ways minorities and mixed people have been marginalized through history.
Want to read
February 18, 2016from what i can tell, without having read the actual book, chang doesn't believe we live in a "post-racial world" at all but that there are so many people, including those having mixed-raced kids, who believe that. she sees this as a problem. just want to say that because i was put off by the title of the book until i read an interview with the author. here is the interview: http://multiculturalkidblogs.com/2016...
quote from the interview:
"MKB: What were the most unexpected or interesting findings from your research?
Chang: There were quite a number of unexpected and interesting findings that resulted from this research. But to me one of the most disturbing discoveries – though in retrospect probably not so surprising – was that mixed children of POC (people of color) and white heritage experienced some of the highest rates of racial discrimination from their own white family members. There is a common public perception that mixed folk of white descent are solely privileged being close to white family. Of course there is often increased socioeconomic access for these children, but this turns out to be only part of the picture. Close proximity to white family can also be very racially violent, and the toll of having to deal with discrimination coming at such close range from someone a mixed child holds a valued relationship with is very, very high.
The other fairly alarming discovery was the degree to which even highly educated parents (middle class to affluent, whites and often people of color too) had been indoctrinated into white dominant thinking with very little understanding of what race and racism really were. For instance, I often watched interviewees exercise colorblindness, excuse or laugh off other people’s racist behaviors, and deny their own racial experiences all the while waxing extremely poetic talk about their children’s mixedness as the end of race. The parents’ underdeveloped understandings left them fairly unprepared to parent their multiracial kids transformatively and left their parenting vulnerable to damaging internal and external influences."
quote from the interview:
"MKB: What were the most unexpected or interesting findings from your research?
Chang: There were quite a number of unexpected and interesting findings that resulted from this research. But to me one of the most disturbing discoveries – though in retrospect probably not so surprising – was that mixed children of POC (people of color) and white heritage experienced some of the highest rates of racial discrimination from their own white family members. There is a common public perception that mixed folk of white descent are solely privileged being close to white family. Of course there is often increased socioeconomic access for these children, but this turns out to be only part of the picture. Close proximity to white family can also be very racially violent, and the toll of having to deal with discrimination coming at such close range from someone a mixed child holds a valued relationship with is very, very high.
The other fairly alarming discovery was the degree to which even highly educated parents (middle class to affluent, whites and often people of color too) had been indoctrinated into white dominant thinking with very little understanding of what race and racism really were. For instance, I often watched interviewees exercise colorblindness, excuse or laugh off other people’s racist behaviors, and deny their own racial experiences all the while waxing extremely poetic talk about their children’s mixedness as the end of race. The parents’ underdeveloped understandings left them fairly unprepared to parent their multiracial kids transformatively and left their parenting vulnerable to damaging internal and external influences."
March 10, 2023
I picked up this book because I am raising two mixed race daughters. My one daughter fully embraces her Japanese side (taking Japanese lessons, finding Japanese or mixed race friends), while my other daughter sometimes cries because she desperately wants to be blonde and fair like her friends. I had hoped this book would help me navigate this rocky terrain. Sadly it did not. The books is well researched a provides a lot of background on the history of racism, the importance of white privilege and white framing, and the important difference of being Asian mixed with white vs black or another minority. But it really offered very little practical advice for kids or parents. I learned more from Trevor Noah's Born a Crime on what it means to identify with one side or the other in a mixed race family than I did from this particular book.
July 12, 2022
So happy this book exists! Chang put a huge amount of effort into writing this book. I wish I had it to read a long time ago to help me understand and navigate my identify. This is not a parenting book as the title may imply; it is truly for everyone. These are just some immediate thoughts, but this is one of those books I will continue thinking about for years to come. Kudos to Chang for being one of the first to write about multiracial Asian experiences.
February 7, 2017
It may not offer much guidance in having conversations about race with my children, but this book was the first one to amplify what I've been feeling while raising my multiracial family. The people, the experiences presented absolutely represent us and give voice to those niggling concerns about race in our progressive, so-called "post-racial" world. If I've ever felt like race wasn't an issue in my community or in my neighborhood, this was the book to bring me back to reality, to remind me that there are many every-day instances when I feel like a person who doesn't belong.
Author Sharon Chang is unrelenting in her assault at the racist framework at play, in a way that feels almost unfair, and is definitely uncomfortable. Reading this, it's hard not to feel defensive, regardless of your racial identity. But her voice is invaluable in its singularity, the only one that's spoken to my experience with race.
Author Sharon Chang is unrelenting in her assault at the racist framework at play, in a way that feels almost unfair, and is definitely uncomfortable. Reading this, it's hard not to feel defensive, regardless of your racial identity. But her voice is invaluable in its singularity, the only one that's spoken to my experience with race.
March 22, 2019
Everyone should read this book.
September 18, 2020
This is *not* a parenting book. 7 chapters out of 8 are about racism. It is a painful, yet transformative read if you manage to plow through.
I felt personally challenged by the book. The book made me realize that being simply « colorblind » is insufficient. I learned a lot about how racism is pervasive.
I also learned that kids become race-aware somewhere around 3-4 years old.
A few things turned me off though:
Zero joy. This book is all about pain, fighting and resistance, even though the topics could have led to a few joyful realizations.
US-specific. This book is focused on the US. The author defends, in Chapter 7, that it is universal. Yes, racism is universel, but *this book* describes the situation in the US. If you are raising a mixed Asian child in Japan, at least 80% of this book is not applicable.
Simplistic theory. The author tried to link everything back to a unifying theory of racism orchestrated by “the whites”. It threw me off at every turn by its oversimplification. Moreover, the device is completely unnecessary. The book is supported by a wealth of personal experiences, it would have worked fine without trying to explain everything by a unifying theory.
Faulty logic. The most memorable example of faulty logic is when the book describes tensions between the black and Asians twitter communities that culminate into a hashtag war. The author reminds us that the rich owner and executive of Twitter is white and he made bunch of money from that hashtag war by selling ads... yet another example of racial exploitation by “the whites”... see!? Hold on, Twitter makes money selling ads regardless of the subject its users are bickering about. This insinuation is far fetched.
I felt personally challenged by the book. The book made me realize that being simply « colorblind » is insufficient. I learned a lot about how racism is pervasive.
I also learned that kids become race-aware somewhere around 3-4 years old.
A few things turned me off though:
Zero joy. This book is all about pain, fighting and resistance, even though the topics could have led to a few joyful realizations.
US-specific. This book is focused on the US. The author defends, in Chapter 7, that it is universal. Yes, racism is universel, but *this book* describes the situation in the US. If you are raising a mixed Asian child in Japan, at least 80% of this book is not applicable.
Simplistic theory. The author tried to link everything back to a unifying theory of racism orchestrated by “the whites”. It threw me off at every turn by its oversimplification. Moreover, the device is completely unnecessary. The book is supported by a wealth of personal experiences, it would have worked fine without trying to explain everything by a unifying theory.
Faulty logic. The most memorable example of faulty logic is when the book describes tensions between the black and Asians twitter communities that culminate into a hashtag war. The author reminds us that the rich owner and executive of Twitter is white and he made bunch of money from that hashtag war by selling ads... yet another example of racial exploitation by “the whites”... see!? Hold on, Twitter makes money selling ads regardless of the subject its users are bickering about. This insinuation is far fetched.
February 2, 2017
I'm torn with the rating for this book. One one hand I was incredibly put off by the tone of the book and felt defensive while reading it. However, the points the author makes are important and rarely discussed. For myself, I feel it is something that must be read, rather than something I enjoyed reading. Congratulations to the author for blazing a trail into this topic.
August 12, 2020
Fantastic Insight
There’s not many books that cover asian or mixed asian/white identities- both of which seem like invisible forms of oppression. It opens up the topic about how mixed asian identities also intersect with black, Latino and Native American identities within white racial framing. Very insightful and helpful read!
There’s not many books that cover asian or mixed asian/white identities- both of which seem like invisible forms of oppression. It opens up the topic about how mixed asian identities also intersect with black, Latino and Native American identities within white racial framing. Very insightful and helpful read!
October 21, 2019
Very informative and eye-opening. However, I found much of the book to be very repetitive I ended up skipping most of the book. I'd recommend everyone read at least the first 2 Chapters and the last.
January 12, 2023
Wish I could have read this a long time ago. Definitely recommend for anyone to read.
February 21, 2017
absolute must-read for all multiracial asians and their parents
October 3, 2016
Solid resource for parents (and adults in general) navigating conversations with children about race, especially regarding the unique nuances of being multiracial. It's academic in tone but the author includes her own experiences, as well as quotes from research participants.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews