Empirical research on the growing multiracial population in the United States has focused largely on the documentation of racial identification, analysis of psychological adjustment, and understanding the broader political consequences of mixed-race identification. Efforts toward theory construction on multiracial identity development, however, have been largely disconnected from empirical data, mired in disciplinary debates, and bound by historically specific assumptions about race and racial group membership. This study provides a critical overview of multiracial identity development theories, examines the links between theory and research, explores the challenges to multiracial identity theory construction, and proposes considerations for future directions in theorizing racial identity development among the mixed-race population.In the United States, debate over how individuals with parents of different races (i.e., mixed-race people) would be racially categorized in the 2000 Census focused national attention on this growing population. Underlying the debate over whether or not to add a stand-alone "multiracial" category was the difference between the identity of mixed-race people and the identification of them by others and the state (Brunsma, 2006). On one side of the debate, a coalition of various activists, scholars, and pundits argued that increasing rates of interracial marriage since the Civil Rights Movement had created a "biracial baby boom." They argued that such demographic shifts necessitated the addition of a "multiracial"

In 2010, Arizona passed Senate Bill 1070. Although the Department of Justice has since deflated some of the racist tones contained within the bill, it set into motion several similar bills in other states. The author argues that this bill represents state-level color-blind racial ideology and facilitates white supremacy at the macro (state) and meso (police institutions) levels. Analyzing the state’s guidelines for determining “reasonable suspicion” implemented by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) in 2010 and 95 press releases from the desk of MCSO’s head sheriff, Joe Arpaio, from 2011, the author shows that these discourse have enabled racial profiling, racial discrimination, and racial attacks on the Latino/a community in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The use of this color-blind discourse masks state-sanctioned white supremacy perpetrated by the MCSO. The guidelines for reasonable suspicion shape the MCSO’s justificatory narratives (press releases) after racial profiling has occurred. In light of the Department of Justice’s findings that the sheriff’s office did indeed practice racial profiling of Latinos/as, this project peels back the discursive layers on how these racist practices are justified and how color-blind racism does more than create racialized discursive environments but fundamentally shapes, constructs, and enables the state’s police departments practices of white supremacy.

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Theories of contemporary social life, rooted primarily in critical constructivist, anthropological, feminist, and postcolonial inquiries, offer notable and valuable lenses through which to view and understand social organization, cultural systems, and identity in an era of globalization and empire. Concepts such as "liminality," "hybridity," "border," "creolization," and "mestizaje" have emerged from oppressive struggle to theorize as well as rhetorically acclaim a promising new era of human agency, democratic community, and cultural innovation amidst "hybridized webs of meaning" (Hannerz 1996, cf. Weber). Homi Bhabha's oft-cited statement on identity provides a glimpse into this theoretical regime: The move away from singularities of 'class' or 'gender' as primary conceptual and organizational categories has resulted in an awareness of the subject positions-of race, gender, generation, institutional location, geopolitical locale, sexual orientation-that inhabit any claim to identity in the modern world. What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need

Middle‐class Latin@ identity is a rare discussion in the racial/ethnic studies and identity literatures. Often the Latin@ middle class is invisible as much of the research focuses on the poor, working class and immigrant populations. This article provides a discussion of literature that addresses the shape of middle‐class Latin@ identity. It then moves to provide a theoretical and conceptual framework of strategies of identity negotiation for middle‐class Latin@s based on this existing literature. Ultimately, it provides a much needed shift in both the identity and race/ethnic studies literatures by balancing structural and agentic elements of conceptualizing how middle‐class Latin@ people’s identities are maintained, constructed, and negotiated.