Multiracial Asian Americans and the Myth of the Mulatto Millennium

Abstract

This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to trace the history and continued significance of multiracial representations, in order to challenge a dominant U.S. cultural narrative that imagines multiracial people as symbols of the declining significance of race. It then turns to a discussion of contemporary multiracial Asian American representations. Multiracial Asian American representations form an especially productive ground to explore the contradictions of racial narratives in the United States. Understanding why Asians, particularly multiracial Asians, have so frequently been held up as examples of the eventual triumph of a colorblind United States can help us see what interlocking racial narratives make this such an alluring story. If we contextualize that story within politics, social hierarchies, and a longer historical trajectory, it becomes clear that leaving Asians out of discussions of color blindness and multiracial meaning in the United States serves only to naturalize and render invisible racial inequalities and power hierarchies.

Ghost in the Kitchen: Multiracial Korean Americans (Re)Defining Cultural Authenticity

“…On the other end of the spectrum, it allows for bold contestations of one's racial diversity, embodying a "no passing zone", where one, despite passing for another race, outwardly and consciously identifies their racial complexities (Williams-León 2001, p. 147). If, by nature of being fixed outside of dominant understandings of race, multiracial Asian Americans probe the "limits of our visual vocabulary", it means that the inherent goal of a multiracial "project" is not ultimately to suture them into the existing systems of racial classification; rather, to examine the conditions that enable individuals themselves to articulate a racial identity to be read publicly (Nishime 2014).…”

Choreographing Multiraciality: Mixed-Race Methods in North American Contemporary Dance

“…I begin by connecting critical mixed-race studies and critical dance studies, fields that are not often approached in tandem. Although CMRS scholars have extensively explored multiracial representation in literature (Ibrahim 2012;Elam 2011;Collins 2022), theater (Paulin 2012;Nyong'o 2009;Heinrich 2023), and visual arts (Kina and Dariotis 2013;Joseph 2013;Nishime 2014;Storti 2020), dance is absent from most of these analyses (Shaffer 2023). For dance scholars, studies of racial representation in dance have been a major concern, as have analyses of intercultural choreographic processes (Albright 1997;Chatterjea 2013;DeFrantz 2004;Desmond 1997;Dixon Gottschild 1998;Kwan 2021;Mitra 2015;Wong 2016, among others).…”