As a fifteen year old Indian-American girl who was born in the United States, I am able to experience both sides of my heritage. I party with family and friends on the 4th of July, waving around red, white, and blue, while in October I celebrate Diwali by eating traditional Indian foods, and listening to my grandmother pray in Marthi. Being multiracial comes with its ups and downs. I have faced my fair share of racial discrimination, whether it comes through racial stereotyping or people making up their own racial slurs.
Everyone must recognize that racism is a widescale problem that affects more than just monoracial people. The reality is that people who are multiracial face just as much discrimination as those who are monoracial.
Some who are mixed have been faced with a certain type of racial discrimination known as monoracism. Monoracism is aimed towards multiracial citizens highlighting that since they are a part of more than one race, “they do not fit into the discrete monoracial categories.” The practice of monoracism is a term that’s goal is to disrupt the well being of multiracial people.
Due to monoracism many mixed people deal with feeling like they don’t belong. Studies have indicated that young white multiracial adults are more likely to feel “pressure to drink alcohol” when they are around a white majority; this is because research has proven that “white youth reported the highest rates” of alcohol use. These statistics show how white multiracial people tend to drink more around white people so that they can have a sense of “fitting in” with the white side of their races.
In school and specifically in colleges many students have recognized the issue of multiracial racism and how students are being impacted by it. “Scholars have pushed for an increase in equity-minded, race-conscious practices,” Meaning that students are calling out for action on this issue because there is clearly a recognizable problem. The fact that the acts of racism are being taught in schools in a way that makes it appear to only affect monoracial people is inaccurate; the majority of school curriculums focus on the racial contrast in history between white and black people, this can exclude the racism that many mixed-race individuals have to go through.
Although monoracial people face traditional and internationalized racism such as systemic oppression, and bias towards their single race, it is not as harsh as the discrimination multiracials have to go through. Multiracial people go through racism that is targeted at not only one of their races, but usually more. Multiracial individuals often face questions like: “but what are you?” or “where are you really from?” These inquiries are forms of racial microaggressions implying to the person being asked that they don’t belong. Studies have linked unique forms of multiracial discrimination to a poorer mental health and an increase in substance use; “monocentricity privileges single race identities as the norm and pathologizes Multiraciality as abnormal and exotic.” Multiracial people often face pressure to pursue one side of their identity so that they can make themselves not feel out of place. Overall even though monoracial people face racial discrimination targeted towards them, multiracial people go through different forms of racism causing them to feel unwanted and ashamed of their identity.
To fix minimal understandings of the racial discrimination that multiracial individuals face, people can become more educated on the topic. School systems can strive to teach students about anti-racism as a whole and how all people of color, even multiracial citizens can be impacted by it.
It is essential that multiracial people start to embrace all aspects of their identities when they are young so that they can foster their confidence, reduce stress, buffer microaggressions, and prepare them for what they can face in the world beyond school.
