Creating a Culture of Acceptance for Multiracial and Multiethnic Students
By Kimberlee Ratliff, Ed.D., NCC, NCSC
Program Director, School Counseling at American Public University
Imagine delivering a baby at a national hospital in Washington, D.C. in 2009 and being asked to choose one race to identify your child that ignores part of their racial identity.
Imagine shopping at a grocery store and strangers asking if you are babysitting your own child as your skin colors don’t look the same.
Imagine someone calling the police because they think you may have kidnapped your own child due to physical appearance differences.
Not only do these incidents happen in public, but these experiences also occur in our learning institutions.
Imagine being in pre-school and the kids in your class saying, “that’s not your dad” when he comes to pick you up.
Imagine doing a project at school on your family and everyone pointing out that your parents don’t match.
These experiences are not uncommon for multiracial children and children who are trans-racially adopted. Fielding questions about your identity and how you fit in with your family is common. This differentiates, which is not necessarily a negative experience, becomes a negative experience when it involves rejection or is misunderstood.
Children from monoracial/monoethnic backgrounds typically do not have to explain the connection to their own parents. However, this is a common occurrence for multiracial children and children who are transracially adopted. Having to constantly explain yourself and navigate your identity in a categorized world highlights the fact that you are different and sometimes communicates a lack of acceptance.
There are also questions about identity in terms of groups and these children they feel like they belong. One experience my oldest son shared happened during a Boy Scout meeting. The meeting involved a game of basketball and my son is not particularly interested in basketball, so this was the first time he played the game.
Comments from his friends included, “You are part black and you can’t play basketball?” These comments lead to questioning his identity and where he fits in based on stereotypes.
Similar situations happen when multiracial children and adolescents get messages that he/she is not black enough, not Asian enough, or not white enough and these messages lead to questioning where one truly belongs.
Multiracial children often have to explain who they are due to the ambiguity of physical characteristics. Furthermore, it is not unusual for multiracial children to be misidentified. My son is black and white; however, he is often mistaken for Latino and he has been asked on several occasions if he speaks Spanish. In the school setting, I was surprised by an incident my son experienced in art class. The instructions for his project included creating a heart that represented Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. My son proceeded to color half of the heart black and half of the heart white and simply wrote the word “unity” across the middle.
He came home upset because the art teacher criticized his representation and told him it wasn’t colorful enough. I asked him to explain his representation and he said, “Well, he fought for equal rights and a long time ago you and dad wouldn’t be able to be married. Now, you can be married no matter what color you are.” Although this incident was an example of ignorance, it was yet again another experience that questioned his beliefs and understanding of the world as a multiracial child.
The experiences of multiracial and multi-ethnic children and adolescents are primarily related to biases and stereotypes and are often unintentional. The school environment needs to be a supportive, positive environment for all children including multiracial children and adolescents.
According to my qualitative study (Ratliff, 2008), I investigated how school counselors perceive multiracial students and how they can contribute to providing a supportive, accepting environment for students who identify as multiracial or multiethnic. The following strategies were identified as ways to create a supportive environment for multiracial and multiethnic students.
1. For classrooms and counseling centers, mix up the sets of dolls representing families to represent various racial/ethnic groups rather than separating them monoracially.
2. Use literature that represents multiracial and multiethnic students, which validate the multiracial experience. Some great examples of books to include in the school library and use in classrooms include are provided in the following chart.
3. Use various colors of paper representing various skin tones, multiracial crayons, and colored pencils to represent the wide range of skin tones.
4. Include history and role models in the curriculum such as Loving vs Virginia, Loving Day, President Obama, historical figures and celebrities who identify with multiple races and ethnicities, etc.
5. If your school has a mentoring program, include multiracial/multiethnic mentors.
6. Make sure that any posters, publications, etc. include a wide range of diversity, not just monoracial representations of individuals.
7. Consider the student the expert instead of assigning your own label on them. Provide the opportunity for students to identify themselves and respect their choice of identity. Not all multiracial children and adolescents identify the same way.
8. Validate feelings and build positive relationships with multiracial students.
9. Identify and foster the student’s strengths.
10. Consider any policies that might place multiracial students at a disadvantage and challenge those policies.
For educators, I would also recommend the following books:
1. Racially Mixed People in America by Maria P.P. Root
2. Does Anybody Else Look Like Me? A Parent’s Guide to Raising Multiracial Children by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
3. Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America by Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David L. Brunsma
4. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride
5. I’m Chocolate, You’re Vanilla: Raising Healthy Black and Biracial Children in a Race-Conscious World A Guide for Parents and Teachers by Marguerite A. Wright
6. When Half is Whole: Multiethnic Asian American Identities by Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
7. Part Asian, 100% Hapa by Kip Fulbeck
8. Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural by Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn
Other websites of interest:
About the Author
Dr. Kimberlee Ratliff holds an Ed.D. in Counseling Psychology, M.Ed. in School Counseling, and B.S. in Psychology. She has been with APUS since September 2010, and is an associate professor and program director of School Counseling. She is a National Certified Counselor (NCC), National Certified School Counselor (NCSC), K-12 Certified School Counselor (VA) and Trauma and Loss School Specialist with 12 years of experience as an elementary and middle school counselor.
