ABSTRACT
Who is multiracial? Most sociologists defi ne as multiracial all individuals who
self-identify with more than one race (e.g. both “black” and “white”) or whose
biological parents self-identify with two or more different races (e.g. the father is
black and the mother is white).1 Most social scientists consider race to be socially
constructed. They point out that what constitutes a racial category varies by his-
torical period and context. However, common beliefs about race lead many people
to assume that racial categories are natural and separate from each other. Hence,
multiracials and their assertion of their multiracial identity violate these notions.
