ABSTRACT
It is now time to look at how the mixed race Asian child’s structure is expressly contained, how its walls are insulated to seal those inside. We have established that multiracial Asian children are developing important early self-understandings around race informed by history, the white racial frame and systemic racism: embedded prejudices, stereotypes, and discriminatory behaviors. They are pushed to value themselves and others according to white measures. Being “different,” racially ambiguous, hard to classify, etc. does not remove them from standing upon a white foundation within a white framework, nor immunize them against oppression. Of the parents I interviewed who were multiracial Asian themselves, every single one easily recounted being the mark of others’ racist biases. Sixty-eight percent of the multiracial Asian children in my group had already shown race recognition and at least half had already experienced racism directly. In deepening our understanding of the mixed race Asian child’s “multiracial home,” then, we now need to get more detailed. We need to take into account what particular systemic barriers they face as multiracials, Asians, and children, but also consider our response to those barriers. How are their walls packed and are we, the adults in their lives, providing the right climate needed to grow positive preformative multiracial identities?
