Architecture of Diversity

Examining experiences of college students of color is complicated in the current U.S. racial climate. With the prevalence of postracial ideology that suggests we have moved beyond race, the salience and significance of race in higher education, for students and researchers alike, are put into question. Even as students may desire to move beyond race, they still find racialization inescapable (Fisher & Hartmann, 1995; Jones, Castellanos, & Cole, 2002; Samura, 2011; Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000; Solórzano & Villalpando, 1998; Suarez-Balcazar, Orellana-Damacela, Portillo, Rowan, & Andres-Guillen, 2003). ¹ Moreover, as we navigate a supposedly colorblind era in which race does not determine people’s choices and life chances to the extent it once did, it often is difficult to locate, much less examine, processes of racialization in depth (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Brown et al., 2003).