The Influence of Familial Relationships: Multiracial Students’ Experiences with Racism at a Historically White Institution

Abstract

Multiracial college students’ enrollment has increased significantly over the past decade. This study examined the experiences of multiracial college students at a historically White institution (HWI) in the Northeast—particularly how student experiences within interracial family relationships—prior to college and while enrolled in college have assisted them in navigating instances of racism. In this exploratory qualitative study, students indicated that their family members can provide support in understanding racism. However, it does depend on the type of relationship and support (e.g., strong, weak, or stressed) they receive from specific family members during their pre-college and college experiences. Multiracial students confirmed experiencing multiracial microaggressions and found that they receive the most family support from their siblings. Implications are provided for students, practitioners, and interracial families to empower multiracial students to confront racism while attending a HWI.

1. Introduction

“Once I was able to realize that I was not the same color as either of my parents

I was probably around five. I kind of remember looking at myself and I was like why am I not gray? Because my Dad is Black and my mom is White, but I am not…I’d asked that so and that’s kind of when I got more into understanding what I was…It’s where I’m stuck in between constantly.”

—Ace (Black, White, and Native American)

“Ah I feel like that I was never explicitly told that I could only be one race but it was more just subtle dialogue from people all saying that I kind of can identify with one thing and I’ve always at the end of the day just wanted to identify as both um, but I realize more so just being at a campus with predominately White people that I’m and even in American society like after college I’m never going to be considered White not to anyone. I mean you know—nobody wants to admit that in a sense the one-drop rule still stands in society, but I mean it does.”

—Donald (Black and White)

These two narratives from Ace and Donald’s interviews demonstrate that the complexity of racial identity for multiracial students begins at an early age. Their stories also show how contemporary mixed-race experiences are connected to historical experiences, such as the one- drop rule. Traditionally, the one-drop rule applied to a “person of White European descent who also descended from a parent of Color and was always assigned the racial status of the person of Color” (Root and Kelley 2003, p. 34). Seeing that the United States has always had a tenuous history with oppression and racism, it is no surprise that our college student populations bring these narratives of racism and racialized historical legacies to their campuses.

Higher education institutions across the United States have reported increasing numbers of multiracial college students enrolling nationwide (Johnston-Guerrero et al. 2022; Johnston-Guerrero and Renn 2016; Shang 2008). Even as American racial demographics change, multiracial Americans have grown at a rate three times as fast as the national population (Jones et al. 2021; Pew Research Center 2015). Further supporting this demographic shift, Bailey (2013) believes while there is a growing multiracial population, many “multiracial people are getting a voice, and are not ashamed to freely express themselves any longer. More are realizing that they do not fit with just one racial group, and many are realizing this for the first time” (p. 22).

The 2000 U.S. Census was the first time in history that Americans could check more than one box to identify their race. Based on data from the 2010 Census it was estimated that by 2050, 1 in 5 Americans will be multiracial (Jones and Bullock 2012). This growth was further confirmed with the 2020 U.S. Census results with a “276% growth” in the multiracial group (Jones et al. 2021, p. 1). Despite this population growth, the extant research literature that focuses on the college experiences of multiracial students does not often center on oppression and its connection to racism and monoracism (Johnston-Guerrero et al. 2020; Museus et al. 2016).

According to a Pew Research Center (2015) study, about 15 percent of all new marriages in the United States were interracial or interethnic, which is more than double the rate in 1980 (6.7 percent). Although interracial families are increasing in numbers, more educational research will be needed to further examine the unique role that interracial families play in supporting their multiracial college student. In one of the few published studies related to this topic, researchers found that multiethnic individuals reported healthier self-identities if their families were supportive of the development of their multiethnic identities (Jourdan 2006). Yet, about one-in-five multiracial adults (21%) say they have felt pressure from friends, family or from society in general to choose one of the races in their background over another (Pew Research Center 2015). Notwithstanding, interracial families do have an important role to play in influencing whether their multiracial children recognize and accept their multiracial identity both within their family structure, and while their student progresses through K-12 and postsecondary educational environments (Embrace Race 2020).

2. Purpose of Study

Although research on multiracial college students is expanding, one of the newer areas of inquiry to consider for this student demographic is the familial background and/or the role of the family. Renn’s (2004) ecology study on the identities of mixed-race college students found that “family constituted the primary pre-college microsystem for the acquisition of cultural knowledge” (p. 136). Similarly, Edou’s (2010) dissertation study found that parents of multiracial children who focus on their child’s relationship with their extended family and grandparents can help prepare them for interacting with the outside world. Another study by Johnston-Guerrero and Pecero (2016) found that families were limited in offering useful racial and cultural knowledge to navigate monoracial environments. However, what remains unclear is to what extent do interracial families support multiracial students who experience racism when attending historically White institutions (HWIs)?

Colleges and universities aim to prepare students to engage in an increasingly diverse world, however Guillermo Wann and Johnston (2012) argue that higher education needs to be open to understanding another dimension of racism that impacts multiracial individuals (i.e., monoracism1). At the same time, multiracial individual experiences with racial identification need to be understood within the racial hierarchy of the U.S., which has been grounded in a monoracial classification system (Tran et al. 2016) that mainly views multiracial individuals as People of Color. Multiracial Americans can often face discrimination from monoracial Americans yet without “an official multiracial category their experiences of racial discrimination are often ignored or not even noticed” (Korgen 2016, p. 5).

While we know that multiracial students experience racism (A. Chang 2016; Kellogg and Liddell 2012; Literte 2010; Museus et al. 2015), another area to explore is how interracial families might be able to proactively provide emotional and personal support or even build on their students’ development of a multiracial consciousness (Malaney-Brown 2021) to support their students when coping with inevitable discrimination or racism.

Therefore, my study purposefully bridges the gap between how different family relationships directly influence the level of support that a multiracial student receives when experiencing racism at a HWI. The site for this study a HWI was selected to complete this study because of researcher access, but more importantly the impact and legacy of white supremacy is ever present in HWIs policies and practices. The following two research questions guide this study:

• To what extent are multiracial students prepared by their interracial family members to navigate instances of racism while attending a historically White institution?
• What types of interracial family relationships best support multiracial students when facing instances of racism in a historically White educational environment?

By conducting this study, which emphasizes that more multiracial students are attending HWIs, I aim to inform higher education researchers, student affairs professionals, parents, and K-12 teachers to empower multiracial students to recognize and even confront racism in college (i.e., monoracism and multiracial microaggressions at their HWI). By focusing on family relationships, this study calls attention to how multiracial college students use their family socialization to understand why oppression and racism matters and its impacts on their racialized student experiences.

Key Terms

The classification of race in the U.S. changed over time as societal views on race evolved because of shifts in immigration and population demographics (Pew Research Center 2015). As result of these shifting classifications, I have provided an overview of key race terms to clarify how these key terms are defined in this study. Monoracial categories include Black, White, Asian, Latinx, and Native American. However, as Guillermo Wann and Johnston (2012) contend, monoracial categories may or may not reflect “an individual’s or group’s ancestry(s) or racial identity(s) but reflect the dominant way race is currently conceptualized and operationalized in most higher education research” (p. 11). While most people in the United States have had some type of racial, ethnic, or cultural mixing at some point in their family history, it is important to note that few recognize themselves as multiracial, biracial, or multiethnic (Schlabach 2013) though this is changing due to recent 2020 U.S. Census demographics (Jones et al. 2021).

The Pew Research Center (2015) defines multiracial as the following: (1) someone who selects two or more races for themselves, (2) someone who does not select two or more races but indicates that at least one of their parents was not the same race that they selected for themselves, (3) or they do not fit the definition of “multiracial” based on their own or their parents’ racial background, but would select two or more races for their grandparents (Pew Research Center 2015, p. 13). These definitions highlight that there are numerous definitions of the term multiracial. Another term used frequently is biracial and it is defined as an individual who has a racial background with two monoracial groups (Franco et al. 2016). Mixed race is defined as an individual who has multiple race heritages (Root and Kelley 2003). Throughout this study, I utilize the term multiracial as defined by the Pew Research Center (2015) to discuss and name the racial identities of my participants. However, I also acknowledge that my participants chose to use different racial terms to discuss their ascribed racial backgrounds including: multiracial, biracial, mixed race, and even mulatto (which has its own oppressive historical context) during their interviews. Overall, the variance in racial terms is common with this student population because of the fluidity of their racial identities (Osei-Kofi 2012; Zack 2010). For the terminology that relates to familial influence, I define “family” as including both nuclear or extended family members. The term interracial families are often used to describe couples of differing races who may produce a multiracial child (Root and Kelley 2003). Finally, the term historically white institution is used to point out that whiteness as Owen (2007) suggests is:

“A structuring property, whiteness affects every aspect of the system. It shapes the consciousness of individuals and hence the cognitive and evaluative frameworks for action, the pattern of social practices, the terms and rules for the operation of social institutions of the economy, the educational system, the legal system, the representations of value that define the culture and so on”.

(Owen 2007, p. 208)

I use this understanding of whiteness to describe the environment because of the institution’s history of upholding whiteness, which cannot be hidden. Therefore, I use HWI as a historical and environmental marker instead of the term predominately white institution to continue to push our understanding of just how embedded whiteness is in the structure and history of higher education institutions.

3. Literature Review

The study was framed by literature and theory on the multiracial college student population. To conceptually expand the existing literature related to multiraciality in college contexts, I have also intentionally reviewed articles outside of the higher education literature that provides perspective into how interracial families influence the socialization and development of their multiracial children. First, I begin by providing an overview of the campus climate literature at HWIs to contextualize how multiracial students are monoracialized under the “White racial frame” (A. Chang 2016, p. 8). Second, I provide an overview of the concept of monoracism and how multiracial individuals experience multiracial microaggressions at HWIs. Third, I review family socialization and familial influence literature. My study contributes to multiracial research in higher education, but also extends it to include the importance of family in students’ experiences with racism in pre-college and university contexts.

To comprehend the complex landscape in which multiracial colleges students live and learn it is imperative to know more about the theory and history of race, racial categorization, and multiracial Americans (Renn 2003). It has been 55 years since the 1967 Supreme Court case ruling Loving v. State of Virginia which overturned racial miscegenation laws and made it possible for interracial couples to marry without the fear of persecution (American Civil Liberties Union 2013). Yet, despite this racial progress, American interracial families in contemporary society are still subjected to specific challenges which includes experiencing overt racism, being stereotyped, and having to confront questions from American society because their multiracial children do not look like their monoracial parents (Robinson-Wood 2011). As Feagin (2013) explains the White racial frame or “the dominant racial frame has long legitimated, rationalized and shaped racial oppression and inequality in this country” (x). The confusion of this dominant racial frame is wrapped up in the idea that race, as a social construct, needs clearer distinctions to be made between racial identity (a person’s self-understanding), racial identification (how others perceive, understand, and categorize an individual), and racial categories (what racial identities are chosen and available) (Rockquemore et al. 2009). Oftentimes, the conflation of the meaning of these three terms can be confusingeven to multiracial individuals. Because of the lack of consistent recognition of multiracial populations, it is no surprise that present-day student experiences in the higher education system are still met with uncertainty to researchers and higher education institutions (Johnston-Guerrero and Renn 2016; Renn and Shang 2008).

3.1. Historically White Institutions’ (HWI) Campus Climate for Multiracial Students

A. Chang (2016) argued that it is critical to acknowledge that multiracial individuals do exist among and are embedded within a White racial system that is not only pervasively racist, but also systemically and historically rooted in White supremacy. In a similar vein, it is fundamental to recall that American higher education institutions were founded in the colonial tradition which privileged the experiences of young, elite White men (Thelin 2011). Based on this foundational understanding of the White racial frame (Feagin 2013) that higher education institutions were created for White men (Thelin 2011), the effects of this systematic racial legacy impacted any student who is perceived as the racial other (Sue 2010). Based on this important history, multiracial students who attend HWIs continue to experience various forms of exclusion within their campus racial climate.

For instance, there were some mutual themes that commonly described multiracial student experiences with racism and exclusion within HWIs. For example: (1) the need to define one’s own racial identity, (2) the need to fit into peer groups, (3) the pressure to choose one racial identity over another, and (4) the constant reminders about ambiguous physical appearance (Gasser 2002; Jones and Jones 2010). Related, yet different from the challenges above, Kellogg and Liddell’s (2012) qualitative study situated at two predominately White institutions defined critical incidents as “descriptions of experiences that students believe have had a significant influence on their racial identity and may be one-time events or ongoing experiences” (p. 526). The data from 14 multiracial student experiences revealed four prevalent critical incidents: (1) confronting race and racism, (2) responding to external definitions about their race, (3) defending legitimacy, and (4) affirming racial identity (Kellogg and Liddell 2012, p. 524).

Subcategories of the critical incidents were developed to explain how multiracial students experienced “the saliency of race; encountering racism, dealing with racial ambiguity; checking one box, questioning academic legitimacy; challenging racial legitimacy, possessing racial and cultural knowledge; and sharing similar experiences” (Kellogg and Liddell 2012, p. 530). What these critical incidents and challenges revealed is that the multiracial student experience is akin to what monoracial students of Color experienced on campus (Kellogg and Liddell 2012; Harris 2016a). Although an important distinction was that multiracial students who also experienced college in a racialized way felt excluded, marginalized, and disconnected from the campus community (Jones and Jones 2010).

Student support services (e.g., student programming, and identity development programs) that are designed to focus on multiracial students help them process their identity and experiences free from constricting monoracial identity markers (Jones and Jones 2010; Literte 2010). The negative campus climate experiences that multiracial students often face (Renn 2003, 2004), suggests that race-oriented student services offered to traditional monoracial students’ needs to be adapted to better integrate the needs of biracial students (Literte 2010). According to a qualitative study that examined biracial students at two universities, students’ whether biracial or monoracial, are shaped by how universities organize racial identities within race orientated student services (Literte 2010). HWIs uphold a dominant view of race that privileges whiteness and monoracial or singular race categories in higher education. However, a new systematic theory in which to critically view multiraciality entered racial discourse in 2010. The increasing pressure to challenge monoracial categories and policies paved the way for educational researchers to acknowledge multiracial individuals and students (Jones and Bullock 2012). The reviewed literature supports and validates the personal encounters with racism that multiracial students have experienced at HWIs. My study contributes yet another layer to the current higher education scholarship determining that multiracial students are not commonly prepared by their family members to confront and understand the reasons why they are encountering racialized experiences (i.e., critical incidents) at a HWI.

3.2. Monoracism and Multiracial Microaggressions

As defined previously, monoracism is defined as “a social system of psychological inequality where individuals who do not fit monoracial categories may be oppressed on systemic and interpersonal levels because of underlying assumptions and beliefs in singular, discrete racial categories” (Johnston and Nadal 2010, p. 125). Through their understanding of monoracism, Johnston and Nadal (2010) developed a taxonomy of multiracial microaggressions based on earlier research on microaggressions. Notably, previous research on microaggressions excluded multiracial individuals. Further expanding on the definition of monoracism, Hamako (2014) defined multiracial oppression as “the systemic privileging of things, people, and practices that are racialized, as a single-race and or racially pure” (p. 81). The concept of monoracism is vital to understand when applied to the multiracial student population as evidenced by the lack of research on multiracial individuals. Johnston and Nadal (2010) identified that multiracial people also experience racism and discrimination in their lives. Their taxonomy identifies five microaggression categories; each sends hostile and insulting messages towards multiracial individuals: (1) exclusion or isolation, (2) exoticization and objectification, (3) assumption of monoracial or mistaken identity, (4) denial of multiracial reality, and (5) pathologizing of identity and experiences (Johnston and Nadal 2010). An example of monoracism in the college context is when multiracial students are asked to fill out a survey that only allows them to check one racial box. Other challenges include filling out demographic forms, dating and lack of representation of their ethnic heritages in the curriculum and even encounters with support service offices, and academic offices (Gasser 2002). While more students seek to claim a biracial or multiracial identity, the option to choose more than one racial group on official forms is still limited by the way the racial data is analyzed (Morning 2005) or institutions not properly disaggregating multiracial student data (Ford et al. 2021).

Harris (2016a) conducted a qualitative study with ten multiracial women at an HWI to analyze how multiracial microaggressions occur in college environment. The study’s findings concluded that multiracial women experienced the following multiracial microaggressions: denial of a multiracial reality, assumption of a monoracial identity, and not being (monoracial) enough to ‘fit in’. Harris’s (2016a) research concluded that multiracial college students are impacted by microaggressions at HWIs and that the taxonomy of multiracial microaggressions can be applied to the higher education context (Johnston and Nadal 2010).

In the above reviewed literature, despite several theories that begin to uncover the types of monoracial and campus climate experiences that multiracial students often face (Renn 2003, 2004) only one older study highlights the importance of family for multiracial college students’ culture. Nishimura’s (1998) qualitative study found that multiracial students desired a role model in their interracial family who was biracial and had a positive outlook on their racial identity. The study’s results also demonstrated that the students wished their parents helped prepare them to deal with racism and ignorance by having family conversations. Instead, multiracial students were met with a lack of empathy from monoracial loved ones regarding their feelings of not fitting in. The concepts of monoracism and multiracial microaggressions help to explain and contextualize the unique types of racial challenges that multiracial students face.

Connecting Physical Appearance to Monoracism

For mixed-race individuals, societal perceptions that are based on an individual’s physical appearance continue to be influential in how an individual chooses to claim either a multiracial or monoracial identity. Sims (2016) found in a qualitative study with 30 interviews with mixed-race adults who lived in the U.S. and United Kingdom that their experiences of being racialized was perceived differently from their monoracial peers and it depended on the context of the environment or how the mixed-race person chose to racially ascribe their identity. On the other hand, Root (1992) would call these described challenges as part of the “squeeze effect” (p. 5). The squeeze effect is when biracial people felt oppression as People of Color by People of Color. For example, Root (1992) illustrated a young woman in her book, Racially Mixed People in America who had many personal experiences where she felt too light to be Black and too dark to be White when questioned by monoracial peers to define her racial background.

For multiracial individuals, depending on how they physically look there is also a difference in their upbringing between having a White parent versus two parents of color (S. H. Chang 2016; Robinson-Wood 2011). Gaining an understanding of the types of family relationships that multiracial students seek support from when experience racism is important addition for the development of higher education literature.

4. Family Socialization and Familial Influence

Recent shifts in the counseling literature support the experience that multiracial couples and individuals also endure biased environmental systems (Kenney et al. 2015; Literte 2010). As such, it is becoming common for counselors to recognize that the multiracial population also “deal[s] with stressors associated with negative and hostile encounters rooted in racism and other forms of oppression” (Kenney et al. 2015, p. 6). Counseling literature is highlighted because in higher education there are few articles that directly emphasize the experiences of interracial families or the emotional support, they provide their college students.

Considering a social work perspective that reviewed how parents influenced the cultural identity development of their multiracial children, Jackson (2009) found generally that parents who chose a multicultural identity among their children exposed them to both ethnic majority and ethnic minority cultures. On the other hand, parents also influenced their child’s cultural identity in less supportive way by not discussing race, being silent or even being discriminating towards their child’s physical or cultural identity which was different from their own (Jackson 2009; Nuru and Soliz 2014). The environment in which a multiracial individual grows up in can be a major influence his or her choice of racial identity. Gaither (2015) found that individuals who identify as multiracial generally feel positive about their racial identity by embracing each of their racial heritages.

S. H. Chang (2016) concurred as her study found that early memories of interactions with family members and school experiences were significant to the students’ perspective of the meaning of race and how they viewed their racial categorization. On the other hand, college administrators, institutional departments, and student peers frequently negate multiracial students’ multiple racial identities, pressuring them to pick one racial identity over others (Literte 2010; Renn 2003, 2004). These racialized experiences are specific to students who self-identify with or are perceived to have more than one racial heritage. By reviewing the literature that theorizes multiraciality, higher education, and familial influence it further demonstrates that to understand race in the U.S. college context we must consider time, place, and culture to analyze environmental and family systems (Renn 2003). Finally, as researchers begin to recognize the experiential reality of multiracial individuals (Renn 2004; Sue 2010), more qualitative educational research (Jones et al. 2006) should focus on how multiracial individuals and students are specifically affected by systemic racism (Hamako 2014; Johnston and Nadal 2010) as well as how family relationships provide systems of support (Jourdan 2006). Since my qualitative study examines the influence of interracial family members who have multiracial students in college, it will help contribute to higher education literature because currently there are no studies in the literature that considers how interracial family members support their multiracial student when the student experiences racism at a HWI.

5. Theoretical Framework: MultiCrit

The theoretical framework that was used to guide this study conceptually and analytically is called, MultiCrit. Harris (2016b) was the first higher education researcher to propose adapting critical race theory (CRT) to include the multiracial perspective, which called for an updated version of CRT. MultiCrit is defined as a “critique of the role that White supremacist structures play in the (re)construction of multiraciality, thus uncovering far more profound effects of racism for multiracial and monoracial people of color than ‘a lack of place’” (Harris 2016b, p. 4). MultiCrit calls for a better understanding of the historical context for multiracial students’ present-day experiences to allow for a more systemic understanding of how a monoracial view of racial identity may directly impact the lives of students who claim a multiracial identity (Harris 2016b). Drawing on this understanding, MultiCrit fits into this study because it helped me conceptualize and analyze participants’ personal narratives which “interrupt the socially constructed understanding of race … that race exists in neat, defined, monoracial categories” (Harris 2016b, p. 3). Drawing on CRT, MultiCrit also has several core tenets that were adapted from the CRT tenets. The first MultiCrit tenet are challenge to ahistoricism which it is used to analyze historical issues that impacted multiracial history (e.g., U.S. Census). The second term interest convergence is defined by Harris (2016b) in how institutions use multiracial students as “objects to market diversity, are acknowledged only when it benefits the needs of the white institution” (p. 6). The third term experiential knowledge centers multiracial student voices and challenges monoracial ideologies. The fourth tenet challenge to dominant ideology is “challenges when narrative voice is utilized and experiences of multiracial students are foregrounded in the research” (Harris 2016b, p. 6). The fifth tenet uses the terms racism, monoracism, colorism which is connected to CRT’s tenet that racism is endemic. The sixth tenet a monoracial paradigm of race urges for race to be more than a binary and allow for multiracial people to claim their lived racialized realities. The seventh is called differential micro-racialization. This idea is connected to the original CRT tenet that recognizes how racial categories and their meanings are constructed. Similarly, differential micro-racialization states that multiracial students are “racialized differently on a daily basis to serve the needs of a White institution” (Harris 2016b, p. 6). The eighth and final MultiCrit tenet is intersections of multiple racial identities that reviews the intersections of multiracial students’ heritages. Each of these tenets inform the scope of my study because at the core of my research question is the concept of racism. However, multiracial college students are different from their monoracial peers, and they experience monoracism and colorism because of their racial hypodescent or physical characteristics (Harris 2016b). Since higher education continues to operate within a monoracial frame, multiracial students can be influenced by the institutional messaging (e.g., monoracial student programming that excludes multiracial students) and interpersonal racisms (e.g., non-acknowledgement of multiracial history in courses or diversity curriculum) when studying within a HWI (Adams et al. 2016; Hamako 2014).

6. Research Design and Methods

Connected to the framework is my own positionality and personal understanding of this emerging student population which influenced the design of this study. I identify as a multiracial (Indo-Caribbean American, Spanish, and White Irish) cisgender female researcher and I acknowledge that I conducted this research study because I am interested in understanding the needs of multiracial students who are racially marginalized in higher education. I use my power as a multiracial researcher to privilege the unique viewpoints and experiences of multiracial student narratives at a HWI (Jolivette 2014; Mazzei and Jackson 2012). The intent of qualitative research is to better understand the in-depth lives of human beings in the world we live in (Jones et al. 2006). Brockington and Sullivan (2003) assert that qualitative methods are used to explore the meaning of people’s worlds. My approach used a critical qualitative paradigm and I aimed to understand the dynamics of racism and oppression that exists within HWIs. I used a critical paradigm to confront the oppressive institutional practices multiracial individuals face in their everyday life (Johnston-Guerrero and Renn 2016; Hamako 2014). Therefore, I selected narrative inquiry as the study’s research design method to seek the truth and meaning from the stories of my research participants. Narrative inquiry also required the use of in-depth interviewing methods to collect, examine, and deduce meaning from life stories (Clandinin and Connelly 2000). Using a critical approach to narrative inquiry highlights the analytical lens that “takes into account power dynamics” the influence of the social and environmental forces that are part of the individual’s life (Pino Gavidia and Adu 2022, p. 4). Through the narration of nine personal stories, research participants constructed their first-hand experiences about their multiracial identity pre-college and while in college. The research participants also shared stories about their interracial families, being a college student, and how they faced critical incidents in the past (i.e., racism or microaggressions) through during different points their lives during their narrative inquiry interviews (Johnston and Nadal 2010; Kellogg and Liddell 2012).

7. Research Sample and Recruitment

Participants in this Institutional Review Board approved study had to be at least 18 years of age or older, enrolled at Norte University (NU) (pseudonym) a HWI, self-identify as multiracial, could speak to the influence of their family, and comment on pre-college and current racial experiences. 75% of undergraduate students at Norte University self-identify as White and 23% self-identify as students of Color and 2% as Two or more Races. Criterion sampling (Stage and Manning 2016) was used to contact the Norte University’s undergraduate Registrar office to obtain the list of currently enrolled students (i.e., 1642 students) who checked, “Two or More Races” in the University database. Every student from on the “Two or More Races” list was sent a personalized email inviting them to participate in my research study and it explained the incentive of a $10 Amazon e-gift card. Additionally, attached to the invitation email was the informed consent and a Google form to coordinate interview times and dates. In total, I conducted 9 interviews and had 152 students interested in being interviewed. For the interested participants that I was unable to interview they were sent a follow up email that encouraged them to fill out another Google form to participate in a future study. Class year was considered in the sample as I wanted the students to be able to reflect on their time spent in college and experiences with racism. For instance, first year students would have different examples with campus experiences than seniors. The final sample was randomly selected from the 9 participants interviewed to represent differences in multiracial backgrounds and gender (See Appendix A). Having nine participants allowed for a small, scale pilot exploratory study, which aligns with the various sample sizes needed for a critical narrative inquiry study.

8. Data Collection

Interviews took place in person at NU’s campus in a private reserved room at the College of Education. The interviews lasted from 30 min to 1 h. Participants were sent reminder emails prior to their interviews and thank you emails after the interview to redeem their $10 Amazon e-gift card. Before each interview began, participants were reminded of the consent process to build trust (Creswell 2014), and they were reassured that they could ask the researcher any further questions. Narrative research challenges the assumptions of dominant discourses and concerns itself instead with highlighting marginalized voices and creating reflexive relationships between the researcher and the researched (Clandinin and Connelly 2000). Keeping this in mind, prior to beginning the audio-recorded interview, I spent time developing rapport with each participant allowing them to ask questions about my multiracial background. Participants also selected a pseudonym name to protect their confidentiality.

The major themes of the interviews covered pre-college experiences, family discussions about race/racism and college experiences with racism. I used a semi-structured interview protocol and interview questions included, “How did your family discuss your race/multiracial heritage prior to going to college?” and “Have you ever felt racially discriminated against while at Norte University because of your multiple races?” Participant interviews were audio-recorded using the program, QuickTime on the researcher’s laptop.

I also employed the use of eco-mapping because it is tool used in social work to discuss family relationships and dynamics (Jackson 2009). I also found it to be a great complement to traditional qualitative interviewing and allowed for participants to visually represent and discuss the intricacies of their family relationships in a unique way. Eco-maps begin with a central oval surrounded by several additional ovals unlabeled in a circle to allow for the participant to write in the names of relationships and family systems that are present in their lives and might offer social support or be the source of stress (Harold et al. 1997). Participants were asked to complete the eco-mapping activity during the end of the interview. After the participants drew the eco-map, I asked each participant to describe their map, including which family members they included and why each family member provided them strong, weak, or stressed support. Using a visual method helped me to collect a different data point where participants were more direct about quality of their family relationships (Harold et al. 1997).

After each interview was completed, I wrote memos to reflect and remember my own positionality, bias, and ethics for justice (Rallis and Rossman 2012). By writing memos about each participant (Clandinin and Connelly 2000), I carefully noted the details shared in participant stories that discussed how family relationships are used by multiracial students to better understand whether they have experienced and confronted instances of racism or even subtle forms of racism such as microaggressions (Johnston and Nadal 2010; Johnston-Guerrero and Renn 2016). I also transcribed each of the interviews. I minimized the effect of personal bias through member checking and to strengthen the credibility of the study’s results (Chan 2012; Lincoln and Guba 1986). I sent each participant their interview transcript to verify their transcribed narratives.

9. Data Analysis

Analyzing critical narratives permits the researcher to decipher an individual’s position while also examining the themes revealed in participant stories that discuss experiences with racial discrimination, oppression, exclusion, or marginalization (Daly 2007). The data analysis began after the transcribed interviews were cleaned, uploaded, and coded in QSR-N-Vivo data analysis software. N-Vivo was selected as the data analysis software because of its ability to organize and analyze collected data (N-Vivo 2022) quickly and precisely. I coded each transcript and paid special attention to the stories and words that could be inductively coded (Saldaña 2013). For instance, I deductively coded the interviews for examples of monoracism (Johnston and Nadal 2010), microaggressions (Sue 2010), multiracial microaggressions (Harris 2016a; Johnston and Nadal 2010), family relationships (Johnston-Guerrero and Pecero 2016), and family/parent discussions (Edou 2010). I anticipated in the data analysis to find inductive codes that I might not expect to uncover (Creswell 2014). Some of the inductive codes were racism within the family and the codes of “Academic settings”, “Residence Hall” and “Social Settings”, in which the participants described specific locations in and around campus where they experienced questions about their multiple races or monoracism. I found these inductive codes by re-combing through the data and taking time to notice the place or location that the participant described on campus. For the visual mode of data analysis, I analyzed the eco-maps by reviewing the lines drawn that indicated the types of family relationships for each participant. The eco-map findings helped enhance my understanding of the family relationships and narratives alongside how the participants described their racialized experiences in the interview. I assessed which family members’ relationships were described the most and the least by participants as having stressed, weak, or strong support (See Appendix B) and the reasons for why each of the relationships were different. Throughout the analysis, I re-reviewed the data (i.e., transcripts and memos) to build thick descriptions to then allow for interpretations that could suggest the connections and patterns of participants’ stories or themes (Geertz 1973; Rallis 2015). I ran several queries using N-Vivo, revisited my memos which resulted in the study’s findings.

10. Study Limitations

As with any qualitative research study there are limitations to consider. First as a small-scale exploratory study, the findings will not be generalizable to the multiracial population at a HWI as it does not analyze needed to other intersecting social identities. Additionally, this study’s results are only based on the experiences of participants who currently attend NU and it does not include any student narratives from other HWI regional colleges or universities in the surrounding region. Despite these limitations, the study’s findings provided new insights into the influence of interracial families on multiracial students, their relationships, and the types of experiences with racism pre-college and during college.

11. Findings

The findings from this study resulted in three main themes and two sub-themes which best describe how multiracial students understand the influence of different family relationships and experience monoracism while attending a HWI. Intriguingly, most participants in this study had one parent with White racial heritage. While it was not intentional in the collection of the data to have participants who each indicated their parent had white racial heritage it is important to note this as whiteness does come up in how the participants frame their racialized experiences.

12. Pre-College: Growing Up with a Familial Awareness of a Multiracial Identity

Each participant described how they became aware of their multiracial identity. Each participant in their youth (pre-college) could recall the specific conversation they had with their parent(s) to better understand the complexity of their mixed-race heritage either in elementary, middle or high school. Alice (Black, Native American, Korean and White) recalled speaking with her Black father about her racial identity in elementary school. Alice said:

I guess I kind of realized that like I am not as dark as other Black people so I asked my Dad “So what’s my race?” He was like oh you’re half Korean and um Black and stuff and I was like “Oh I’m Part Asian too?” and I don’t think he told me that because I never asked before.

Alice realized at a young age that not only is she Black, she is also Korean. Alice grew up living with her single Black father and Black grandparents and she did not know her Korean and White mother. However, realizing pre-college that she is also Asian provided Alice with more of an understanding of her physical appearance and why her peers in school would always ask her about her light skin tone. While Kelleigh (Sri Lankan, White-Irish, and Native American), mentioned that in her family when she recalled speaking with her mother about her race she said “Um… we never really talked about it one time I asked my mom what I was and she gave me the list and then that was that”. Yet, despite Kelleigh’s family not talking about race much, she always knew she was multiracial because “people regularly ask me what I am. I’ll say oh I’m mixed”. While growing up, Elizabeth did not notice that she was different racially until her friends brought to her attention that Elizabeth’s home had different cultural food and household rules. Elizabeth said, “I didn’t realize we were considered like different um until they [my friends] pointed it out and I was like oh yeah—that is kind of the different I guess”. However, this did not stop the participants from asking questions about themselves to other family members or being aware of their multiracial identity. The various levels of awareness of racial identity and family relationships helped the participants to see how they were influenced by their families and socialization prior to attending college.

13. Differing Family Dynamics and Relationships

The second theme was family dynamics and relationships. Family served as form of support particularly for participants’ self-awareness of their cultures and multiple heritages, although the extent to which participants found support from family varied across participants due to family composition such as whether the participants’ parents were still partnered or divorced. Out of the five participants, three of the participants’ (i.e., Kelleigh, Donald, and Alice) parents were divorced and two participants’ parents were still partnered (i.e., Ace and Elizabeth). Alice spoke about her family and said, “Yeah so I grew up with my Dad and my mother separated when I was pretty young and so I was born in Wisconsin and that’s where she lived. But then when we separated, we moved to Westborough, MA and I lived with my grandparents until I was about nine”. Alice did not learn much about her Korean and White mixed-race heritage because she did not have a relationship with her mother. Families were limited in the support that they could provide due to the family composition. Kelleigh was left to determine her multiracial background based on her family’s relationships and stories about family. She said, “My Mom’s side of the family we don’t interact with them, I do know one story about my great grandma on my mom’s side and the I know more stories on my Dad’s side because we interacted with my [Sri Lankan] family more”. While Donald (Black and White) explains that in his White-Polish immigrant family that while in “elementary school, middle school, and even high school we’d never talked about it [race] I mean, I guess back then I didn’t really identify as much but …in terms of like racial or ethnic identity it was never really discussed”. Donald described not knowing his father well since he has always lived in another state and his parents are no longer partnered. When participants spoke with their parents to question them about their mixed-race heritage it was common to hear that the parents did not often talk about their multiracial background. Participants’ familial conversations provided differing amounts of cultural knowledge that influenced how students chose to racially identify pre-college and during college.

For instance, Elizabeth recalled a conversation she had with her mother prior to attending NU. Elizabeth’s Vietnamese mother and White Father told her that she should only mark White as her racial identity. Elizabeth expressed that she felt confused by her family’s views:

I think I feel constrained more by my family than like attitudes on campus or anything like that. Like back when I mentioned to check one [race] box and my parents always told me to put White and like to this day and when I was applying to colleges, I would check both boxes and one day my mom saw and she said, “Why are you doing that? Just put White”. But to me I’m both.

For Donald, it took him awhile to understand his family’s understanding about race being raised by his single Polish mother and grandmother. Donald said, “It’s funny [as a family] we actually never really discussed [race] until like after I got into college and that’s when I noticed just like a difference between like myself and people who are like my background”. Similarly, depending on the participants’ personal relationship with their family influenced whether they would speak with their family members about any racism or discrimination they experienced either pre-college or while enrolled at NU. The findings in the eco-mapping findings chart) provides context for the types of relationships that participants described. The bolded font indicates the chart’s the most significant findings for family relationship and type of support. Due to space limitations, I only review strong and weak family support findings.

14. Eco-Map Findings: Both Strong and Weak Family Support

For the eco-map activity, each participant discussed family members who were a source of strength, weakness, or stress. Appendix B presents the findings of the eco-map activity. When directly asked if their interracial family prepared them to navigate racism at a HWI every participant said, “No” except for one participant, Ace. For Ace because both of his parents shared a mixed-race Native American heritage, he was brought up to celebrate his multiple races. Ace said, “My father and mother have always been very strong supporters and people that I could confide in without any problems with regards to race”. However, despite the participants’ parents not preparing them to face racism at their HWI, the analysis of the eco-maps indicated that the main source of strong personal support for multiracial participants was their siblings. While participants completed the eco-map activity, I asked them to explain the reasons why each family member’s support was different. For one of her siblings Kelleigh stated:

I definitely have [spoken about race] to my oldest sister, about it if I were talking with someone because she’s the most open-minded and she’s the most socially aware, if like you want to put it that way. Additionally, she does like have a sense that she like understands the topic of ethnicity or multiracial.

For Donald, his brothers provided support about understanding his race while attending a HWI:

[Race] did come up from my brothers every now and then … and they would be like You’ll understand when you get there. They would talk about their frustrations on campus and I kind of just used their knowledge and their experiences in order to navigate around any thing that came up around myself … and when I was told that I wasn’t really Black.

When Elizabeth asked if she would rather talk to her siblings about experiences with her multiracial background, she stated that “100% yeah” she talks more with her siblings than her parents. While siblings provided strong support for multiracial students, parents provided weak support in their relationships when facing racism or discrimination in pre-college and during college. Participants’ familial conversations stipulated differing amounts of cultural knowledge which influenced how students chose to tell their families about racialized incidents. Participants could not articulate clearly how their families prepared them to understand racism much less monoracism.

More specifically, Kelleigh talked about her White-Irish Native American mother, “She just never like talked to us about like discrimination and racism and stuff like that so I feel like I wouldn’t get anything if I were to talk to her right now”. Donald discussed talking about race frequently but that his White Polish mother could not relate to his racialized experience and said, “it’s interesting to go to my mom because my mother … it’s a little bit difficult talking to her just because I mean she sees me as her son she doesn’t think that I would be discriminated against”. On the other hand, Alice saw her father and grandparents as a source of strong support when discussing her Black, Native, and Korean White identity, “I think that I get a lot support from them and I am really comfortable to talking to them about it and yeah I feel like I am comfortable talking to them about most things”. These statements demonstrate that the participants did not often talk with their parents about their racialized experiences or questions. The common sentiment was that the participants felt more comfortable talking depending on whether they felt like they had a strong personal relationship with their family member (i.e., sibling or grandparent). While the participants shared their experiences about their multiracial identity with their family, they also shared in another mutual experience of contending with subtle racism known as monoracism in their collegiate environment.

15. College Social Spaces: Encounters with (Mono)Racism

The study’s last theme encounters with mono(racism) answered the second sub-question that each of the participants did experience subtle forms of racism. These encounters reminded them that they still do not “fit in” at their HWI. For instance, Donald stated, “there are have been a few things like subtle racism on campus that I’ve dealt with and you know it’s a little bit irritating but I just try not to let it get to me”. Multiracial students frequently spoke about experiencing multiracial microaggressions in different locations on campus in academic spaces, and in their residence halls. However, the most common spaces on campus they would experience multiracial microaggressions was during social settings. The data acknowledged that participants experienced multiracial microaggressions with peers. For example, Kelleigh said:

Uh a lot of people find it just interesting because most people just haven’t met people with a background like mine. And one of the jokes that I always make is that features wise I am racially ambiguous so everyone always has a thousand guesses of what I am and what my background is based on what I look like because no one can ever guess.

The findings also confirmed that students’ experience being monoracialized by their own peers. Ace commented on the struggle of being forced to choose between his mixed-race heritage particularly in relation to the national movement, Black Lives Matter. Ace said:

Wherever I go if there’s a group of Black or White I’m always forced to be recognized as the minority or I am the minority of the group. So if I am with a bunch of Black people, I am the White guy in the group and when I with a bunch of White people, I am the Black guy in the group and so when that happens and if there is a racial conversation that comes up like let’s say Black Lives Matter … I’m the one who has to deal with people saying opposite side of it like ‘No look it’s not all of these Blacks causing this problem and stuff’ then they turn and look at me. Look at all these Whites killing us and stuff like that.

Ace revealed that he experienced exclusion from his peers based on him racially ascribing himself as multiracial at his HWI. Despite constant questions about racial heritage or confronting racialized experiences participants did comment on their HWI providing them a new consciousness of their multiracial identity.

There was acknowledgement that being a student at a HWI caused them to think differently about their racial identity. Elizabeth stated:

I guess I think I learned more about myself like in being a multiracial person by coming to a HWI and because it was not something I ever really thought of before I left Southern California and then I came here, it became a larger part of who I am and it’s partially me being more aware of things that are happening in the world so I wouldn’t attribute it all to Norte University, but I think it’s definitely made me more aware.

Additionally, Donald furthered this thinking in reflecting on why environments matter and said, “I definitely bring up the idea of my racial background more whether it’s with my family or with my friends. I notice that there is a difference in how I feel in certain environments so like my home environment versus this school/campus environment”.

Overall, seven out of nine participants stated they had strong support emotional support from their siblings when needing to process conversations about their race or experiences with racism. They also overwhelmingly indicated that their parents did not adequately prepare them to understand how they would be monoracialized in the pre-college and further on in the college environment. Attending a HWI did spur the multiracial participants to self-interrogate their own understanding about their fluid multiracial identities while navigating different environmental spaces at a monoracial HWI.

16. Discussion

The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry study was to explore the ways in which multiracial students’ families prepare their students to navigate racism in pre-college settings and while studying at a HWI. Multiracial students indicate that while growing up they are often very aware of their multiracial identity particularly within their interracial families (Jourdan 2006). While surprising, multiracial students did not overwhelmingly name their parents as direct sources of strong support. Instead, the students tend to lean more on their siblings for strong support when confronted with racism than approaching their parents or guardians. However, this finding did confirm Jackson’s (2009) study that indicates parents could influence their child’s cultural identity in less supportive way by not discussing race or even being discriminating towards their child’s physical or cultural identity which was different from their own. Furthering this, it is common for the students to express that they did not have substantial conversations with their parents about racism either pre-college or during their college experiences (Johnston-Guerrero and Pecero 2016; Nishimura 1998). While Nishimura’s (1998) study found that multiracial students would have like to have a role model in their family who was biracial and has a positive outlook on their racial identity it seems for the participants who have older siblings, who like them are multiracial, they tend to serve as role models. Additionally, while students express in the eco-mapping activity that their parents did not prepare them to deal with racism and ignorance (Nishimura 1998) their families did encourage them student to embrace their multiple racial heritages (Gaither 2015; Jourdan 2006).

Participants indicate that while growing up they are often very aware of their multiracial identity particularly within their interracial families (Jourdan 2006) and when they are at their HWIs (Kellogg and Liddell 2012) they are sensitive about being asked questions about their physical appearance (A. Chang 2016; Harris 2016a; Renn 2003). However, in Alice’s case as an only child, her Black grandparents and Black father served as a strong relationship for her mixed-race identity, and she could always talk with them. Yet, at the same time, participants struggle with being light-skinned.

In general, the findings in this study confirms how multiracial students lived experiences “disrupt traditional explanations and allows us to see the complexities of human lives as they are shaped by changing cultural practices” (Daly 2007, p. 113) in higher education institutions (A. Chang 2016; Osei-Kofi 2012). This study further supports the use of MultiCrit to be used in higher education to not only reveal how monoracism operates at HWIs, but to also continue to recommend potential solutions to confront monoracism in research and in student affairs practice (Johnston-Guerrero et al. 2020; Johnston-Guerrero and Renn 2016). Overall, multiracial students did indicate that their interracial families particularly siblings provide them emotional support and a shared understanding of personal experiences with race. Perhaps this is because siblings share the same racial make-up. In contrast, parents will need to work on understanding how their White privilege allows them the opportunity to not recognize how their child experiences racism in their everyday lives. The results suggest that family relationships were an essential part of participants’ understanding of race and identity.

17. Implications for Practice and Future Research

The study’s overall significance expands our understanding of how multiracial college students experienced racism pre-college and while students at an HWI. Family relationships are influential to students both as providing spaces to reaffirm racial identity, but to also remind students to be proud of their mixed heritage. The findings of this study have several implications for practice and future research.

18. Implications for Practice

The literature indicated that multiracial college students felt excluded, marginalized, and at times disconnected from their community (Kellogg and Liddell 2012; Renn 2004). To help prevent multiracial students from feeling excluded, student affairs professionals should create welcoming and inclusive spaces that provide multiracial students at a HWI the opportunity to engage in community with other multiracial students (Malaney-Brown 2021). One suggestion for practitioners is to encourage multiracial students to form a mixed student organization that not only celebrates their mixed heritage, but also teaches about monoracism (Hamako 2014; Johnston-Guerrero et al. 2020; Malaney and Danowski 2015). Having a mixed student organization or creating an informal mixed heritage student group would allow for multiracial students who are self-conscious of their physical appearance to explore their identity and find an accepting space for students to be their whole selves. A different recommendation for practice involves offering intragroup dialogue to provide multiracial students the opportunity to engage in sustained dialogue with peers who share the same racial background (Ford and Malaney 2012; Malaney Brown 2020).

Oftentimes multiracial students are not cognitively aware of monoracism or that they experience distinct multiracial microaggressions. It is not until they are away from their homes and families that they realize what it is like to live in a historically White and monoracial environment (Harris 2016a; Johnston-Guerrero and Pecero 2016) which reminds them of their otherness. Orientation programs can cross-collaborate with university counseling centers (Kenney et al. 2015), Student and Family Support Offices, and the Multicultural Affairs to offer interracial families an orientation workshop that discusses how their students will be impacted by multiracial microaggressions in the college environment (Johnston and Nadal 2010; Harris 2016b). In doing so, parents will be able to provide advice and speak more directly with their student about the influence of race and racism on their students’ choices (Edou 2010; Jourdan 2006). In addition, we need to affirm and constantly teach how monoracism operates in a college setting (Harris 2016b; Johnston-Guerrero and Renn 2016; Johnston and Nadal 2010), but also in K-12 settings.

Lastly, an additional recommendation is to offer anti-racism training for students, families, and practitioners both in the K-12 schools setting and at HWIs to acknowledge and strengthen how multiracial students contend with racism. To begin, interracial parents and families need to have more conversations with their multiracial students at a younger age. For K-12 teachers, they need to be cognizant of how to support multiracial students’ identity development prior to enrolling in college (Embrace Race 2020). Additionally, if multiracial students have college going siblings it will be important for them to leaning on their siblings to gain advice on how to best prepare to encounter monoracism and the effects of whiteness in their college environments. If these three recommendations happen, multiracial students will be more capable of recognizing and navigating multiracial microaggressions in any academic or social settings within a HWI (Hamako 2014; Harris 2016a).

19. Implications for Research

While we know that multiracial students are experiencing racism (Harris 2016a; Kellogg and Liddell 2012; Literte 2010) we also need more intentional research that focuses questions on the systemic and institutional factors that cause multiracial students to disengage from campus support in HWI (Malaney-Brown 2021). Additionally, future studies could qualitatively interview multiracial students at different years in their college education to better understand how family members’ support might shift over time (i.e., parents divorcing or a close family member passing away). Digging deeper into how siblings provide specific emotional and wellbeing support for multiracial college students would provide rich and useful knowledge on multiracial family dynamics.

Other implications for research include providing streamlined assessment opportunities (Hamako 2005; Herring 1995; Kenney et al. 2015) for educational programs and student organizations that promote both the social and political awareness of mixed-race organizing. Yet, future studies should also examine using different theoretical frameworks such as social capital or navigational capital to better understand how multiracial college students draw on family capital and social ties for support (Schlabach 2013).

20. Conclusions

It is evident that multiracial individuals are subject to living in a monoracial society that negates their ability to claim multiple racial heritages (Knaus 2006; Johnston and Nadal 2010). While more studies that use the context of historically White institutions to closely examine multiracial college students’ experiences with racism and discrimination have occurred more examinations are needed to uncover the influences of family relationships and dynamics (Kellogg and Liddell 2012; Nadal et al. 2013; Museus et al. 2016). Multiracial students have unique life experiences and narratives that deserve to be told. Qualitative methodologies that are critical in approach encouraged as an approach to further interrogate multiracial student stories because their life stories matter (Jones et al. 2014; Pino Gavidia and Adu 2022).

In U.S. society where the one-drop rule continues to justify discrimination (S. H. Chang 2016), and the White racial frame upholds the structure of White supremacy, multiracial individuals and interracial families will continue to face various forms of racism (Feagin 2013; Kenney et al. 2015). The structure of monoracism and whiteness is implicitly tied to HWIs and it is because higher education institutions continue to create programming specifically for five monoracial groups. If HWIs continue to do this, it will continue to be a struggle for multiracial students to be recognized and to be freely allowed to identify with multiple race categories. It must also be stated that in our American society that the liberation for all non-White racial groups is connected. Therefore, promoting racial justice and equality we can try and move a bit closer to collective liberation for all (Root and Kelley 2003). However, family socialization that occurs pre-college for multiracial students within family settings are important influencers of understanding and are needed to prioritize and normalize open discussions about the complexities of race and ethnicity (Nadal et al. 2013; Nayani 2020; Nuru and Soliz 2014).

Together the stationary monoracial dynamic of HWIs need to be pushed to change as America’s new racial demographics are rapidly changing (Jones et al. 2021; Pew Research Center 2015). The growing population of multiracial college students who are speaking up to share their narratives (Bailey 2013; Knaus 2006; Malaney-Brown 2021) are in fact altering the way that U.S. higher education institutions can acknowledge race. This study asks us to consider the influence of family relationships and how narrative multiracial student experiences with racism (Museus et al. 2015) are needed in higher education to encourage students to break free from the constraints of monoracism and move toward liberation.