Qian Zhang: Week One Readings for ASA 115

The article by Cynthia Nakashima titled “An Invincible Monster: The Creation and Denial of Mixed Race People in America” explores the strategies that the US culture uses to handle individuals who have multiple racial heritages, otherwise known as mixed-race people. In my opinion, it is true that the American society treats multiracial people as one group, regardless of their racial heritages. For instance, a person whose racial heritage is from Africa and Asia will be grouped as mixed-race, and the same case applies to an individual who has African and European backgrounds. Even though the two individuals have totally different racial backgrounds, the American society categorised them into one group, which is mixed-race.

Apart from grouping people having multiracial heritages as one group, some members of the American society deny their existence. This fact means that they are grouped according to their dominant features. For instance, an individual who has both African American and Caucasian heritage is normally treated or categorised as Black. In this case, their Caucasian heritage is ignored. A good example of such a grouping is the way the society categorizes Barrack Obama, as the first black US president, by ignoring the fact that he also has Caucasian heritage.

From the article, mixed-race individuals in America have not been fully defined by the society. Some people treat them as one group by ignoring their cultural and racial backgrounds, while others ignore their existence. In my opinion, people from multiple cultural heritage exist in the US, which means that they should be categorised depending on their racial composition. Denying their existence or categorizing them as on one group means ignoring their heritage.

Work Cited

Nakashima, Cynthia.  “An Invincible Monster: The Creation and Denial of Mixed Race People in America.” Racially Mixed People in America, Sage Publications.