Ziqi Yin: Week One readings for ASA 115

The article under review is by Cynthia Nakashima titled “An Invincible Monster: The Creation and Denial of Mixed Race People in America.” According to the author, the American culture uses various strategies when referring to or categorizing mixed-raced individuals. For instance, most people who have multiracial heritage are grouped together as mixed-race. This fact means that the society does not care about their specific racial composition, such as African American and Latino, Caucasian and Asian, or African American and Asian, among others. In my opinion, mixed-race is not a group since the individuals normally have specific backgrounds in terms of racial composition.

According to the article, another strategy that the American society uses to categorize mixed-race individuals is by ignoring their existence or grouping them using one of their dominant traits. For instance, most people who have African American, as one of their racial heritages, are normally grouped as Black. In this case, the society seems to ignore the fact that such an individual has multiracial heritage. This kind of categorization normally causes confusion because the affected individuals do not know where they belong. For example, when filling school admission forms, students from multiracial backgrounds normally get confused because their heritage is normally not represented. In most cases, they have to decide the race to go with, such as African American or Caucasian, even though they might have both heritages.  

The American society should recognize that there and individuals who have multiracial heritage. In addition, they should not categorize them as one group or ignore their existence. The society should also appreciate the individual composition of their heritages, instead of referring to everyone with multiracial background as mixed-race or pointing out to their dominant trait.