Multiracial Categorization, Identity, and Policy in (Mixed) Racial Formations

Abstract

This article examines recent developments in the literature on multiracial categorization, policy, and identity—one that has grown as data on multiracial populations have become widely available, particularly in the United States since the enumeration of multiple race responses was instituted in Census 2000. Significant new research takes advantage of the data generated by the Census providing new insights to questions and claims about the meanings of mixedness and racial boundaries in the United States that were largely speculative even a decade ago. Though this review focuses primarily on issues related to how state enumeration of mixed race populations reflects and engenders particular identity and group configurations, I also discuss emerging research on interracial intimacy—intermarriage and interracial births—the phenomena from which contemporary attention to multiracial categorization and identity arise. An increasingly internationalist discussion is challenging long-held interpretations of the meaning of intermarriage and multiracial identification for understanding emergent racial formations.