Navigating Differential Micro-Racialization in the United States and Canada: A Mixed-Method Exploration of Multiethnic-Racial Individuals’ Malleable Racial Identification Strategies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Because race is a primary identity category in North America, individuals are racialized by those they interact with on a daily basis. However, multiethnic-racial individuals, those with parents from different ethnic-racial backgrounds, often face differential micro-racialization across daily encounters, meaning that at some times they are categorized as belonging to one ethnic-racial group, and at other times they are categorized into a different ethnic-racial group. To meet this fluid categorization, multiethnic-racial individuals often employ malleable racial identification strategies wherein they shift their cognitive, communicative, and labeling behaviors to meet the demands of the changing racialized context. This study employs a concurrent mixed method design to explore how multiethnic-racial individuals navigate differential micro-racialization across their interpersonal interactions, and, how their navigation of these racialized contexts implicates their psychological wellbeing. Taken together, the quantitative and qualitative results suggest an inverse relationship between malleable racial identification and psychological wellbeing that could be due to participants’ (1) cognitive load associated with revealing or concealing their identities, or (2) negative emotions that stem from their interpretations of these identity shifts. Implications and opportunities for future research are discussed.