Being "WhAsian" in the Grand Canyon State: Racial Identity Formation and Societal Belonging and Agency as Experienced by Young Bi-Racial Asian/white Americans in Arizona

ABSTRACT This study focused on the experiences of biracial Asian/white young people in Arizona – specifically, their racial identity; the formation of that identity over time; their sense of belonging in their state and nation; their views on the common societal conceptions of what it means to be an American; and their own conceptions of Americanism. Prior research indicates that racial identity formation for biracial people is usually a process over time as they work through prevalent racism, mono-racism, and mono-centricity. Anti-Asian sentiment and legislation, miscegenation laws, and rules of hypodescent (one-drop rules) also have deep historical roots in the U.S. This history has left a wake in which all Americans still live and operate today. However, there is also literature that suggests that current society may be headed in new directions. Multiracial people have been the fastest growing demographic in the last two Census polls, and research suggests (and my study corroborates) that the biracial experience often comes with not only challenges but also myriad benefits, to both self and others. My research is qualitative in nature, and each of the eleven respondents in the study participated in a first interview, a second interview (two weeks later) and a focus group. Abductive coding of the resulting transcripts was around five main themes and twenty sub-themes. The findings both reflected some of this nation’s fraught history (reflected in “American = White” and “Whiteness as Default” subthemes) and provided a hope for the future (especially in the subthemes of “Protean as Strength,” “Dual Perspective,” “Dual Empathy,” and “Self as Quintessential American”). My conclusions indicate that as multiracial people become increasingly common in the U.S. population (as is predicted on a grand scale) and given some of their strengths and unique perspectives on race, their very existence might aid in eradicating racism in society as a whole. Multiracial people may indeed be the quintessential Americans of the future and that may bode well for race relations more generally.