Customer Reviews

Racial Categorization of Multiracial Children in Schools

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For educators and as a dissertation, this is a good book, but lay readers who enjoyed anthologies like "The Multiracial Experience" will find little here. Ayers Chiong is the wife of a Pilipino man, the mother of two biracial daughters (one who looks Asian and one who looks white), and the head of an interracial family activist group. She researches Massachusetts' former laws that required all students to be defined by one race only. She next investigated one urban school and one suburban school in the state to see how teachers, principals, and librarians were addressing multiracial children. On the one hand, she does a great job in illustrating how the issue is always pushed to the side: books for Afro-European children urge them to identify as black, books marked "interracial" are about interracial friendships--not people, issues facing Anglo-Latinos are deemed bilingual issues--not biracial ones, etc. On the other, Ayers Chiong does not get to her hypothesis and methodology until page 44. Many chapters can be skipped and it's not a long book. She continually cites Giroux, who turns out to be the editor of this book series; one wonders if he demands that authors pay homage to him. The section on results is quite short. Further, she includes an afterwords in which she admits that the US government now allows individuals to check more than one box, thus her point is now moot. She is quite critical of those who want multiracial children to identify with their minority racial group only; many educators of color, even progressive ones, will be rubbed the wrong way by this thought. Still, the more I read the book, the more I must acknowledge that Ayers Chiong is a strong writer and a dedicated educator. I wish the author much luck in her career, but this was kind of a mediocre work.