By As the number of multi-ethnic people continues to grow, it can sometimes be difficult for them to find their place in society.
Rebecca Romo and Shigueru Tsuha addressed the emergernce of two such groups in California during their lecture, “Emerging Racial-Ethnic Identities: Japanese Peruvians and ‘Blaxicans’ in California” Monday afternoon inside the Karl Anatol Center.
Romo, a minority fellow at the American Sociological Association, conducted the first study examining ‘Blaxicans’ in the U.S. and found that people who fall under that category oftentimes have a hard time identifying with either group because they are labeled either not black enough or not Mexican enough by people of both races.
She also stressed that family and peers play an important role in shaping the identity of these multi-ethnic individuals.
“Family within the home is where we socialize and where we learn our values and our norms most strongly, through our parents and our grandparents,” Romo said. “I noticed that when participants started going to school, that’s probably when they started thinking about their racial identity.”
Tsuha, the executive director of the Dolores Huerta Labor Institute, found that the way he identified himself changed as he was conducting his study.
“Up until very late in college, I didn’t really identify as Japanese,” he said. “I considered myself Latino. All my friends were Latino, and my mom cooked Peruvian food. However, during my research, something changed. I asked myself: ‘Why am I denying this part of my identity?’”
Romo was adamant that, even today, people who are black or mixed with black continue to be the target of prejudice.
“I think anyone that’s mixed with black experiences the most prejudice in our society because there’s a racial hierarchy where whites are at the top and blacks are at the bottom,” Romo said. “I think multi-racials that are mixed with black, a lot of them fall into some of the same experiences that African-Americans go through.”
Students, such as junior sociology major Ashley Montellano, said they walked away from the lecture with a better understanding of these emerging ethnic groups and a better understanding of themselves.
“I ended up getting a really different perspective of what it’s like to be bi-racial in today’s society,” Montellano said. “I like to say that I’m Mexican, but in truth, I’m really Americanized. I don’t speak Spanish very well, and although I do identify with my Mexican culture, I see myself as American, and it’s sad because I don’t have that strong Mexican background.”
Brianna Flores, a junior journalism major who originally attended the lecture as part of a class assignment, said she was impressed with the presentation.
“I had no idea that such a large segment of the population was Japanese Peruvian; that really sparked my interest,” Flores said. “Initially, I wasn’t too familiar with the term ‘Blaxicans.’ I always thought of it as more of a derogatory term, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
