HAPA children Essay

The present paper describes the results extracted from qualitative representational ethnographic observation that was conducted among the savour of college students, both multi- (Hapa) and monoracial, to investigate their childhood experiences in reckon to racial individualism. The search immersed the concepts of course as a new social construct and of multiracial identity against the three coping strategies a backwash-conscious, a execute-neutral, and a class-conscious whizz. To reflect the multiplicity and worthiness of individual responses, the method of in-depth interview was chosen.Results showed that there is strong coefficient of correlation between racial identity in comfortable/uncomfortable self-positioning and the socio-economic status of the family, psychological climate within a family, the presence/absence of role-models, and the degree of racial awareness in the broader (school) context. More research is needed to assess the type of correlation between multir acial identity in regard to Hapa children and educational train of their parents, the period of naturalization in the current locality, and gender of Hapa subjects, as well as the effect of coping strategies on multiracial identity.Introduction The word race refers to a class of people who are perceived as physically unique on the basis of certain traits, such as skin color, cop texture, and facial features. These unique features allow people to distinguish others origins based on their appearance. However, when interracial marriage became to a greater extent popular, the population of mixed-raced children increased dramatically, and people can no longer differentiate others race based on their appearance. Interracial relationships became a trend and part of American culture.The U. S. earlier census established six categories for race American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White, and Hispanic or Latino. Howev er, in the 2000 nose count there were already sixty-three categories for race (there were eleven subcategories under Hispanic ethnicity alone). Interracial marriages include unions among these 63 groups. Regardless of what types of ethnic groups are involved in the relationships, one important outcome of these relationships is children.An identity crisis has become the most debated issue about mixed-raced children. The research will focus on the identity development of one distinct mixed-raced group, the Hapa. Hapa is a Hawaiian word used to describe half-Hawaiian mixed-raced children. Nowadays, the word Hapa has become a popular term to describe half Asian and half White children. The research will compare the differences in developing identity between Hapa children (a mixed-raced group) and children of a single race.It is argued here that Hapa children tend to have a harder sentence when developing their identity in comparison to children of a single race. Cross model of Black racial identity development (Cross, 1971 found in Tatum, 2004, p. 117+) was take to assess individual perceptions and experiences in regard to race and identity within a sample of college students. Modern discourse on the issues of race and multiraciality was analyzed to identify four possible sets of factors (socio-economic status, the SES, acculturation, national origin, and demographic characteristics in Morning, 2001, p. 61+) affecting self-identification in a race-biased context.The U. S. college students were recruited to participate in the survey on the point. The present research fits into the paradigm of qualitative, naturalistic and ethnographic research (Boas, 1943 Blumer, 1969 Lincoln and Guba, 1985 Woods, 1992 LeCompte and Preissle, 1993 in Cohen et al. , 2000, p. 136). (3) It is qualitative since it operates non-numeric data, i. e. the data is derived from observations and conversations and not from statistic analysis.The aforementioned respondents shared their feelin gs and attitudes on the point of racial issues in political, cultural, and social spheres in regard to phenotypical and ideological conceptualizations of race. The research is naturalistic since the testing of hypotheses took place in natural and naturalistic environments as opposed to slushy and controlled settings such as laboratories. The research is ethnographic since it dealt with people in their variety and subjectivity of perceptions but still constituting a cultural group (Hapas).Thus, the key characteristics of qualitative, naturalistic and ethnographic research being the set of flexible constructions of meanings on the issue of race taken by the insiders of a community can be observe here. The present research paper is structured along the traditional model. In the Literature review section, current interpretations of race, multiraciality and identity development are analyzed to be applied further to the current research.In the Method section, the research strategies an d tools of the present investigation are discussed within the framework of qualitative, naturalistic and ethnographic investigation. In the accompanying sections, the data collected through the questionnaires and interviews is discussed. The Conclusion section summarizes the facts revealed in the survey and restates the hypothesis to arrive at the implications for the further study and practice in regard to the issues of race and identity. Literature reviewSpencer underlined that multiracial identity is deeply rooted in the assumptions that race exists and that the offspring of persons from two different racial groups is a multiracial individual (1999, p. 88). There is a popular concept of phenotypes or physical expressions of genetic inheritances (Ifekwunigwe, 2004, p. 4) lying in the foundation of the theory about human races. Recently, however, more and more researchers have started to argue the notion of discrete or pure biological races (Jones 1996, Rose et al. 1984 in Ifekwun igwe, 2004, p. 3).They stressed the importance of internal differences that persisted within a group modeled as a solid biological race. The modern concept of racial formation predicts that race is a social construct to a greater extent than a biological one. Ropp drew a bottom line in the argument stating that multiracial subjects did not fit into the biological race network (2004, p. 263). Omi and Winant defined the process of racial formation as the socio-historical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed (1994, p. 55).In the first edition of the book, they argued that racialization is the quotation of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice of group (Omi & Winant, 1986, p. 64). Williams stressed that races have been socially constructed in such a way that they have remained separate, monoracially-boundaried, exclusive, and unequal (p. 168). The reference to races being created socially impl ies that people create the network of prejudices, attitudes and perceptions masking their personal and political bias by referring to skin, hair and other physical or phenotypical parameters.