Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education

"This book offers unique and complex explorations of diverse Multiracial experiences in higher education. Unlike many volumes, it highlights the lives of Multiracial faculty, staff, and graduate and undergraduate students who differ across racial backgrounds, racial identities, and campus locations (including four and two year institutions, and HBCUs). Because chapters offer theoretical analyses, narrative storytelling, and practical tools and strategies the material will resonate with readers with diverse interests and learning styles. This book is an essential resource for anyone who leads, teaches, serves, or studies at institutions of higher education and who seeks to understand and empower Multiracial people on their campuses."

Belinda P. Biscoe, Ph.D., Interim Senior Associate Vice President for University Outreach/College of Continuing Education, University of Oklahoma

"How do multiracial people navigate a society that prioritizes monoracism? Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education beautifully addresses this question. The narratives are the heart of this book, and the authors underscore the richness and complexities of multiracial people’s experiences. Current doctoral students and recent graduates also contributed chapters, illustrating the importance of having perspectives across various generations. This book restored my faith in story-sharing and vulnerability as vehicles for change, and I applaud the authors for their courage."

Stephen John Quaye, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies, The Ohio State University

“Yet Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education: Contesting Knowledge, Honoring Voice, and Innovating Practice is the first comprehensive study on this topic. It provides guiding themes and an overarching framework in terms of its analysis. This ground-breaking volume includes, among other topics, reflections on the creative resistance to and triumphs over the various challenges experienced by multiracials—including students, staff, faculty, administrators, and others—who increasingly populate college and university campuses.

More important, this compilation suggests 'multiracial knowledge' can be a template for engaging in a social praxis that critiques racial essentialism and racial hierarchy as the basis for aspiring toward more inclusive collective subjectivities across the racial spectrum, including multiracials. This approach is based on the idea that multiraciality—and more broadly, conceptual stances that are ‘betwixt and between’—can help avoid defensive-aggressive binarisms and polarizations that may be politically counterproductive in terms of building other issue-based coalitions. These offer a basis from which to advance thinking, practices, and policies seeking to ameliorate racism, racial inequalities, and foster social justice. Consequently, this collection of essays should be required reading for anyone aspiring toward a more just, equitable, and inclusive society. [This is] a long-overdue publication.”

G. Reginald Daniel, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara; and author of More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order (2002)

“This is a beautiful collection of theoretical ideas, personal stories, and examples of praxis; a must read for scholars and practitioners. I love that the book is grounded in theories about race and (mono)racism while elevating the voices of multiracial people, scholars, and educators. There are many moments of learning and growth throughout the book.”

Gina A. Garcia, Associate Professor, Educational Foundations, Organizations, & Policy, University of Pittsburgh

“The editors of this volume have done us a great service. They have compiled one of the most comprehensive, informative, and thought-provoking resources for those hoping to expand their knowledge of mixed-race populations. This collection of excellent scholarly analyses, compelling narratives, and practical implications will surely be a vital asset to researchers and educators seeking to empower and serve multiracial communities for generations to come.”

Samuel D. Museus, Professor of Education Studies and Founding Director of the National Institute for Transformation and Equity, University of California, San Diego

"Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education is an intergenerational journey through the past, present, and future state of multiraciality in academia. The synthesis of personal counter-stories and detailed 'call to action' strategies that challenge monoracism and ultimately white supremacy in higher education make it an important and timely read for all."

Kelly F. Jackson, MSW, PhD, Associate Professor, Arizona State University, Vice President of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association, Co-author of Multiracial Cultural Attunement

"Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education gives important visibility to a growing segment of the higher education community that is too often rendered invisible by campus policies and cultural practices. The combination of theory, personal narratives, tools and strategies found in this cutting-edge collection of essays makes it a very useful resource for researchers and practitioners alike."

Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD, Author, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Other Conversations about Race

"This is an essential text for those hoping to understand the experiences of multiracial individuals in higher education. It is at once general and specific, obvious and nuanced, theoretical and practical, perfect and flawed. The book lives in the in-between of all of those dichotomies proudly occupying a diunital existence demanding to be seen as real, unique, vital, complex, and essential -- very much like the experiences of the multiracial people explored in the text."

Raechele L. Pope, Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo

"This is an important contribution to understanding the challenges facing multiracial students in a world that resists seeing or understanding their multiracial identity. Offering reflections on multiracial identity theory, and the voices of students and staff about navigating their multi-racial identities, it concludes with ideas for improving services for multiracial students. Readers are provided with a unique view of the evolution of theory and practice on multiracial identity through the perspectives of foundational theorists and a new generation of scholars who bring new insights questions and challenges to this field."

Rita Hardiman, Foundational White Racial Identity Theorist and Social Justice Consultant

“Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe provide a significant and much-needed contribution to higher education literature that will serve students, faculty, researchers, and anyone interested in advancing and deepening their understanding of multiracial experiences in higher education, while also formulating their perspectives on theoretical application and subsequent epistemic implications. (. . . ) The voices of the authors and contributors of this work offer a unique and eloquent portrayal that is derived from theory, research, and practice within settings of higher education and across institutional and professional levels while pre­senting resources for further application.”

Terrill O. Taylor, C. Casey Ozaki, Journal of College Student Development, Volume 64, Number 4,
July/August 2023, pp. 504-507