Rethinking race and politics: Mixed race and the trajectory of minority politics in the United States |
University of California, Irvine
2007
232 pages
AAT 3274346
ISBN: 9780549148944
Natalie Masuoka, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Tufts University
This project addresses how minority communities frame collective identities and organize political agendas amidst growing levels of racial and ethnic diversity. Using the rise of a politicized Mixed Race identity as a case study, I examine how Asian American, Black, Latino and White Americans choose to exert their racial group identities as a response to the Mixed Race public policy agenda. Using a multi-method research design consisting of survey data and qualitative interviews with leaders of minority non-profit advocacy organizations, I examine how identity group politics functions at two levels: First, at the elite level, how do Mixed Race and traditional minority group activists frame their right to political representation? Second, at the mass level, how do each of these racial groups utilize these identities in their evaluation of various political issues? I find that Mixed Race Americans, regardless of their political efforts to gain recognition for their distinctive racial identities, have adopted a political agenda and individual political attitudes which corresponds with the civil rights agenda advanced by the traditional minority groups.
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Tags: Natalie Masuoka, Natalie R. Masuoka, Natalie Remi Masuoka