Finding a Space for Multiracial Students

For most Harvard students, checking a box for race on the application was a simple task. Yet in 1998, the most current year for which statistics are available, 16 percent of undergraduates chose to identify themselves as "other" or "unknown," according to the Harvard University Fact Book. Due to the paucity of multiracial or biracial students' organizations at Harvard, these students are left searching for a place to fit in. If they want to get involved with an ethnic organization, they must choose which aspect of their heritage to identify with. It is appalling that in a diverse college community like Harvard, a multi-ethnic identity is not given sufficient recognition by the student body and the administration.

Unlike Brown University, whose established Organization of Multiracial and Biracial Students sponsored its Multiracial Heritage Week during the last week of October, Harvard has no support network for biracial and multiracial students. They are left to wander randomly through their college years with the blind hope of stumbling across others who share similar cultural experiences and can lend them a sympathetic ear. While other minorities have places to turn to for understanding, such as the Asian American Association, Black Students Association or RAZA, students whose backgrounds encompass more than one ethnicity are faced with a dilemma--assimilate or choose just one race to identify with.

Recently, an organization for part-Asian students called HAPA (Half Asian Person's Association) was formed, providing a welcoming group where biracial students can discuss the unique issues they face. HAPA existed in the early '90s, but disintegrated after the founders graduated. Apparently, the administration felt no pressing need to keep the organization up and running. But thanks to Rebecca Weisinger '02, HAPA is once again a forum for biracial and multiracial students.

"Biracial students share the experience of growing up mixed, and my hope is that HAPA will pave the way for a more inclusive, multiracial group because, in many ways, I feel that I share more with another biracial student, even if their mix is not the same as mine, than I do with another white or Asian-American student," Weisinger wrote in an e-mail message. "I feel that if you're half-Asian/half-Caucasian, the expectation is that you'll simply join an organization that reflects your Asian half, and if your other half is a different minority, you choose between the two groups. I don't think a biracial identification is perceived as being acceptable."

This lack of understanding of the biracial and multiracial identity is not just limited to student groups, but extends to the courses offered by the College. Harvard's lack of ethnic studies departments, with the exception of the renowned Department of Afro-American Studies, has been often lamented. Yet even more mainstream minority groups have a wider variety of classes to choose from if they wish to explore their unique cultural heritages.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has made a weak effort to fill the void of multi-ethnic course offerings by creating an Expository Writing course titled "Biculturalism and American Identity," and having a handful of social studies and sociology courses dealing with multiculturalism and racial identity. But these seem to be only token gestures, made in a futile attempt to appear accepting of diversity. It is almost as though the College chooses to ignore the 16 percent of students who refuse to fit into just one of the boxes on the application.

Harvard's lack of recognition of multiracial and biracial identities is reflected in American society. For instance, recall the recent uproar over allowing individuals to check more than one box for race on the census. Government bureaucrats protested against this proposal for years, arguing that it would skew figures needed to determine if minorities were receiving equal access to government programs.

Even racial advocacy groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People testified before Congress that a new multiracial category on the census would be detrimental to government programs that target minorities.

Yet, in 1998 the Census Bureau decided to allow individuals to check as many categories for race as they identify with on the 2000 Census. Hopefully, Harvard and many other societal entities chained to tradition will come to understand that due to the growing rate of interracial marriages, a substantial number of people can no longer only classify themselves as a member of a single ethnic group. This key demographic change must be recognized and the proper measures taken to incorporate the swelling ranks of multiracial individuals.

Even at Harvard, with its plethora of resources, multiracial and biracial students feel neglected. Caught in limbo between cultures and identities, they need a place to turn. The desire to celebrate and appreciate all the distinct components of their heritage is strong, but it is difficult without having a reliable support network.

A strong sense of cultural identity leads to more self-confident, better-adjusted students who can make a better contribution to the Harvard community. Isn't college supposed to expand personal horizons? Although Harvard claims that it is interested in helping students maintain a balance between self and studies, it is ignoring a significant part of the student body by not reaching out more to biracial and multiracial individuals.

Emerging organizations such as HAPA are definitely a step in the right direction. Hopefully, more student organizations like it will develop sometime in the near future and fill a long-empty void in the College. Permitting applicants to identify with more than one racial group, instead of the "other" category, is perhaps the first step the University can take to create a more welcoming atmosphere for multiracial and biracial students. Students need to be encouraged to embrace all the separate and beautiful components of their heritage, instead of being subtly yet forcibly limited to just one.

Lorrayne S. Ward '03, a Crimson editor, lives in Canaday Hall.