Racially Mixed People in America

Recipient of the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States 1993 Outstanding Book Award

America has been the breeding ground of a "biracial baby boom" for the past 25 years. Unfortunately, there has been a dearth of information regarding how racially mixed people identify and view themselves and how they relate to one another. Racially Mixed People in America steadily bridges this gap and offers a comprehensive look at the social and psychological adjustment of mixed-race people, models for identity development, contemporary immigration and marriage patterns, and methodological issues involved in conducting research with mixed-race people, all in the context of America′s mixed race past and present. Including contributions by ethnohistorians, psychologists, and sociologists, this powerful volume will provide the reader a tool for examining ideologies surrounding race, race relations, and the role of social science in the deconstruction of race. Racially Mixed People in America is essential reading for researchers and practitioners in cross-cultural studies, psychology, family studies, sociology, and social work.

"Racially Mixed People in America is not just a ′′feel good′′ affirmation of mixed race people. It offers explanations of ′′how possibly′′ the constructed notions of race operate in our society through an examination of mixed race people from the ′′margins′′ of psychological and sociological studies to the center of race relation′s discourse. This, perhaps, is its greatest contribution."  

--Amerasia Journal

"A compendium of articles on the experiences and identities of racially mixed people, [it] takes a scholarly approach to understanding the issues of racial identity. It is a book we highly recommend for an overview of the psychological implications of the personal conflicts inherent in multiracial identity."  

--Minority Markets Alert

"Maria P. P. Root and her coauthors have performed a service to society in general and to biracial/multiracial people and families in particular. By dispelling myths and showing the biracial/multiracial experience to be a healthy, normal one, the book will help demolish barriers of fear and ignorance and will, hopefully, enable all of us to banish the lingering miasma of obsolete concepts."  

--Joe Cunningham, The Interracial Club Newsletter

"An especially timely and well-documented book. Recommended to mental health professionals who wish to heighten their sensitivity in working with racially mixed people."  

--Readings: A Journal of Review and Commentary in Mental Health

Racially Mixed People in America is an important book, effectively presenting a comprehensive, multidisciplinary examination by ethnohistorians, psychologists and sociologists of America′s multiracial past and present.

Maria P. P. Root, Ph.D., born in Manila, Philippines, grew up in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from the University of California at Riverside in 1977 with degrees in Psychology and Sociology. She subsequently attended Claremont University in Claremont, California receiving her Master’s degree in Cognitive Psychology in 1979. She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1983 with an emphasis in minority mental health. Dr. Root resides in Seattle, Washington where she is an independent scholar and clinical psychologist. She has been in practice for over 20 years. Her general practice focuses on adult and adolescent treatment therapy, which includes working with families and couples. Dr. Root’s working areas of knowledge are broad with emphasis on culturally competent practice, life transition issues, trauma, ethnic and racial identity, workplace stress and harassment, and disordered eating. In the early 1980s, she established a group treatment program for bulimia that grew out of her dissertation work. Subsequently, she trained other professionals to recognize and treat people with a range of disordered eating symptoms. She continues to treat people with eating disorders. Dr. Root’s practice also includes formal psychological evaluation. She works as a consultant to several law enforcement departments. She also works as an expert witness in forensic settings performing evaluations and offering expert testimony in matters that require cultural competence and/or knowledge of racism or ethnocentrism. Dr. Root is a trainer, educator, and public speaker on the topics of multiracial families, multiracial identity, cultural competence, trauma, work place harassment, and disordered eating. She has provided lectures and training in New Zealand, England, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States for major universities, professional organizations, grassroots community groups, and student organizations. Dr. Root’s publications cover the areas of trauma, cultural assessment, multiracial identity, feminist therapy, and eating disorders. One of the leading authorities in the field of racial and ethnic identity, Dr. Root published the first contemporary volume on mixed race people, Racially Mixed People in America (1992). Including this book, she has edited two award-winning books on multiracial people and produced the foundational Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People. The U.S. Census referred to these texts in their deliberations that resulted in an historic ‘check more than one’ format to the race question for the 2000 census. Dr. Root is past-President of the Washington State Psychological Association and the recipient of national and international awards from professional and community organizations.