The Ethnic-Racial Socialization of Multiracial Mexican Americans

Background and Purpose:

Familial ethnic-racial socialization plays a central role in the successful identity development of ethnic minority youth. Positive qualities of parental ethnic-racial socialization can help promote a strong racial identity and can prepare youth to successfully navigate discrimination associated with racism in their social environments. Although there are significant increases in the empirical study of parental ethnic-racial socialization, this has been exclusive to monoracial families, or families who share the same racial or ethnic group.

This restricted understanding of ethnic-racial socialization fails to account for the identity development experiences of one of the fastest growing racial groups in the U.S., multiracial youth, or youth who are from two or more racial groups. This has contributed to a monocentric conceptualization of parental ethnic-racial socialization, one that assumes all families share a singular race identity and socialize youth into one exclusive racial group. 

The purpose of this study is to examine the ethnic-racial socialization messages of parents and other caregivers reported by adults of mixed Mexican heritage during their childhood. In addition, this study evaluates how these processes may be similar to and/or different from existing conceptualizations of ethnic-racial socialization.

Methods:

This is a qualitative study that utilized the Constant Comparative Method (CCM) and theoretical triangulation to extrapolate parental ethnic-racial socialization messages (verbal and non-verbal) from the life-story narratives of 24 individuals of mixed Mexican heritage (Mexican and another race(s)). Participants were recruited from a large metropolitan city in the Southwest utilizing an ad placed in a free local newspaper. The average age was 37.7 years; participants primarily reported earnings of $19,000 or less (n=15); and the majority of the sample (n=14) identified mixed minority backgrounds (e.g., mixed Mexican/Black/Native). A life-story interview script (e.g., identify a positive childhood event related to your ethnic/racial identity) guided the retrospective interviews. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded using ATLAS.ti software. 

To enhance study reliability, two additional coders were acquired to help confirm preliminary categories. The reliability between the 3 coders was evaluated using Krippendorff’s alpha (considered a standard as it satisfies all criteria for a good measure of reliability), which generated an alpha statistic of 0.8627, representing very strong reliability.

Results:

Forty-two narrative text segments were identified as verbal and non-verbal messages of parental ethnic-racial socialization. Text segments ranged from 5 to 173 words, and were delineated by parental figure. Eighteen segments involved biological fathers. Seventeen segments involved biological mothers, and seven segments were from other primary caregivers including grandmothers and foster parents. Utilizing CCM and theoretical triangulation, 7 thematic categories of ethnic-racial socialization emerged. Three unique categories (i.e., white American socialization; monoracial socialization; and mixed socialization) signify unique processes of parental ethnic-racial socialization with multiracial children.  

Conclusions and Implications:

Findings from this study strengthen our understanding of familial ethnic-racial socialization among the growing population of persons and families of mixed racial and ethnic heritage. Implications for practice, including educating interracial families about the harmful impact of monoracism, and the preventative benefits of ethnic-racial socialization to enhance multiracial youth identity, will be discussed.