Asia Pacific Perspectives Explores Mixed Race Identities in Asia

Inspired by the exciting research presented at the University of San Francisco’s 2016 symposium“Negotiating Identities: Mixed-Race Individuals in China, Japan, and Korea,” we have dedicated a special issue of Asia Pacific Perspectives to the topic. In it, we aim to highlight the latest research in the field, stimulating academic conversations that explore the cross-­cultural encounters that created interracial families, and encouraging further research on how mixed­-race individuals living in East Asia have negotiated their identities both historically and today.

The articles in this issue highlight how racial definitions intersect with issues of class, gender, identity, citizenship, and legal rights, reflecting the importance of mixed-race studies to our understandings of society as a whole. While mixed-race studies involves the movement of peoples at the “macro” level, it also entails the sharing of cultures at the “micro,” most intimate levels of society: within families. By examining the roles played by families, societies, and governments and the reception (or lack thereof) which multiracial individuals have encountered in their lives, these authors reveal how mixed race is more than an individual matter: it is a reflection of the workings of society, the nation, modernity, war, transnationalism, and globalization.

Click here to take a look at this exciting issue of Asia Pacific Perspectives today!