Race, Ethnicity, and Self: Identity in Multicultural Perspective - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elizabeth Pathy Salett, LCSW, is President and founder of the National MultiCultural Institute in Washington, D.C. Diane R. Koslow, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and a member of the Board of Directors of NMCI.

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Culture gives us our identity. This book does an excellent job of reviewing the literature on three essential aspects of a client's cultural identity: race, ethnicity, and self. The different perspectives of identity clearly demonstrate both the complexity of cultural identity and the patterns from which that identity is constructed. By approaching identity from several perspectives, the book helps the reader clarify and comprehend the meaning of identity.

Race, Ethnicity, and Self: Identity in MultiCultural Perspective asks hard questions. By accepting the subjectivity of identity issues, the book provides a thoughtful and stimulating basis for classroom discussion in courses related to identity issues.

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Introduction This book is a multicultural conversation. Collectively and individually, the chapters that follow explore the impact of race, ethnicity, and the sense of self on the development of individual identity in the increasingly multicultural society of the United States at the end of the 20th century.

...This book is intended for those who work as mental health practitioners, as educators, and in the social services. Many of our readers are treatment providers and so we have asked the authors to include a treatment section in their chapter if appropriate.

The first section of the book, "Society and Self," establishes a theoretical framework for the chapters that follow. In his chapter "Identity, Self, and Individualism in a Multicultural Perspective?" Alan Roland looks at Western biases in the concept of self. The highly individualistic premise of Western perspectives underlies much that is assumed in studies of identity development. Roland discusses the concept of self and its range of meanings across cultures whose characteristics span individualism through collectivism, the individual self and the familial self.

Carol Hoare then looks specifically at United States society and demonstrates that individual and societal development proceed together. In her chapter "Psychosocial Identity Development in U. S. Society," she examines issues of inclusion and exclusion as these connect to perceptions of self and "other" in their relation to the developmental process of the individual.

Larke Nahme Huang's chapter "An Integrative Model of Identity Development for Asian Americans" completes this section through a specific case that introduces a new model of identity development that is more reflective of the norm for Asian Americans and certain other groups. The model draws from clinical-developmental, psychosocial, and ethnic identity theory and argues that identity is a dynamic concept that responds differently to different situations.

Issues of power and dominance are intertwined in United States history and culture with attitudes towards race and its ensuing racism. The second section, "Issues of Dominance and Identity Development," explores the impact of white racial dominance in United States society on identity development.

Lee Jenkins describes the dual demands of identity development for blacks in the United States in his chapter "African American Identity Development and Its Social Context." Looking closely at the gender and class divisions that exist within the African American population, Jenkins describes the common experience of subordinate status due to skin color and stresses that therapy must involve both survival skills and mechanisms for change.

In her article "Quien Soy? Who Am I? Issues of Identity for Puerto Rican Adolescents," Iris Zavala Martnez ties individual identity issues to the dilemma of national identity that is unique to Puerto Rico. She argues that the sociohistorical context is directly tied to individual development and that treatment therapies for this population must take this context into account.

In "White Racial Identity Development in the United States," Rita Hardiman presents a model that describes five stages through which European Americans must move in order to reach an anti-racist identity in the context of a racist society. Comparing her own work with models developed later by Helms and Ponterotto, the author looks at those elements of White Identity Development that are common to all three models.

The final section of the book, "Identity and Biraciality," deals with identity issues that arise when--in the context provided by the first six chapters--a person's heritage is not only bicultural but also biracial. What is the reference group for biracial individuals? In a society as racially stratified as ours, must they choose one racial identity and deny the other? Or can they acknowledge both heritages in a cohesive sense of self?

In their chapter "Growing Up Biracial in the United States," Robin Lin Miller and Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus describe the unique challenges that present themselves to biracial children. An extensive case study presents some of the complex that face biracial families in this society.

Roger Herring's chapter, "Native American Indian Identity," focuses on family styles among Native American Indians (traditional, transitional, bicultural, and assimilated). Because of the high percentage of Native American Indian families that are biracial, he emphasizes identity issues related to biraciality.

Finally, Sarah Alexander in her chapter "Vietnamese Amerasians" presents the unique situation of the children born to United States servicemen and Vietnamese women during the course of the Vietnam War. Granted entry to the United States more than a decade after the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam, these children grew to adolescence in Vietnam with no reference group whatsoever. Living in a predominantly uniracial, monocultural world, their dual heritage gave them the lowest possible status. She stresses that if the Vietnamese Amerasians are going to succeed in this country, they must first develop a positive self-identity.

Proust stated that true objectivity would not be to travel through hundreds of different lands with the same pair of eyes, but to travel the same land with a hundred different pairs of eyes. This book is an attempt to do just that as it looks at the experience of living in the multicultural world of the United States and at the impact of race and ethnicity on individual identity development.

R. D. Laing (1961) highlighted the subjectivity of evaluating self and other, stating, "One person investigating the experience of another can be directly aware only of his experience of the other (p. 28)." Such an understanding highlights the difficulties encountered in researching and writing on race, ethnicity, and self.