Unacknowledged Identities

As far as Harvard admissions numbers are concerned, I make up part of the 10.5 percent of the Class of 2010 that is African-American, but I’d like to set the record straight: I’m French-Canadian, Anglo-Scottish, Cherokee African-American.

When I was a freshman in high school I saw a news story about the founding of a multiracial club at a local university. As I watched, I remember thinking, “That’s what college will be!” I assumed there would be an open forum to explore questions of multiracial identity that ranged from the existential (“how does one forge a multiracial identity?) to the more practical (“what am I supposed to do with my hair?”). These were questions that went unanswered in my rural home county—population: 91 percent white.

It’s not that I haven’t explored these ideas with my friends here—I have, and being able to discuss them for the first time with people who understand from their own experiences has been liberating. Yet we are missing a real opportunity to connect with multiracial students throughout Harvard. The student activities fair at the beginning of the year plays host to countless student organizations for a single race or ethnicity to the marginalization of multiracial issues.

Of course, I’m past being the tragic mulatto: It’s 2008, after all. When you pass me in the Yard, know that I’m more concerned with getting to section on time than with getting caught up in a tragic identity struggle, agonizing over the need to choose between black and white. That said, I expected to find a vibrant and active multiracial community and a forum for discussion in college, and the lack thereof has been disheartening.

There is, in fact, a multicultural group at Harvard, but chances are you haven’t heard of it. The group, which is called ReMixed, was founded a few years ago, but its existence does not exactly feature prominently in the lives of Harvard students. In the spring 2005 issue of Diversity & Distinction, a Harvard student publication, there is an article that highlights the founding of the group. The piece displays a great sense of optimism: In it, the leaders of the organization express their desire to work with the Half-Asian People’s Association, and to welcome other mixed students, not just the those of African-American and Caucasian descent. But when I arrived last fall, ReMixed was nowhere to be seen.

Harvard has demonstrated its commitment to intercultural relations with the establishment of the Harvard Foundation, created with the mandate to “improve relations among racial and ethnic groups within the University and to enhance the quality of our common life.” What’s baffling is the practical result of that goal: the facilitation of dialogue between students with distinct racial and ethnic identities, and the simultaneous ignorance of the unique position and insight of those students in whom these identities converge.

People with multiracial heritage and experiences have their own set of questions and issues to address as a community, as well as a special contribution to make to the university. Yet neither the Harvard Foundation nor Harvard at large offers any institutional awareness of multiraciality. Even among all the laudatory press releases and news stories about climbing percentages of minority admissions and on campus, an entire demographic goes uncounted and unacknowledged. How is that diversity?



Nikki Anderson, a Crimson editorial editor, ‘10, is an English concentrator in Winthrop House.