Mixed Race

Way Back in 1997, famous golf player Tiger Woods shocked the world by describing himself as "Cablinasian," representing the totality of his racial background – a combination of "Caucasian," "Black," "American Indian," and "Asian" heritage (Nagai, 2010, p.1). The U.S. is the most racially diverse country in the world thanks to immigration. And because native-born Americans have been more accepting and welcoming of interracial relationships, an incline in the percentage of intermarriages and multiracial children is predictable (Nagai, 2010, p.14). All races of people thrive here. Currently, 9% of the school population is reported to be multiracial and the number is expected to increase to 21% by 2050 (Brown, 2009, p.124). Biracial population, as a branch of multiracial population, refers individuals whose parents are of different single races (Gullickson, & Morning, 2011, p.498). Attention has been drawn to multiracial/biracial people lately due to the increasing exposures of famous multiracial/biracial people. The most obvious example will be Barack Obama, current President of the Untied States of America, whose father is African and mother is white American (Chang- Ross, 2010, p.108). Besides the fact that multiracial people’s excellence in various domains is acknowledged, another significant reason for scholars to be interested in racially-mixed people is that federal government made an adjustment in its official classification system recently and allow individuals to choose more than one race which apply (Gullickson, & Morning, 2011, p.498).
It is exciting that multiracialism brings all races closer; however, it also raises problems due to its complexity. Multiracial people’s appearances are usually exotic and hard for people to define their races. “What are you?” is probably the most commonly odd questions they receive when meeting new people (Chang- Ross, 2010, p.108). Even though it is not a pleasant question to be asked, it still shows that people