This thesis focuses on the patterns of racial formation, and epistemological points of entry that are salient to the mulatta experience in the United States, through the use of life writings. The results gleaned from this research are utilized to problematize revived political and social assertions of a post-feminist, post-racist United States.

This thesis aims to explore how identity takes shape within mixed race persons whom have Latin American background, in today’s Sweden, based on four individual in-depth interviews. The central characters in this paper were found through a convenience sample within my circle of acquaintances, due to the limited framework of this thesis. Six themes were found through coding and thematising: questioning Swedishness, invisible camouflage, it is positive to be mixed, internalized racism, to (en)counter racism and nothing to 100 %.  By means of a feminist phenomenological approach, this thesis has shown that being mixed race creates an ethnic insecurity and a contingency in one’s own identity formation, since the experience of being Swedish constantly is questioned based on physical appearance and/or name. However, all of the informants also experienced joy in having several backgrounds; it was seen as empowering, a possibility and a contribution to the generally white Swedishness. In that way the informants’ refusal to conform to the limiting norms of Swedishness, can be seen as a transcendency of the Swedish hegemony and an expansion of what it means to be Swedish. / Esta tesis trata de explorar como la identidad se crea dentro de personas de raza mixta, quienes tienen origen de América Latina, en Suecia hoy, basado en cuatro entrevistas profundas. Las personas centrales en este ensayo los encontré usando una muestra de conveniencia, ya que el esbozo era restringido. Yo conozco a lxs informantes. Seis temas se cristalizaron a través de codificar y tematizar: Suequidad que es dudoso, camuflaje invisible, ser mixto es positivo, racismo internalizado, enfrentar racismo y nada hasta 100 %. Por lo medio de un enfoque fenomenológico feminista, esta tesis ha encontrado que ser raza mixta crea una inseguridad étnica y contingencia en la formación de identidad en ellas, ya que la experiencia de ser suecx constantemente es dudosa basado en apariencia física y/o nombre. Sin embargo, todas lxs informantes también sintieron alegría en tener varios orígenes; era visto como un poder, una posibilidad y una contribución a la suequidad, que en general es blanca. De esa manera el rechazo de adaptarse a las normas de suequidad limitativas de lxs informantes, puede ser visto como una trascendencia de la hegemonía sueca y una expansión de lo que significa ser suecx.

This study analyzes the representations of five bi-ethnic women characters in U.S. mass media both before and after U.S. “post-racial” era, to find and expose evidence of the continuity and perpetuation of racist stereotypes against biracial/bi-ethnic women. I utilize a thematic textual analysis, supported by the theories, ideas, and critical views of postcolonial theorists Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, and Edward Said, and composed of three prominent themes which expose the nature of the representations of lead bi-ethnic characters in current mass media entertainment (TV programs and films). The themes further explored through this project are: bi-ethnicity (one Black parent and one White parent) as a) over exoticized or hypersexualized; b) inherently problematic; and c) destined for non-existence through invisibility, elimination, and even death. In a second step, I critically examine the theme of the tragic mulatta present in Imitation of Life (Hunder & Sirk, 1959), a film released during the epoch of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954-68), and the TV mini-series Alex Haley’s Queen (1993) to then highlight how it becomes immortalized transmedia (across diverse media platforms and historical moments) and ever-present in current “post-racial era” entertainment media film. To examine this, I compared one modern film and that portrayed a leading bi-ethnic woman–Dear White People (2014)– to then compare to the film mentioned above. I then compared TV programs that portray supporting bi-ethnic women characters in Suits (2011), Black-ish (2014), and Empire (2015) to then compare to the TV miniseries mentioned above. Finally, I contend that the presence of transmedia storytelling of the fixation, and manipulation of the supposed political correctness of the tragic mulatta archetype stands to reinforce its dominance in media portrayals. Moreover, the fragmentary existence is based on a lack of research and the indolent borrowing from previous archetypes.

This exploratory study draws from six semi-structured interviews with multiracial Nikkei women living in Canada to investigate their experiences of mixed race belonging. After establishing belonging as intrinsic to the very nature of how multiraciality and Asianness have been historically constructed and are presently experienced in Canada, three areas relevant to how the interviewees experience mixed race belonging are then considered: multiracial name modification (MRNM), the nation and Canadianness, and Japaneseness in Canada. This study also considers how the recent racial climate of pandemic-related anti-Asian racism has potentially impacted how mixed race belonging is experienced by the interviewees, which reveals two additional areas of interest: the amplified experience of multiracial dysmorphia (MRD) during this time and the emergence of pan-Asianness in Canada as a potential new site of belonging. As captured, issues of mixed race belonging arise in various spheres of the interviewees' lives because of the very ways in which multiraciality and Asianness have been constructed and maintained in the Canadian social landscape. In doing so, this study hopes to drive home how issues of mixed race belonging speak more to the problematic nature of "race" itself than of mixed race people themselves.

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