Understanding the Self Through History and Metaphor: Multiethnic-Racial Identity Representations

Ethnic-racial groups in the U.S. and Canada have cultivated cultural meanings and defined ingroup borders over centuries, leading to available schemas and scripts surrounding what it means to be a member of their particular ethnic-racial ingroups. However, exponential growth in multiethnic-racial populations necessitates further exploration of how individuals that exist between multiple ethnic-racial ingroups make sense of their ethnic-racial identities. The present study asked 217 multiethnic-racial adults how they understand and qualitatively represent their ethnic-racial identities. Findings revealed that participants express their ethnic-racial identities through the use of metaphors, and interpret their ethnic-racial identities as historically embedded. Implications and opportunities for future research are discussed.