The Harms of Racial Miscategorization
- lmsapublications
- Dec 18, 2022
- 1 min read
Khadija Shalbi, MS2
The Harms of Racial Miscategorization: Comparing Multiracial Individuals’
Well-Being in the Continental U.S. Versus Hawai‘i
About the Author:
My name is Khadija Shalbi and I am a Los Angeles native of mixed Chilean and Egyptian ancestry. I'm currently a MS2 at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. Given my love of all things ear related, I hope to become an Otolaryngologist. I want to practice in Los Angeles and serve the LatinX community. All too often I see the language barrier posing issues for Latino/Hispanic patients, how their concerns don’t get fully addressed and in turn they don’t feel at ease leaving some doctors appointments. I want to be someone these patients can relate to and feel comfortable talking to; I want them to know they’re being heard!
About the Work:
This piece explores the effects of racial miscategorization (incongruence between other people's racial categorization of an individual and that individual's racial self-identification) on subjective well-being of multiracial individuals in Hawai'i versus California. We set out to examine how multiracial individuals experience racial miscategorization and how this experience shapes the extent to which they feel a sense of belonging and inclusion. Contrasting data from focus groups in California and Hawaii reveals that racial miscategorization is a pervasive experience among multiracial people and is associated with negative psychological well-being. We also found that environments with greater representation of multiracial individuals, such as Hawai'i, are associated with less racial miscategorization, more inclusion, and better psychological well-being among multiracial individuals. These findings highlight the importance of studying processes related to miscategorization by others and to include environmental factors in the analysis.
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