Research

The project Mixed Unions in Canada has culminated out of research in my area of specialization: contemporary notions of mixed race and media representations of ethnicity. Sociologist Ali Rattansi states, “Hyphenated identities are here to stay. And nowhere does this seem more true than in North America.”

These mixed identities come with there own pride and problematics. Based on scholarly literature on mixed race I developed a literature review on the subject. Read the academia’s take on the subject here.

While interviewing the 32 couples,  selection criteria for my sample was not restricted to whites marrying non-whites but all ethnicities that formed unions outside of their racial groups. I was particularly interested in mixed union off springs in relationships with partners completely outside their racial groups.

For example: Fatima Ahmed one of the interview subjects is a mixed race child from Indonesian-filipino-Japanese father and Iranian-Pakistani mother. Now she is married to Jerry Chan, a Vancouver born Shanghainese.

The data I collected from these couples was intriguing. When I tried to allocate quantitative values to my search results I was unable to do so. The analysis was qualitative in nature and my supervisor Mary Lynn Young advised that I use it in a text piece for my journalism focus. These results are presented in condensed form on the website.