Mixed heritage can make people sensitive, strong

By Communications staff, Washington State University
 
McCubbin, right, works with a student.
 
 
Multicultural identities and the 2010 Census

A WSU expert in multicultural identity strongly favors the change in the U.S. Census form that allows people to identify themselves as belonging to more than one ethnic group.
 
But Associate Professor Laurie McCubbin has a reservation about the new approach. She worries that people of mixed heritage will all be lumped together, regardless of their background.
 
“Where I’m cautious is how that is interpreted in the allocation of funding for underrepresented groups,” she said. “People tend to take the multiracial, ‘melting pot’ approach as a way to limit funding for some communities.”
 
Census wording is a big issue in her home state of Hawaii, McCubbin said. She recalled that, on the 2000 census form, she was allowed to indicate in one section that she is Native Hawaiian and, in a separate section, could check off her multiple ethnicities of Native Hawaiian, Japanese and Caucasian.
 
 “One indicated my socio-political identity, the other my heritage,” she said.
PULLMAN – Well before a fellow Hawaiian landed in the White House, Laurie “Lali” McCubbin was arguing that multicultural heritage is a strength.

“It allows people to learn how to be flexible, adapt and be sensitive to other cultures,” said Mcubbin, a WSU associate professor and co-editor of a new book about multiethnic individuals and families.

The notion of cultural purity is outdated, McCubbin contends. So is the belief that a person of mixed heritage is just a little of this, a little of that.

“You can have a healthy, vibrant identity that is pluralistic, not fragmented,” said McCubbin, who teaches counseling psychology in the College of Education and is the Berry Faculty Fellow in Counseling. “In our book, we focus on the traits of people who are able to bounce back from adversity.”

Thirty-one scholars contributed to “Multiethnicity and Multiethnic Families: Development, Identity and Resilience” (Le’a Publications, 2010).
 

The book’s 14 chapters deal with the changing demographics of multiethnic and particularly indigenous groups in the United States. They explore what the changes mean for human development, identity development, and social and family relationships.

“All too often, particularly in psychology and counseling psychology, we emphasize the weaknesses in people and families and not their strengths. Multicultural people are seen as vulnerable and at risk,” said McCubbin. “Now, we’re starting to focus on what it is about multiethnic and multicultural people that makes them strong, confident and able to survive – or recover from – the most difficult of hardships.”

McCubbin is proud of her own Native Hawaiian, Japanese and Caucasian heritage. The study of resilience and multicultural identity is a family affair for her; one of the other editors of “Multiethnicity and Multiethnic Families” is her father, Hamilton McCubbin, a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
 

He has long studied trauma and resilience among those faced with prolonged separation and the traumas of war. He is part of a research team studying Americans who were prisoners of war in Vietnam and their families.

Lali McCubbin chose the discipline of counseling psychology because, she said, it was at the forefront of research into the effects of multicultural heritage. She incorporates her findings into her teaching and her own counseling work with individuals and families.
 
McCubbin is working on a book about measuring stress, coping and resilience – what she calls a sense of wellbeing – among Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos and multiethnic individuals and families.

She also is the co-principal investigator in the continuation of a long-term study that began in 1955 and has tracked the lives of 643 people born on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

“Through the Berry Family Fellowship, I and my team of doctoral students – Nicole Olson, Lisa Bruna, Simone Young and Stephanie Langston – are constructing the next wave of data collection for multiracial and multiethnic individuals in their 50s,” she said.

So far, McCubbin’s research has focused on multicultural residents of the United States. She has been asked to expand her work to international subjects and is seeking funding to begin that work next year. For more information about McCubbin, see her WSU faculty profile, http://education.wsu.edu/directory/faculty/mccubbinl.

 
 
 
McCubbin, bottom left in blue shirt, and her Hawaiian family in 2000.