Asian American Identities: Racial and Ethnic Identity Issues in ...

Chapter 2

Asian American Identities: A Review

Defining the Terms: Race and Racial Identity, Panethnicity, Ethnicity, and Ethnic-specific Identity

Race and Racial Classifications

Race has been a hotly disputed term within the psychological literature (Smedley & Smedley, 2005). In the 20th century, there were two conceptions of race: the first focusing on human biological or biogenetic variation and second focusing on a popular notion that combined both physical features and behavior (Smedley, 1999). It is this second definition that has taken hold in scientific studies examining racial differences (see, e.g., Rushton, 1995). This popular conception of race has been the primary justification for the stratification of groups in American society and has been used to create a sense of inferiority in non-majority groups (Harrell, 1999). Because the history of race and racial classification has linked the term race to biological and behavioral traits, many psychologists have rejected the notion of race altogether (see, e.g., Helms, Jernigan, & Mascher, 2005). However, we argue in the present work that it is not the terminology that is the focus when we study issues related to race or racial identity, rather, it is the lived experience of the individuals who are categorized into the racial groups themselves, and the social meanings attached to such categorizations within the United States context.