Engaging whiteness within mixedness: multiracial Filipina/o American scholars’ journeys towards belonging

Abstract

This collaborative autoethnography shares the stories of two multiracial Filipina/o American scholars at various points in their academic careers as they engage in a purposeful journey towards unlearning the whiteness of their upbringing and larger society. The enduring legacy of American colonisation of the Philippines grounds the analysis with thematic findings outlining the saliency of (a) reflecting on whiteness, (b) distancing from whiteness, (c) seeking ethnic belonging, (d) claiming (multi)racialised space, and (e) remembering to resist. Taken together, the narratives and findings outline a potential journey towards engaging whiteness within mixedness while demonstrating how even the best intended educational theorising can fall victim to unrecognising the systemic nature of whiteness. Whiteness tends to be invisible in multiracial scholarship; thus our paper urges educators to critically engage whiteness as a construct in relation to multiraciality in order to disrupt white supremacy.