Generation Y places less stress on race, BU community members say

When Karen Qin, a junior in Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, was young she was teased because of her Asian heritage.

“But that’s because we were children,” Qin said.  “I never understood why kids would do that to me because I didn’t understand how I was really different. Things are different now.”

Studies suggest that a large portion of the Millennials, or Generation Y, do not view race as a major identifying factor.

“Race is a strange concept in anthropology,” said Chloe Mulderig, a teaching fellow at BU’s Department of Anthropology, in an email interview. “While we recognize that race is a social construction, and thus racism a construct of human hatred and not biological reality, race is an important factor in the lives of many we work with.”

She said since her informants think about race, and racism, she too must consider these concepts.

Mulderig, who conducts fieldwork in Morocco, said throughout her studies she has interacted with many different nationalities.

In her own interactions with members of Generation Y she said she has witnessed a shift away from race identification.

“Many youth that I work with both in America and in North Africa are choosing to categorize people around them in other ways – ethnicity, gender, religion, economic class, etc.,” Mulderig said. “Race has become a less central focus.”

Qin, vice president of external affairs at BU’s Asian Student Union, said she did not feel racial pressures because she did not choose to identify herself by her race.

“Coming from the Midwest and a small high school, I was the only Asian girl in my grade,” she said. “I didn’t really identify myself or singled myself out as being the Asian of the grade and it didn’t hit me until another Asian girl transferred in junior year who expressed, or rather kind of joked around with, her Asian pride more.”

Now, as a college student, Qin said she actively associates herself with her Asian heritage through student groups such as BU’s ASU.

Mulderig said race is not disappearing as an issue, but instead changing.

She said that people have not stopped caring about race, but have stopped thinking of it in terms of superiority or inferiority. People are thinking about race in terms of “pride in one’s culture, heritage and experience,” Mulderig said.

“As a graduate student, I am taught to embrace the diversity of the human experience,” Mulderig said, “while also learning the power that beliefs and biases can have over a person’s worldview.”

Amber Robinson, a BU College of Communication freshman, said that she thinks people will still stereotype based on race in the future.