Multiracial Heritage Month
Multiracial Heritage Month at UMD takes place every March, and is one of the first in the nation. We spend the month honoring the identities, stories, and histories of mixed-race, multiethnic, and transracial adoptee individuals. Follow @umdMICA on instagram to get the latest updates and announcements!
"100% Me: Honoring the Pieces, Celebrating the Whole"
This year’s Multiracial Heritage Month theme highlights the “multi” aspects of our identity, bringing light to the diverse array of backgrounds and cultures multiracial and transracial adoptees come from while honoring the wholeness of ourselves. It is often we find ourselves described in segmented ways: that we are “half” of something, that we are too “x” for “y” and too “a” for “b,” - but our experiences tell a different story.
We resist the narrative that our identity lacks something, is incomplete, or partial. This month we reclaim and control our own narratives. We celebrate all the many pieces that comprise our heritage and histories, while still centering our wholeness. Through the act of storytelling, we hope to spotlight the individuality of multiracial and transracial adoptee experiences and ultimately build a platform for self-determination. We remind everyone, including ourselves, that our cultures are not “diluted” by multiracial identity or adoption, but rather “concentrated” by them.
Multiracial is an umbrella term for people with more than one racial identity or heritage. It can also be referred to as mixed-race. For example, someone with Asian and Black heritage might identify as biracial, which is under the multiracial umbrella.
Multiethnic specifically refers to people with more than one ethnic identity, who may also have one or more more racial identity. For example, someone with Japanese and Bangladeshi heritage would be multiethnic, even though they only have Asian racial identities. On the other hand, someone of Thai and Irish heritage would be both multiethnic and multiracial.
Transracial adoptees are individuals who have been adopted into a family with a different racial identity than their own. For example, an Asian individual adopted into a white family, or a white child raised by a Black family.