The urgent debate over a multiracial category in the 2000 census forced the nation to reflect upon the important questions of what it means to construct and maintain a racial identity. Using in-depth interviews and survey data, Beyond Black documents how biracial people develop many different racial identities and how these self-understandings are derived from historical and contemporary social, cultural, interactional, and psychological processes.

The urgent debate over a multiracial category in the 2000 census forced the nation to reflect upon the important questions of what it means to construct and maintain a racial identity. Using in-depth interviews and survey data, Beyond Black documents how biracial people develop many different racial identities and how these self-understandings are derived from historical and contemporary social, cultural, interactional, and psychological processes.