Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education: Contesting Knowledge, Honoring Voice, and Innovating Practice by Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero and Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education: Contesting Knowledge, Honoring Voice, and Innovating Practice by Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero and Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe Terrill O. Taylor and C. Casey Ozaki Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education: Contesting Knowledge, Honoring Voice, and Innovating Practice Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero and Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC, 2021, 273 pages, $35.00 paperback Multiracial Experiences in Higher Education: Contesting Knowledge, Honoring Voice, and Innovating Practice offers a critical lens of exploration for higher education students and professionals specifically situated within the proximity of identity, positionality, and context. As we engaged with the reading, it quickly became apparent that in developing our review, we needed to engage in a type of reflexivity similar to that employed by the authors in writing the book. The contributors underscored how intersectional aspects of identity and social positions construct our worldviews, which subsequently informed our understanding of the book. Therefore, we, too, must examine how our identities and lived experiences shape the foundation from which this review is derived, understood, and written. The first author is a monoracial, Black, bisexual, and cisgender man who is an incoming assistant professor of counseling psychology. The second author identifies as a multiracial, heterosexual, cisgender woman and able-bodied full professor of higher education studies. The subsequent narrative of this review is situated within the proximity of our identities, experiences, and social positions. As best stated by Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero and Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe in their opening sentences, this text provides an intergenerational collaboration—in editorship, content, and contributors. Its pages describe foundations and areas well researched, newer knowledge and practice from which we can further learn, and questions and issues that lie at the horizon of a truly innovative and revolutionary future … We offer this book and its chapters as another step in this evolutionary journey of understanding the complexities of multiracial experiences in higher education. (p. xxi) It is evident in the introduction and preface that the editors and authors are intentional in their framing of the text. They provide a thought-provoking conceptual analysis of theoretical frameworks and models, experiences, and applications to help support the readers' understanding, synthesis, and connection with the material. The writing is also constructed in a way that challenges readers to question, critique, and reexamine their own personal assumptions about what identity is, how it shows up, and why it changes (Part 1). This is augmented by the contributions of colleagues who offer accounts of their own and other multiracial students' and professionals' navigation through spaces within higher education (Part 2). The voices of the authors and contributors of this work offer a unique and eloquent portrayal that is derived from theory, research, and practice within settings of higher education and across institutional and professional levels while presenting resources for further application (Part 3). The editors and contributors furthermore challenge readers to resist notions constrained by historical, structural, and cultural dynamics [End Page 504] that benefit the status quo, oftentimes resulting in harm to People of Color and, more specifically, multiracial people. Finally, the editors come together to engage in intergenerational reflection on the chapters and provide recommendations for moving forward (Part 4). While reviewing this work, we thought about how it aligns in perspective and is consistent with epistemological justice (Kidd et al., 2017) in that it calls readers to consider, examine, and question how historical notions of knowing and learning privilege some identities while marginalizing others. In higher education and academia, this oftentimes results in the devaluation of the voices of those who are most impacted. This work provides a much-needed overview of multiracial theory, narratives, and application in higher education. Prior literature has advanced multiracial identity, described history, and interrogated monoracism in deep and often siloed ways (Daniel, 2002; Johnston & Nadal, 2010; Renn, 2004; Wijeyesignhe & Jackson, 2001, 2012), but Johnston-Guerrero and Wijeyesinghe's text is the first to draw these literatures together to provide critical summary, insights, and recommendations. We applaud and recognize their offering and highlight the significant benefit of this work not only for the field of higher education but also for the multiracial people who operate within it. In the foreword, the authors articulate...