Dissertation
My dissertation project, which received an Honorable Mention for the 2024 ESS Coser Dissertation Proposal Award, analyzes the experiences and perspectives of East Asian men and women in different-sex interracial/-ethnic relationships. If you (1) identify as an East Asian man or woman, (2) are currently based in the United States, and (3) are in a romantic relationship with someone from a different racial or ethnic background, please consider signing up for my study here (IRB protocol: 852920).
“Let’s Talk About Race, Baby”
Hu, Olivia Y. 2024. “Let’s Talk about Race, Baby: How Interracial/-ethnic Relationships Influence East Asian Women’s Understandings of Race and Racism.” Ethnic and Racial Studies. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2024.2431635.’
2023 SSSP Division of Critical Race and Ethnic Study Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award (Winner)
2024 ASA Race, Gender, and Class Section Graduate Paper Award (Honorable Mention)
Abstract: Interracial intimacy offers analytical leverage to examine one avenue through which people can transform their perspectives on race and racism. This study draws from 47 interviews with East Asian women in relationships with White, Black, and South or Southeast Asian men to analyze how they understand their unions’ role in shaping their racial ideologies. Most participants with Black and darker-skinned South Asian partners developed a heightened awareness of structural racism, while most respondents with White and other Asian partners report little change in their racial views. Moreover, some participants with White partners experienced a shift towards colorblind racism. I coin the term racial resignation to describe the process by which these women reluctantly relinquished elements of their progressive racial worldview to circumvent relationship conflict. Ultimately, this study shows how interactions in the intimate, private sphere can facilitate either the adoption or dislodgement of ideologies that challenge the racial status quo.
“Linking Race and Genes”
Hu, Olivia Y., Xiang Lu (equal authorship), and Wendy D. Roth. 2024. “Linking Race and Genes: Racial Conceptualization among Genetic Ancestry Test-Takers.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 47(8):1574–96. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2023.2224871.
Abstract: The genomic revolution is highly relevant to scholarship on racial conceptualization. As genomic research has increasingly focused on small amounts of variation between ancestral groups, it may promote beliefs in racial essentialism. Genetic ancestry tests (GATs) are one of the primary ways the consequences of the genomic revolution are communicated to laypersons, necessitating a better understanding of how test-takers conceptualize race. We analyse 108 in-depth interviews with U.S. and Canadian test-takers to examine how they conceptualize the relationship between race and genes and how they believe GATs influenced their race concepts. We present a typology of racial conceptualization that moves beyond a dichotomy and toward a continuum between social constructivism and genetic essentialism. We also find that test-takers believe GATs reinforce their pre-existing race concepts, regardless of what those were. Our results support an emerging view that people selectively interpret genetic information to confirm rather than transform their race concepts.