Why do some people adopt an ethnicity that does not appear to be their own?

The case of Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist who seemingly pretended to be African-American, and says she "identifies as black" (despite having no known black ancestors), has refocussed public attention on matters concerning ethnic identity.  In particular, it raises the issue of the status of individuals appearing to be of a given ancestry but who declare a different identification.  

Ms Dolezal, 37, has been widely criticised in the US for building a career around racial issues, while deceiving people about her (Czech, Swedish and German)ancestry.  She says her identity was shaped by "my self-identification with the black experience as a very young child" but, according to her father, she only started to self-identify as black when she was in her 20s and 30s.  Photos of a young Rachel Dolezal, show a pale complexion and straight blond hair, contrasting with her current apparently darker skin and dark curly hair.  Amid the controversy, she resigned as head of her local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. 

“You’ve got a white woman coming in, that got a full-ride scholarship to the black Harvard (i.e. Howard University in Washington DC), which took her for a black woman and gave her a full scholarship” Lawrence Dolezal said.  “And ever since then she’s been involved in social justice advocacy for African Americans. She assimilated into that culture so strongly that that’s where she transferred her identity.”  He added: “But unfortunately, she is not ethnically by birth African-American. She is our daughter by birth. And that’s the way it is.”

So what principles should apply to determine a person's racial or ethnic classification?  (An issue also very relevant to the multicultural Australian context.)  These matters can be better understood, if we are aware of the distinction between "race" and "ethnicity", used by demographers and statisticians (who are required to consider and carefully apply such definitions) in Census and other collections. 

A global study of ethnic and racial classification, funded by the US Census Bureau and published by the UN, found that populations are generally accounted under a broad heading such as "origin", "ancestry", "race", or "ethnicity".  Each concept is recognised as legitimate in its own way and relies on a slightly different manifestation of shared roots.  Ethnicity is said to discern itself in cultural practices or beliefs directly about oneself.   Ancestry involves beliefs about one’s forebears, while race places emphasis on physical traits. 

Many censuses are said to emphasise the personal, self-selected aspect of "ethnicity".  A person’s ethnicity is what the individual says it is, and is not the product of an objective external measurement.  In contrast, "Raceis your biologically engineered features.  .....It is not something that can be learned or disguised".   The difference between the two concepts comes into sharpest contrast in the case of inter-racial adoptions.  An adopted child of a given race can take on the ethnicity of their adoptive parents but it is not possible for them to change their race.   A person, however, can be of mixed racial descent, and, in terms of ethnicity, can identify with more than one ethnic group.

In cases of identity, firstly there is the matter of official recognition, and then a further issue of social recognition, which may not necessarily follow.

The US (in common with many countries in North and Central America, and the Caribbean) uses a race-based definition of African-American.  In the US Censusand other official statistics, "Black or African American refers to a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa".  (The word "Negro", the polite term used for Black before the introduction of "African-American", means "black" in Spanish and Portuguese.)

Thus, even though Rachel Dolezal married a black American with whom she had a son, and identifies as African-American, she is not an African-American for the purposes of the US Census.  Identifying as Black, however, could have provided her with official classification as African-American, had the US used an ethnicity-based definition (which it does not).  Both approaches are legitimate but (based on opinions expressed in the US media), there seems little public support in America for regarding her as African-American, and officially she is European by race.

Australia and New Zealand apply their own definitions in this general area. 

Up until the 1966 Census Australia collected population data under the category of race.  From the 1971 Census an Indigenous question based on "origin" was introduced, while there was also a more general question on "ancestry" from 1986.  (A person must be at least partly of Indigenous origin to be classified as such in Australia.)

New Zealand, however, does use a concept of ethnicity.  In their Census it is defined as "the ethnic group or groups a person identifies with or has a sense of belonging to.  It is a measure of cultural affiliation (in contrast to race, ancestry, nationality, or citizenship).  Such ethnicity is self-perceived and a person can belong to more than one ethnic group".  New Zealand also has a separate Indigenous Census question whereby anybody stating descent from a Māori ancestor is included in their Indigenous population count.

Because New Zealand has an official concept of ethnicity that is based on self-perception, Ms Dolezal (if she was a resident of NZ) would be free to nominate any ethnicity or ethnicities she felt she belonged to, and be enumerated as such.  In the Australian context, Ms Dolezal would be officially regarded as European, and not African-American or Negro for the purposes of past or present censuses, since the concept of ethnicity is not used in the Australian Census (including in the Indigenous question).

While official classification is one thing, social recognition is different and many people will not be swayed by official definitions, instead using their own standards. 

People have mixed views on whether to emphasise race or ethnicity. 

Ethnicity has the attraction of being the identity consented to by the individual concerned.  Its disadvantages are that it is not objective, relies entirely on self-assessment, and often cannot be determined without interrogating the individual. 

Race, on the other hand, is largely an objective concept (as are the concepts of "ancestry" and "origin"), and race can be easily used to informally categorise the background of others because physical characteristics (used to assess race) are visually discerned, even in the case of strangers.  Most people, however, recognise that some aspects of a race-based approach (e.g. past reference to half-caste, percentage blood, reference to skin colour etc) are "not nice", and can be insulting to persons of mixed racial descent.  Genetics can also produce outliers insofar as persons largely of a given racial descent can randomly end up with physical characteristics more consistent with their secondary ancestry.  In Australia, many of those of less than 50 per cent Indigenous descent (classified by their non-Indigenous race up to 1966) often not only “felt” Indigenous but had Indigenous identity imposed on them by the general community, if they displayed  identifiable Aboriginal features. 

There are lots of cases, where people seem to "adopt" a new racial, ethnic, or national identity.  A very interesting case is that of Seán Mac Stíofáin, sometimes called the "English Irishman".  He was someone that most people would have regarded as a most unlikely candidate for Chief-of-Staff of the Provisional IRA.   

He was actually born John Edward Drayton Stephenson in Leytonstone, London in 1928.  His parents (despite reports claiming that his mother was Irish-born) were English (she was born in Bethnal Green, London).  His only ancestral connection to Ireland was that one of his great-grandmothers was born in Protestant East Belfast.

Stephenson was baptised a Protestant, but was sent to Catholic schools in London as a child, and became Catholic.  After leaving school in 1944 and working in the building trade, he was conscripted into the RAF in 1945.  After leaving the RAF, he returned to London, where he became increasingly involved with nationalistic Irish organisations, learnt to speak Irish, and eventually joined an IRA unit. He met and married an Irishwoman.

In 1953, he took part in an IRA arms raid on the armoury of the Officer Training Corps at Felsted, a private school in Essex.  He was caught, convicted and spent six years in jail.  Upon being granted parole in 1959, he moved to the Republic of Ireland with his wife and young family.  He became known under the Irish version of his name, and continued his involvement with the IRA.

In 1969 the IRA split on the issue of the old leadership's increasing Marxism, and on the issue of defence of Catholic ghettos during Northern Ireland's early "troubles".  Mac Stíofáin became the inaugural Chief of Staff of the breakaway (and subsequently dominant) Provisional faction, when the "troubles" were at their peak.   Nicknamed "Mac the Knife", Mac Stíofáin was said to be a dedicated "physical force" republican, who developed the strategy of random car-bombings, and personally authorised the Bloody Friday bombings of July 1972 in Belfast (when nine people were killed and around 130 injured).  A leading rival IRA leader claimed that "he spends all his time going around trying to prove to everybody that he's as Irish as they are, and in the IRA he had to show that he was more violent than the rest".

Mac Stíofáin's downfall occurred in 1973 following his failure to complete a hunger and thirst strike, after being jailed for IRA membership in Dublin.  He was replaced by younger more politically aware activists.   Mac Stíofáin went into relative obscurity and died in 2001.

So why do people adopt an ethnicity that is inconsistent with their main heritage?

One answer obviously is that this can happen growing up within a community of a different dominant ethnicity.  Another is changing personal circumstances (such as marriage, emigration etc).  Other obvious reasons could include the prospect of personal gain, a need to "adopt a cause", or empathy with a group seen to be victimised.

To return to Rachel Dolezal, some aspects of her claims cast doubt on her veracity, and have caused the American public to largely believe that at least part of her motivation is self-interest.

Dolezal recently questioned whether the parents, who exposed her as a white woman, were really her mum and dad, saying “I haven’t had a DNA test. There’s been no biological proof that Larry and Ruthanne (Dolezal) are my biological parents”. 

An unusual family dynamic is that Dolezal obtained custody of her adopted brother Izaiah, who accused both his parents of physical abuse in a 2010 emancipation application (that was eventually dropped).  Another brother has disputed the allegations of abuse against their parents, believing Rachel made them up.  Rachel is also believed to have accused her ex-husband Kevin Moore of forcing her to take part in a homemade sex tape, in a bid to deny him access to their son Franklin.

Explaining Mac Stíofáin's claimed Irish ethnicity is more complicated.  His marriage to an Irishwoman and emigration to Ireland certainly would have affected his identity in later life, except that he seems to have been deeply involved in things Irish and militant republicanism at a much earlier stage.  

Mac Stíofáin said he always considered himself to be Irish, and in his teens joined the IRA.  "When I was very young," he recalled, "my mother had said to me, 'I'm Irish, therefore you're Irish. You're half Irish anyway. Don't forget it.'   I never did".  His adolescent enthusiasm for Irish republicanism thus seem to have been in part fostered by his upbringing and his mother's imagination.  Given that his mother died when he was only 10, his continued adoption of an Irish identity and support for militant republicanism nevertheless must have been in large part his own deliberate choice. 

Mac Stíofáin is not alone in being an English convert to militant Irish republicanism.  Another high profile convert to Irish causes was Rose Dugdale, who rebelled against her wealthy English upbringing and was a prominent IRA member.  While she remains in Ireland and is a veteran activist in Sinn Féin (following her release from prison), it is less clear whether she has totally changed her ethnic identification.

Overall, recognition of self-identity is a matter that is taken very seriously by some people, and non-acceptance can result in an emotionally charged reaction.