Race and resemblance are tied to family membership, and relationships characterize family dynamics. In this article, we argue that race, resemblance, and relationships intersect in distinct, layered ways in multiracial families. While scholarship has documented how multiracial families have historically been considered outside of the norm, little research has explored the impact of this racialized reality on family relationships. This article examines how phenotype shapes family interactions and, over time, the family relationships between a child and her or his mother, father, and sibling(s) through the voices of 60 black/white biracial adults. By reflecting on their earliest childhood memories to their most recent encounters, their narratives illuminate experiences shaped by their status in a multiracial—and historically unorthodox—family. We underscore how multiracial families are perceived by others based on racial resemblance (or lack thereof), how family members contend with these racialized perceptions, and how black/white biracial Americans perceive their own family relationships.

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The growth of the bi/multiracial American population has inspired a corresponding surge in scholarship on this historically understudied racial group. Simultaneously, a much-needed mainstream discussion has emerged about the unearned, often invisible privileges of being white in American society. In this article, I enrich the literature in both areas by elucidating how some bi/multiracial Americans benefit from, yet also pay a price for, whiteness and white privilege through the narratives of 30 participants from a variety of racially mixed backgrounds, all of whom have white ancestry. First, I explore how some participants experience traditional white privilege through their white-appearing features. Second, I examine an almost invisible iteration of white privilege that participants acquired through their white parent, irrespective of my respondents’ skin color. Third, I illuminate the price of appearing white (and light) for bi/multiracials in ways that are similar to but also different from monoracism. This article analyzes the paradoxical manifestation of white privilege in a growing cohort of Americans: bi/multiracials with white ancestry.

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The increasing bi/multiracial1community in the United States has generated much literature about racial identity and social psychological well-being. Drawing on sixty in-depth interviews with Black/White biracial Americans, this paper shifts the theoretical focus from identity and well-being to the conceptual development of how race shapes bi/multiracial Americans’ social interactions with both Whites and Blacks. The majority of participants reported interacting differently when in predominately White settings versus predominately Black settings. I offer the concept of “racial capital” to highlight the repertoire of racial resources (knowledge, experiences, meaning, and language) that biracial Americans use to negotiate racial boundaries in a highly racialized society. These findings reveal the continuing significance of racial boundaries in a population that is often celebrated as evidence of racial harmony in the United States.