Tracing Internal and External Race Shifting

Depending on factors like skin color and accents when speaking English, crossing the US/Mexico border can change how one's race is externally interpreted, and can result in categorizing individuals as either White or non-White in ways that may not match self-described racial identity. In the San Diego and Tijuana region, depending on external factors such as location and context, for some the perception of one's race can fluctuate multiple times in a single day.

In response to the notable limitations of racial demographic surveys in their borderland region to capture what was often described as daily racialization, Collective Magpie co-founders, Tae Hwang and MR Barnadas, developed the Poetic Exploration of Race Survey to collect local self-described racial perceptions. The survey was originally presented in downtown San Diego on the San Ysidro trolley platform at the America Plaza Trolley station in 2017.

The Poetic Exploration of Race Survey has continued to evolve, reflecting various context-based self-described racial understandings from 2017 to today. The project has been presented at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art in Las Vegas, El Museo Del Barrio in NYC, among others.It is currently housed at TheRaceSurvey.com as an ongoing web-based project and archive, collecting self-identified feelings and perceptions of race across the US and beyond.

For inquiries regarding the Poetic Exploration of Race, contact:

MRBarnadas (at) CollectiveMagpie.org

Archive of Collective Magpie projects 2009-2020: www.collectivemagpie.org