Interviewed by Faye S. Wolfe

Charmaine Wijeyesinghe and her husband, Christian Lietzau ’93G, have two children, Andreas and Rebecca. The couple met at UMass Amherst; Lietzau earned his master’s and doctorate in polymer science and engineering here.

Charmaine earned a bachelor’s and master’s in psychology (’80 and ’85) and an EdD (’92) working as an administrator much of that time. Immediately after receiving her doctorate, she became Dean of Students at Mount Holyoke College.

Now, as president of Diversity Works, Inc., she consults on issues of social justice, conflict resolution, and racial identity to colleges, schools, and companies, delivering workshops, lectures, and assessments.

Tell us about your work on racial identity.
For my dissertation I interviewed people who were black, white, or biracial. I came up with a model for how people form a sense of racial identity. Many factors are involved: racial ancestry, physical appearance, cultural attachment, early experience, spirituality…

Identity is a matter of choice to some degree. Multiracial people may choose to identify themselves as that, or as monoracial: black, white, Asian. I had three grandparents who were white. My mother was Dutch Portuguese, my father Sri Lankan. Filling out forms, I’ve checked off Asian, I’ve checked off black. Do you check one box or two? There was a time when you could check only one; society constrained one’s choices. It’s still controversial, the idea of racial identity as a choice. Some people would say, choice is a luxury.

I’m interested in working with “helping agents”—teachers, counselors—on questions this idea raises: What do you think race is based on? What do you bring to an interaction with a multiracial child? With the parents? With a multiracial person who says, I’m white? The idea of racial identity as a choice lends itself to great, sometimes painful conversations.

Who is in your family?
I met my husband in Boyden Gym. I was on the crew team for four years, and he was the only one I approached who wanted to join the sculling club. I picked him up at 5:30 in the morning and we’d drive over to the Connecticut River to row, and talk on the way. We got to know one another. We’ve learned from each other. He can explain the “cycle of socialization,” and I can tell you what those seals on the bottom of plastic bottles mean.

I’m very much a product of the emigrant experience: it was the “six of us,” my parents and four kids. [Charmaine’s sisters Rochen McMahon ’83, and Sharon Barrett ’78 are also alumnae of UMass Amherst.] For the last few years, the relationships among my siblings and me has revolved around elder care: Dad’s in the hospital, who’s going to go? Both my parents are now gone, so we’ll eventually recalibrate to the “new normal.” I think it’s like that for a lot of people. Stretches of our lives are taken up with child care, elder care, or careers, and eventually when they’re achieved or resolved, we need to reconfigure our lives to another way of being, to the new normal.

How do your concerns about racial identity and social justice come into play in your family life?
I have a core biological family, but the people who most influence my life are the people in this community, and friends from graduate school. I think the theme of community is critical. As families become more spread out geographically, what does that do to our sense of community?

I want my kids to be healthy, happy, to contribute in some way. I want them to be broad-minded. We don’t talk about racial identity around the dinner table, but there are lots of opportunities to educate your children. Years ago, I was telling my son the story of the tortoise and the hare, and when it came to the part where the tortoise was being teased, we talked about it. I asked him, “What could you do about that?” We discussed that when you see something wrong, you speak up.