This chapter describes how the growth of the multiracial population is impacting traditionally monoracial organizations and efforts to impact public policy. As multiracial subjects increase their participation in monoracial or non-ethnic specific organizations, they can: (1) transform advocacy groups founded on traditional understandings of identity-based organizing; and (2) radically alter, disrupt, and destroy notions of ethnic and racial authenticity as fundamental qualifications for participation in social movements.

Through examining the merits of multi-issue organizing and the participation of multiracial people in four San Francisco Bay Area social justice organizations (Data Center for Research Justice; Speak Out—Institute for Democratic Education and Culture; the Native American Health Center's Circle of Healing program; and the African American Art and Cultural Complex [AAACC]), I show how multiracial people are transgressing social, economic, cultural, and political boundaries to produce meaningful social reforms in the areas of health, education, labor, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning (LGBTQ) rights. The chapter concludes with a social justice framework for advocacy groups that will allow for the full civic engagement of multiracial people in the US and, in the process, make these organizations more effective.

Multi-issue organizing has a long history, dating back to community organizer Saul Alinsky's labor rights activism in the 1930s. Multi-issue organizing in the Alinsky tradition posits that when you organize people of different class and racial and ethnic backgrounds, you must create a political platform that a broad range of people and groups can buy into. You must also build power through addressing “winnable” issues. According to Dissent Magazine: