Mixed Race Studies

Graduate Dissertation Recruitment – Biracial/Bicultural Individuals

Kimberly Foley, M.S., Clinical Psychology Doctoral Candidate
Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida

2020-09-26

I am a doctoral student of Florida Tech’s Clinical Psychology program in Melbourne, Florida. Under the supervision of my faculty chair, Dr. Felipa Chavez, a licensed clinical psychologist, and faculty of color, who is well-versed in socio-cultural issues, I am conducting a research study designed examining healthy biracial/bicultural and multiethnic identity formation in relation to one’s sense of belonging and psychological well-being and functioning. As a biracial graduate student, the daughter of an Irish-American father and a Mauritian mother, I am intimately aware of the unique experiences and socio-cultural skill sets that afford biracial/bicultural individuals the ability to successfully and seamlessly navigate multiple cultural contexts with a fluency in communication, also known as code switching. Such skill sets are often developed as a function of upbringing, in which biracial/bicultural individuals must learn to successfully straddle and integrate two divergent worlds of majority and minority culture.

Embedded in such Biracial/bicultural identity success is a greater understanding for one’s two divergent heritages of majority and minority culture, which must successfully learn to communicate, and be at peace with one another. As such, the goal of the current study is to validate the psychometric properties of a newly configured measure of bicultural identity development. In addition, it is hoped that focus on the adaptive strategies garnered from healthy biracial/bicultural and multiethnic identity formation, will shed light on ways to ameliorate the tensions precipitated by our nation’s racial divide; bringing forth psychological healing to a national epidemic of racial trauma, which compromises both the physical and psychological health of this nation’s citizens.

We are requesting that adult (18 years and older) biracial/bicultural individuals, with one parent who identifies as a Caucasian, please invest their time and commitment to filling out this online survey. The survey is estimated to take 45-60-minutes, because their stories greatly matter to us. With the survey being online, participants will be able to select the time and place that is most convenient for them within the next few weeks. Participants will be able to complete this survey by using their mobile phone or desktop computers through the link here. In exchange for their time, Participants who complete the survey can enter a drawing for three chances to win a $50 (USD) Amazon gift card.

This study has been approved by Florida Tech IRB: #20-069
IRB Contact Information: by Dr. Jigna Patel, IRB Chair (jpatel@fit.edu)

How The Vanishing Half fits into our cultural fixation with racial passing stories

Vox
2020-08-14

Constance Grady

Zac Freeland/Vox

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers.

“Passing for white never left.”

In Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, the character of Stella haunts the narrative like a ghost. Stella is the half who vanished: half of her family, half of her sister’s heart. And she vanished by excising half of her own identity.

Stella is a light-skinned Black woman, and when she is 16, she decides to start passing for white. Her identical twin sister Desiree, meanwhile, grows up to marry the darkest-skinned man she can find. Stella breaks away from her family, and we don’t get a chance to meet her on the pages of the novel until nearly halfway through the book when at last her niece, Desiree’s dark-skinned daughter, tracks her down. It’s only in that last section that we finally learn exactly what happened to Stella.

Stella’s fate haunts the novel, and so does the genre her story belongs to. There’s a long history of narratives of racial passing in the American novel, and The Vanishing Half plays with the genre in new and interesting ways. So as the Vox Book Club spends the month talking about The Vanishing Half, I wanted to put it in the context of the passing novel more broadly.

To get an expert view, I called up Alisha Gaines, an English professor at Florida State University and the author of Black for a Day: White Fantasies of Race and Empathy. Together, we talked through the history of the African American passing novel, what passing looks like after Jim Crow (sorry, Ben Shapiro), and how passing novels can show us how race is produced and reproduced. Below is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity.

The first African American stories of racial passing are slave narratives

Constance Grady

Do we know when the first of these narratives emerged? How old are stories about racial passing?

Alisha Gaines

It’s an old story. In literature and in life, America has a fascination with impersonation, which includes blackface minstrelsy. And passing narratives, if you want to be technical about it, in African American literature, they start with the slave narrative…

Read the entire interview here.

Passing Revisited: Racial Passing and White Supremacy

Medium
2020-09-04

Jennifer Rittner

In the wake of the white supremacist marches in 2017, I wrote a short reflection on racial passing. In that essay I wrote about my Black mother, my white son, and the absurd mythologies of racial purity needed by white supremacists to support their beliefs. Those marchers surely counted among them many who had direct African American heritage as a result of near ancestors who had passed for white in the inhospitable environments of legal slavery and Jim Crow.

The White Supremacy of Masquerading as Black

White supremacy rears its head again in another form of passing, as men and women who have grown up as white children in white families have taken to masquerading as Black adults in order to achieve personal success as race warriors. Jessica Krug and Rachel Dolezal, two sisters-in-deceit, both manipulated their ways to success by passing as a Black woman, and in the process, denying actual women of color the opportunities they took for themselves. Their behavior should cause us to reflect on our United States of Racial Anxiety as we are all, in fact, oppressed by our nation’s historical, collective weaponization of race. While adamantly censuring both of these women, we can use their deceptions as opportunities to reflect on how the social conditions we construct and perpetuate demand certain forms of racial authenticity, often built on the anxieties we all feel about passing as something.

First, two resources for anyone interested in the history of passing:

Allyson Hobbs, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life is a well-researched and beautiful read on the topic. James Baldwin, Another Country was one of the first books in which I felt seen around the question of passing as a social act…

Read the entire article here.

Miscategorization and Passing of Multiracial Individuals: A Qualitative Exploration of Lived Experiences

Chicago School of Professional Psychology
2020-05-29

Jasmine Telemaque

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of PsyD Clinical Psychology

Individuals often have preconceived ideas about others’ race based on the color of their skin. However, skin color does not necessarily reflect one’s racial group. There are currently approximately 7 million multiracial people in the United States, and the issue of miscategorization cannot be ignored. Though there is an increasing emphasis on racial equality and growing research on multiracial individuals, this research is still sparse and developing. This study discovered how some multiracial individuals identify across different settings, and if passing, or not disclosing true racial identity, has affected some areas of life, including personal, academic, and professional. This study expands the literature on multiracial individuals and provides insight into the decision to disclose or not disclose racial identity. Participants were interviewed, data were analyzed using consensual qualitative research for domains and core ideas, and cross-analysis was performed. Overall findings of the study found that participants had differing reactions to racial miscategorization and racism. Ultimately, all participants found ways of feeling represented or found pride in their multiracial background through media, friends, and family members. Implications and future directions are discussed.

For more information, click here.

Seeking Participants: Experiences of Multiracial Students in Higher Education

2020-08-27

Lauren Wagner
Graduate College of Education
San Francisco State University

Hello – I am a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Education: Equity and Social Justice in Education at San Francisco State University. I am currently seeking research participants for phone interviews during the month of September.

My qualitative study focuses on perceptions, representation, and identity development of multiracial students in higher education – specifically the significance of continuous access and visibility of ethnic studies curriculum throughout a student’s academic journey.

Please consider participating if you meet all of the below:

1. Identify as multiracial (i.e., individuals who have mixed ancestry of two or more races).
2. Have taken at least one ethnic studies course at a California Community College, California State University, or University of California.

Participants will be asked to share their experiences in a 45-60 minute interview. All information provided will be kept confidential.

If you or someone you know is interested in participating in this research, please contact me at lwagner@sfsu.edu.

Thank you!

Blue Beneath My Skin
​
The Alchemist Theatre Company
London, United Kingdom
2020-06-22

Macadie Amoroso

“Clothes allow me to choose how people see me,
Clothes can speak louder than my skin…”

Through the eyes of a 17-year-old mixed race girl, Blue Beneath My Skin explores the nuances of identity and ethnicity, and how self-perception and the perceptions put upon us can push us onto a destructive path.

Blue beneath my skin was fist performed at The Bunker Theatre in 2019 as part of the ‘This is Black’ festival. In 2020 it was revived as part of East 15’s Debut Festival and won the King’s Head Theatre’s Stella Wilkie Award and was chosen for Pulse Festival.

Watch the entire play here.

This Is Black – Double Bill I: Blue Beneath My Skin & All the Shit I Can’t Say to My Dad at the Bunker

The Up Coming
2019-08-10

Michael Higgs

Featuring four new plays by emerging black writers, Steven Kavuma’s This Is Black is a highly anticipated festival that promises to be a success. The first part of the festival, Double Bill I, presents highly passionate and thoughtful performances of two one-handers, which leave plenty of room for thought.

Written by and starring Macadie Amoroso, Blue Beneath My Skin features the life story of a 17-year-old mixed-race girl who dreams of becoming a fashion designer, but who frequently encounters setbacks through an onslaught of sexism and racism. Amoroso’s acting is top-notch and full of soul, never failing to be convincing even for a single moment. The writing, too, is very strong for the most part – although the occasional irregular use of rhyme, probably a leftover from spoken-word-poetry, does mar the overall presentation somewhat. Plot-wise, the ending also feels rather forced and unlikely. But these minor hiccups are hardly detrimental to an otherwise outstanding performance, which takes a particularly fascinating point of view in exploring racial tensions and questions of identity when being of a mixed heritage…

Read the entire review here.

Other Tongues: Call for Submissions VOLUME 2

I Wonder As I Wonder
2019-09-16

Adebe DeRango-Adem

Mixed-Race Women Speak Out (Again!)

Co-editors Adebe DeRango-Adem and Andrea Thompson are seeking submissions of writing and/or artwork for a follow-up anthology of work by and about mixed-race women, intended for publication by Inanna Publications in 2020-21.

Deadline for Submissions: SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

The purpose of this anthology is to explore the question of how mixed-race women in North America identify in the 21st Century. The anthology will also serve as a place to learn about the social experiences, attitudes, and feelings of others, while investigating more general questions around what racial identity has come to mean today. We are inviting previously unpublished submissions that engage, document, and/or explore the experiences of being mixed-race…

…WHAT IS OTHER TONGUES?

The first edition of Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out was born from a desire to see a new and refreshing literature that could be at the forefront of mixed-race discourse and women’s studies, while providing a space for the creative expression of mixed-race women. Through an inspirational and provocative mix of visual art, literature, orature, creative non-fiction and academic analysis, Other Tongues chronicled the changes in social attitudes towards race, mixed-race, gender and identity, and the each of the contributors’ particular reactions to those attitudes.

The diversity of each woman’s story demonstrated the breadth and depth of the lived reality of the mixed experience for women in North America at that particular moment in time. In this way, the book became a snapshot of the North American racial terrain in the afterglow of the inauguration of the first mixed-race/Black American President—a pivotal point in history that many mistakenly labeled the dawning of a “post-racial” age….

For more information, click here.

Harris’ dual identities challenge America’s race labels

Associated Press
2020-08-21

Sally Ho

Benjamin Beltran, 26, on Aug. 18, 2020, in Washington. For most of his childhood, Beltran identified with his dad’s roots as a Filipino growing up. At times, that made his white mother worry he was forgetting her ancestry, which traces to Scotland and Ireland. Jacquelyn Martin / AP

Kamala Harris’ historic nomination for vice president on the Democratic ticket is challenging multicultural, race-obsessed America’s emphasis on labels.

It was just 20 years ago that the U.S. census began to allow Americans to identify as more than one race. And now, the country is on the threshold of seeing the name of Kamala Harris — proud daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother — on the national ballot.

Harris’ historic nomination for vice president on the Democratic ticket is challenging America’s emphasis on identity and labels.

While her dual heritage represents several slices of the multicultural and multiracial experience, many have puzzled over how to define her — an issue people of diverse backgrounds have long had to navigate.

Harris has long incorporated both sides of her parentage in her public persona, but also has been steadfast in claiming her Black identity, saying her mother — the biggest influence on her life — raised her and her sister as Black because that’s the way the world would view them.

“My mother instilled in my sister, Maya, and me the values that would chart the course of our lives,” Harris said in a Wednesday night speech at the Democratic National Convention to accept her party’s nomination. “She raised us to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage.”…

Read the entire article here.

It’s Not Just Black and White: Exploring a Pedagogy of Racial Visibility and the Biracial Korean/White Self

Departures in Critical Qualitative Research
Volume 4, Issue 4 (Winter 2015)
pages 8–32
DOI: 10.1525/dcqr.2015.4.4.8

Stephanie L. Young, Associate Professor of Communication Studies
University of Southern Indiana

In this autoethnography, I offer a pedagogy of racial visibility. Drawing on my embodied experiences both in and outside of the classroom, I explore how I engage in dialogue with my students about theoretical and critical approaches toward understanding rhetorics of race in the United States. Specifically, as an embodied storyteller, I reflect upon my personal stories as a biracial Korean American woman and investigate the instabilities of racial identities, the taken-for-granted racial understandings, and racism and white privilege in America.

Read the entire article here.