Mixed Race Studies

I’m a Teen of Mixed Race: Here’s What It’s Like to Grow Up Biracial in America Today

Parents
2020-03-03

Adiah Siler

ILLUSTRATION BY YEJI KIM

In this week’s ‘Teen Talk’ column, a teen explains her experience growing up mixed and how parents can help their children navigate the complexities of being biracial with single-race friends and family.

In my eighteen years growing up as mixed race, I’ve only had one biracial friend. She was a year younger than me and endlessly realistic—the one friend everyone needs who tells it like it is.

“Being mixed isn’t some great injustice,” she said to me one morning after I brought up some of the discomforts I had about feeling “othered” by our friends. Growing up, my school district was predominantly white, and my identity had developed around that of my peers. Now, being in an art school where it’s much more diverse, I’ve had to acclimate to the many ways blackness presents itself around me. “Talent scouts, modeling agencies, casting directors … they all love racial ambiguity—it sells better,” she added.

I’d never thought of my mixed skin tone like this before. My mom is white and my dad is black. Although I don’t pass for white at all, with an Afro and dark skin, I am definitely light-skinned compared to others, which has its advantages. But my mixed look has definitely been complicated for me. I was 4 years old the first time I realized that my mother’s hair was nothing like mine and never would be. At age 12 I was referred to by the N-word for the first time and felt such rage and confusion that I didn’t know how to react. My white friend later explained to me that it wasn’t a big deal, her friends said it all the time…

Now 18, I have predominantly white friends, and a white partner. I’m finally at the age where I can recognize not only my privilege in being mixed, but my luck in finding both black and white people that I love and identify with.

Colorism, or discrimination based on skin complexion, plays a huge role in the ways that modern society operates and picks the minorities it wants to show. There is also truth to the fact that being mixed can be incredibly difficult and confusing at times. There have always been a thousand little things that make me feel disconnected from my single-race family and friends. I want parents to understand the complexities that come with raising a mixed child, so they can help their children navigate the “in-betweeness” that I have felt and that never really leaves.

Read the entire article here.

My message to biracial people questioning their role in Black Lives Matter

TODAY
2020-06-30

Dr. Sarah E. Gaither, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Duke University

As a biracial Black and white woman with white skin and brown wavy hair, does my anger in response to the countless racist murders taking place across our country even matter? Because of how I look, I find myself questioning whether the pain I feel right now should even be acknowledged.

Over the past few weeks, I have received countless emails and Twitter messages from other biracial people — some friends, others complete strangers — asking for guidance in thinking about their own identities. One said, “I have always identified as Black, but these past few weeks have made me feel so white that now I’m questioning if I ever should have identified as Black because maybe I am too white-looking to claim that part of me.”…

Read the entire article here.

White Fathers and Their Black–White Biracial Sons

Marriage & Family Review
Volume 54, Issue 4 (2018)
pages 374-392
DOI: 10.1080/01494929.2017.1403994

Lorna Durrant, M.S., Graduate Teaching Assistant
Department of Family Sciences
Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas

Nerissa LeBlanc Gillum, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Department of Family Sciences
Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas

The purpose of this literature review was to ascertain the concerns of White fathers raising their biological Black–White biracial sons, as well as the concerns of the sons themselves. Nine databases were selected for this review. The criteria for this review were (a) studies with a sample or subsample of White fathers, (b) studies with a subsample of Black–White biracial male participants (c) articles from scholarly peer reviewed journals, and (d) a date range between 2000 and 2016. A total of eight articles were found that matched the criteria. Of the eight studies, seven were qualitative with the number of participants ranging from 10 to 31, and the quantitative study had 317 participants. Three concerns were revealed for White fathers: dealing with racism, access to minority culture, and teachers’ expectations. Three challenges for the sons were self-identification, force-choice dilemma, and appearance. Implications and future research are discussed.

Read or purchase the article here.

‘Complicating my place:’ multiracial women faculty navigating monocentricity in higher education––a polyethnography

Race Ethnicity and Education
Published online: 2020-04-23
DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2020.1753679

Kelly F. Jackson, Associate Professor of Social Work
Arizona State University

Dana J. Stone, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Counseling
California State University, Northridge

E. Namisi Chilungu, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology
Georgia State University

Jillian Carter Ford, Associate Professor of Social Studies Education
Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia

This polyethnography is an interdisciplinary collaboration between four multiracial women faculty employed at different universities across the US to examine their experiences navigating monocentricity in higher education. This insightful study amplifies the voices of a particular subset of women of color faculty who identify multiracially – a group overlooked in existing literature examining diverse faculty experiences in higher education. Utilizing Multiracial Critical Race Theory (MultiCrit), we reflex on the similarities and nuances that exist within and between our written stories of experience. Conjointly, our critical reflections reveal the prevalence of monoracism within institutions of higher education, which places both internal and external pressures on multiracial women faculty to demarcate themselves monoracially, while simultaneously maintaining a clandestine borderland identity within their departments. Implications for this study reveal the importance of multiracial counterspaces for multiracial faculty as a form of resistance against monocentricity in US institutions of higher education.

Read or purchase the article here.

I’m a Black and Jewish Woman. My Identity Matters.

Kveller
2020-06-04

Faith Gabbay-Kalson

“What are you?”

I have been asked this question on way too many occasions: in private, in public, by strangers, by people I was acquainted with, and by many who should have known better. Singled out, put on the spot.

What am I? Hmm… I’m a woman, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a friend, a lover of beautiful things, a designer, the list goes on. I’m human — at least that’s what I so naively assumed. Our single race has been divided up into category upon subcategory, and this world forces you into just a single, specific, and limiting box.

But what does one do when you sit on the fence between two vast divides?

I’m the daughter of a Jewish (white) mother and a Guyanese (Black) father. My story was split from the very start. However, it really is so much more complex than that. I was raised Jewish, running the gamut from Reform/Conservative all the way through to sectors of ultra-Orthodoxy. My story has evolved along the way. One thing remained constant, though: more boxes, more labels, not all of them choices…

Read the entire article here.

Raising Multiracial Children: Tools for Nurturing Identity in a Racialized World

Penguin Random House Canada
2020-04-07
224 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781623174491
Ebook ISBN: 9781623174507

Farzana Nayani

The essential guide to parenting multiracial and multiethnic children of all ages—and learning to nourish, support, and celebrate their multiracial identity.

While the fastest growing demographic in the US is comprised of people who identify as two or more races, parents of muliethnic kids still lack practical, concrete resources written just for them. In a world where people are more likely to proclaim colorblindness than talk openly about race, how can we truly value, support, and celebrate our kids’ identity? How can we assess our own sense of racial readiness, and develop a deeper understanding of the issues facing multiracial children today?

Raising Multiracial Children gives parents the tools for exploring race with their children, offering practical guidance on how to initiate conversations; consciously foster multicultural identity development; discuss issues like microaggressions, intersectionality, and privilege; and intentionally cultivate a sense of belonging. It provides an overview of key issues and current topics relevant to raising multiracial children and offers strategies that can be implemented in the classroom and at home, with developmentally appropriate milestones from infancy through adulthood. The book ends with resources and references for further learning and exploration.

Creole Son: An Adoptive Mother Untangles Nature and Nurture

LSU Press
March 2020
216 pages
5.50 x 8.50 inches / 6 halftones
Paperback ISBN: 9780807173107

E. Kay Trimberger, Professor Emerita of Women’s and Gender Studies
Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California

Introduction by:

Andrew Solomon, Professor of Clinical Psychology
Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York

Creole Son is the compelling memoir of a single white mother searching to understand why her adopted biracial son grew from a happy child into a troubled young adult who struggled with addiction for decades. The answers, E. Kay Trimberger finds, lie in both nature and nurture.

When five-­day-­old Marco is flown from Louisiana to California and placed in Trimberger’s arms, she assumes her values and example will be the determining influences upon her new son’s life. Twenty-­six years later, when she helps him make contact with his Cajun and Creole biological relatives, she discovers that many of his cognitive and psychological strengths and difficulties mirror theirs. Using her training as a sociologist, Trimberger explores behavioral genetics research on adoptive families. To her relief as well as distress, she learns that both biological heritage and the environment—and their interaction—shape adult outcomes.

Trimberger shares deeply personal reflections about raising Marco in Berkeley in the 1980s and 1990s, with its easy access to drugs and a culture that condoned their use. She examines her own ignorance about substance abuse, and also a failed experiment in an alternative family lifestyle. In an afterword, Marc Trimberger contributes his perspective, noting a better understanding of his life journey gained through his mother’s research.

By telling her story, Trimberger provides knowledge and support to all parents—biological and adoptive—with troubled offspring. She ends by suggesting a new adoption model, one that creates an extended, integrated family of both biological and adoptive kin.

Episode 281 – Dr. Kelly Jackson and Dr. Gina Miranda Samuels: Multiracial Attunement: Shifting Social Work Towards a Culture of Inclusivity

inSocialWork^® Podcast Series
School of Social Work
State University of New York, Buffalo
2020-02-25

Interviewer: Josal Diebold, Ph.D. Candidate

Kelly Jackson, MSW, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Social Work
Arizona State University

Gina Miranda Samuels, Ph.D., MSW, Associate Professor at the School of Social Service Administration; Faculty Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture
University of Chicago

In this episode, our guests Dr. Kelly Jackson and Dr. Gina Miranda Samuels discuss the topic of multiracial cultural attunement and deliberate why the issue of multiraciality lacks prominence in social work literature and research. Given the growing multiracial population, the importance of going beyond the black-white dichotomy is emphasized in order to address the disproportionate challenges and risks multiracial individuals and families face. The episode concludes with a discussion on Multiracial Cultural Attunement, a book designed to help social workers apply skills and tools to leverage the strength and resilience of multiracial individuals and families.

Listen to the interview (00:40:54) here. Download the interview here. Read the transcript here.

Black/white mixed-race experiences of race and racism in Poland

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online 2020-02-25
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1729390

Bolaji Balogun
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Presidential Fellow in Ethinicty and Inequalities
University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Whilst literature on race and ethnicity in Poland is growing, it has yet to fully grapple with the diverse range of racial identities in Poland. Simultaneously, despite calls for Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) to develop into a more global field, there remains a paucity of literature focusing on racial mixedness in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and no substantive consideration of the lived experiences of mixed-race people in Poland. Taking these absences as our entry point, we bring Critical Mixed Race Studies into conversation with pieces of literature on race and ethnicity in Poland in order to extend the theoretical and empirical terrain of both fields. Drawing upon data from interviews conducted with black/white mixed-race people in Poland, this article casts light on the lives of this nascent group, and specifically on their experiences of racism and exclusion in a society imagined as homogenously white.

Read or purchase the entire article here.

Interracialism: Biracials Learning About African-American Culture (BLAAC) with Dr. Zebulon Vance Miletsky

State University of New York, Stony Brook
Frank Melville Jr. Memorial Library
Central Reading Room
100 Nicolls Road
Stony Brook, New York 11794
2020-02-19, 16:00-17:15 EST (Local Time)

Zebulon Vance Miletsky, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and History

A discussion of interracialism and interracial marriage, and the phenomenon of “anti blackness”—identity and mixed race in the 21st century, and the possible stakes for those who identify as multiracial and biracial—in these politically divided times.

For more information, click here.