Mixed Race Studies

One Drop of Love is coming to Massachusetts and New York in April

One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for Her Father’s Racial Approval
2015-04-07

Photo by Jeff Lorch

“What Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni brings to the table is a moving and insightful microscope to our belief that there is such a thing as race and how the assignment of identity plays out in destructive ways that impact each and every one of us. This is a critical component that often gets missed in our attempts to dismantle this social construct.” —Carol Ross, Media and Climate Communications Specialist for Amherst, Massachusetts.

For more information, click here.

Black and Yellow: Blasian Narratives

Psychology Today
2015-04-07

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu Ed.D.

Crossing racial borders through storytelling

Saturday night I went to an event called, Black and Yellow: Blasian Narratives, featuring students from Stanford joining a group from Morehouse and Spelman, two historically black colleges. The students presented both monologues and interactive storytelling. Their diversity was stunning, Asian being Korean, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Japanese, and Vietnamese, with diverse forms of Black as well, from the Caribbean to Ghana. The purpose of the project by Canon Empire, a Cambodian American filmmaker and storyteller, is to unite Asian and Black communities through “Blasian” narratives and intimate and critical dialogues about race. He seeks to illuminate the reality that two communities historically socialized to see each other as polarized opposites and as competition and comparisons actually have much in common.

The presentations showed the complexity of lives that cross borders and enter liminal and marginal spaces, where creativity can flourish. Each person, in their own unique way, expressed their identities-in-flux, as if they were re-creating it right there on stage. As I watched them perform I was reminded of the wisdom of the identity scholar Erikson, who reminded us that: “Identity consciousness is overcome by a sense of identity won in action.”…

Read the entire article here.

“Mixed” Results: Multiracial Research and Identity Explorations

Current Directions in Psychological Science
Volume 24, Number 2 (April 2015)
pages 114-119
DOI: 10.1177/0963721414558115

Sarah E. Gaither
Department of Psychology and Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Multiracial individuals report that the social pressure of having to “choose” one of their racial groups is a primary source of psychological conflict. Yet because of their ability to maneuver among their multiple identities, multiracials also adopt flexible cognitive strategies in dealing with their social environments—demonstrating a benefit to having multiple racial identities. The current article reviews recent research involving multiracial participants to examine the behavioral and cognitive outcomes linked to being multiracial and pinpoints possible moderators that may affect these outcomes. Limitations in applying monoracial identity frameworks to multiracial populations are also discussed.

Read the entire article here.

Exposure to Racial Ambiguity Influences Lay Theories of Race

Social Psychological and Personality Science
Volume 6, Number 4 (May 2015)
pages 382-390
DOI: 10.1177/1948550614562844

Diana T. Sanchez, Associate Professor of Psychology
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Danielle M. Young
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Kristin Pauker, Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Hawaii, Manoa

Biological lay theories of race have proven to have pernicious consequences for interracial relations, yet few studies have examined how intergroup contact itself (particularly with those who naturalistically challenge these conceptions) affects beliefs about race. Three studies (a correlational study, an interaction study, and an experimental study) examine whether exposure to racially ambiguous individuals reduces Whites’ biological lay theories of race across time. Study 1 demonstrates that increased exposure to racial ambiguity across 2 weeks reduced White individuals’ biological lay theories. Study 2 shows that Whites who interacted in a laboratory setting with a racially ambiguous individual were less likely to endorse biological lay theories, an effect that sustained for 2 weeks. Study 3 finds that the reduction in biological lay theories after exposure to racial ambiguity is mediated by the tendency for Whites’ lay theories of race to conform to beliefs they presume racially ambiguous individuals hold.

Read or purchase the article here.

Gorgeous Black-And-White Portraits Explore The Meaning Of Multiracial Identities

The Huffington Post
2015-03-30

Katherine Brooks, Senior Arts & Culture Editor

“I began this project because I recognized that I was part of a underrepresented group of people,” artist Samantha Wall explained in an email to HuffPost. “It’s difficult to talk about multiraciality with individuals who can’t understand our perspective. It’s not as simple as being part this and part that, our identities can’t be so easily divided. But art is a language that lends itself to communicating experiences too difficult to comprehend through words alone.”

For her project “Indivisible,” Wall explores the meaning of multiracial identities in Korea and the United States through a series of black-and-white portraits. The images show models staring fearlessly at the viewer, flashing a smile, a laugh and sometimes even a grimace. Wall’s charcoal and ink illustrations attempt to convey, as she notes, a feeling that words cannot. “Through this work I am exposing the plurality of emotions that sculpt human subjectivity,” she writes on her website. “The drawings of these women are portals into the human psyche, a place where emotions call out and perceived racial boundaries dissolve.”…

Read the entire article here…

Redefining — by not defining — biracialism

The Daily Illini: The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
Tuesday, 2015-03-31

Audrey Majors, Opinions columnist

Last week controversy arose over Japan’s 2015 Miss Universe contestant, Ariana Miyamoto, because she’s biracial— something critics, many of whom are Japanese, have taken issue with. Miyamoto has an African-American father and does not look like what most people imagine a traditional Japanese woman to look like.

As several news outlets have pointed out, Miyamoto speaks Japanese, lived most of her childhood in Japan and has a Japanese mother. Much of the discussion in defense of Miyamoto has consisted of the idea that these qualities make her Japanese, despite her biracial status. While I applaud the well-intentioned support for Miyamoto’s chosen racial identity, any legitimation of her race is unneeded because each person should be the sole authority of their racial identity.

I firmly believe no one should have to defend their chosen racial identity. And it sure as hell isn’t okay for anyone to police or undermine the racial identity someone has chosen. Even though the United States is more racially diverse than Japan, this type of exclusion exists here, too. And it will continue to exist everywhere until we change the way we think about racial categories and stereotypes…

…Racial identity is not merely a matter of appearance or genetics, but is one factor combined with social and cultural experiences that have shaped each person’s racial experience. Policing how multiracial people chose to identify neglects our right to understand the experiences that we feel best reflect ourselves…

Read the entire article here.

When Change Doesn’t Matter: Racial Identity (In)consistency and Adolescent Well-being

Sociology of Race & Ethnicity
Volume 1, Number 2 (April 2015)
pages 270-286
DOI: 10.1177/2332649214552730

Rory Kramer, Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology and Criminology
Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania

Ruth Burke
Department of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania

Camille Z. Charles, Professor of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania

Most theories of racial self-identity argue that a racially inconsistent identity indicates emotional distress and internal turmoil. However, empirical research on racial identity and consistency indicates that racial inconsistency is more common than previously believed, and some argue that it can be a positive adaptation for individuals. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, we explore the degree to which racial identity inconsistency is associated with emotional, social, and academic outcomes. We find that racial inconsistency is not associated with negative outcomes for individuals and, via access to white privilege, may be associated with benefits for some individuals. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of racial identity.

Read the entire article here.

Independent Lens | Little White Lie | I Identify: What Forces Determine Your Identity?

Independent Lens
Public Broadcasting Service
2015-03-23

In conjunction with Lacey Schwartz’s “Little White Lie,” in which the filmmaker discovers an identity-altering family secret, Independent Lens presents “I Identify” — a digital short featuring nine San Francisco Bay Area residents exploring the forces that shape identity. Who controls your identity? Do you? Do the people around you? Is your identity dictated by society at large?

Little White Lie

Independent Lens
Public Broadcasting Service
Monday, 2015-03-23, 22:00 EDT (21:00 CDT) (check schedule here)

Little White Lie tells Lacey Schwartz’s story of growing up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity — despite the open questions from those around her about how a white girl could have such dark skin. She believes her family’s explanation that her looks were inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather. But when her parents abruptly split, her gut starts to tell her something different.

At age 18, she finally confronts her mother and learns the truth: her biological father was not the man who raised her, but an African American man named Rodney with whom her mother had had an affair. Afraid of losing her relationship with her parents, Lacey doesn’t openly acknowledge her newly discovered black identity with her white family. When her biological father dies shortly before Lacey’s 30th birthday, the family secret can stay hidden no longer. Following the funeral, Lacey begins a quest to reconcile the hidden pieces of her life and heal her relationship with the only father she ever knew.

Schwartz pieces together her family history and the story of her dual identity using home videos, archival footage, interviews, and episodes from her own life. Little White Lie is a personal documentary about the legacy of family secrets, denial, and redemption.

6 things I wish people understood about being biracial

Vox
2015-03-11

Jenée Desmond-Harris, Race, Law, and Politics Reporter

According to the results of a DNA test I took recently, my ancestors on my father’s side are mostly from West Africa (via Arkansas), and the ones on my mom’s side come from Europe. When strangers inquire about my racial background, I tend to try to de-escalate their interest. I say things like, “I’m just your run-of-the-mill mixed person with a white mom and a black dad.” In other words: nothing super exotic. Nothing to see here.

Why am I so dismissive? I’m a little self-conscious about engaging in excessive navel-gazing regarding my racial identity. It hasn’t been particularly difficult for me to manage. If anything, it may have made life easier for me and meant I’ve encountered less racism than people who have two parents who identify as black. I definitely don’t consider myself a “tragic mulatto.”

And with 9 million Americans selecting more than one race on the last Census — not to mention a president who has a white mother and a black father — it’s hard to argue that being “mixed,” “multiracial,” or “mulatto” (I’ve been called all of those) in 2015 is really all that unusual.

But I can’t deny that as long as race and racism are hot topics in our culture, biracial and multiracial people will continue to be a source of curiosity and fascination. Confession: even I find myself looking a little longer at mixed-race families on the streets of Washington, DC, craning my head to see which parent the children resemble most and wondering how they’ll see themselves. As a writer, I’ve been amazed by the way articles about interracial couples, families, or biracial children intrigue readers every single time. My guess is that it’s because these stories provide fodder for people to grapple with the nuances of their own identities and push the limits of racial categories, which is itself sort of fascinating.

So there’s nothing wrong with the continued curiosity about the experience of biracial people — whether their parents identify as black and white or some other combination society sees as interesting — but there are a few things I’d like people to know about those of us who are living it…

Read the entire article here.