Mixed Race Studies

Racial Socialization of Biracial Youth: Maternal Messages and Approaches to Address Discrimination

Family Relations: Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies
Volume 62, Issue 1 (February 2013)
pages 140–153
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00748.x

Alethea Rollins, Instructor, Child and Family Development
University of Central Missouri

Andrea G. Hunter, Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

We explored how mothers of biracial youth prepare their children to navigate diverse racial ecologies and experiences of racism and discrimination. A qualitative thematic analysis was used to identify racial socialization messages mothers used and emergent racial socialization approaches. Mothers of biracial youth engaged in the full range of racial socialization discussed in the literature, including cultural, minority, self-development, egalitarian, and silent racial socialization. These messages varied by the biracial heritage of the youth, such that mothers of biracial youth with Black heritage were more likely to provide self-development racial socialization messages, whereas mothers of biracial youth without Black heritage were more likely to provide silent racial socialization. On the basis of the array of racial socialization messages mothers delivered, we identified three emergent approaches: promotive, protective, and passive racial socialization.

Read the entire article here.

What does Martin Luther King mean to Latinos today?

Bentley IMPACT – The Power of Ideas
Bentley University, Waltham, Massachusetts
2013-01-17

Donna Maria Blancero, Associate Professor of Management

“I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2013, we must ask ourselves the question: has his dream become a reality for Latinos?

We know that Dr. King inspired many Latinos, including Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Latinos, just like other Americans, consider Dr. King a great leader of the civil rights movement. If he were alive today, he likely would be working side by side with Latinos to address issues of inequality.

But what does his legacy mean for us today? Has his dream been achieved?…

…When I ask participants in my research to self-identify their race (they all self-identify as Latino), I am typically met with a range of responses. Some are angry at me and state that they are Mexican American or Puerto Rican and that I shouldn’t be asking about race—their race, they say, is Latino! Others have written in comments, such as “I checked off ‘white’ but don’t tell my family, they would be angry at me.” Many Latinos have mixed backgrounds that don’t easily fit into a box. More importantly, many of us don’t want to be put in a box, even if it is “multi-racial.’”…

Read the entire article here.

AfroPoP – A Lot Like You

AfroPoP
PBS Video
Duration: (00:56:59)
Premiere Date: 2013-01-22
Episode Expires: 2013-02-22

Eliaichi Kimaro, Director

A bi-racial filmmaker returns to her father’s home tribe on Mount Kilomanjaro.

Premieres January 22nd on the WORLD Channel. In this award-winning and very personal documentary a young woman probes her interracial roots to find some difficult truths about her own past and her father’s male-dominated East African culture.

For more information, click here.

A Code To Live By In Appalachia

Transom
2013-01-30

Mary Helen Miller, Producer/Reporter
WUTC, 88.1 FM
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

with help from:
Viki Merrick, Editor

There may come a day when races are so blended as to be irrelevant, but not yet. For our first 2012 Transom Donor Fund piece, producer Mary Helen Miller explores the racial identity of Melungeons in Appalachia. It’s not an easy task to come up with a definition, as it turns out, even in the age of DNA. The truth of heritage can be tough to admit for some. Mary Helen’s piece will clear things up for you, as clear as possible anyway, and includes a trip to the 16th annual Melungeon Reunion in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. –Jay Allison, Producer/Editor/Founder

About A Code To Live By In Appalachia
 
“Mysterious” is probably the first word most people associate with the Melungeons. They were a mixed race group that settled in southern Appalachia in the late 1700s. They lived in their own communities, separate from their white neighbors. Some stayed in those communities as late as the mid-20th century.

The oldest generations of Melungeons had a striking look: dark skin, straight black hair, blue eyes. Nobody knew where they had come from or how, exactly, they ended up in the mountains along the Tennessee-Virginia border. Melungeons themselves often explained their distinct looks by claiming Native American or Portuguese ancestry. But their white neighbors would sometimes claim they had African heritage.

The mystery of the Melungeon people drew me in, just like it’s drawn in so many others. Growing up in Tennessee, I remember my mom occasionally mentioning the Melungeons. Whatever remarks she made always seemed to end with: “… and nobody knows where they’re from. Isn’t that something?”
 
Recently, a little googling led me to Jack Goins, the force behind the Melungeon DNA Project. Jack is a retired TV salesman in Hawkins County, Tennessee, who is descended from Melungeons. He’s been gathering DNA samples from other descendants to try to get some answers about Melungeon ancestry…

Read the entire article here. Download/Listen to the episode (00:16:56)  here.

Hafu: The Film

Hafu: The Film
2013-01-30

Megumi Nishikura, Director, Producer and Cinematographer

Lara Perez Takagi, Director, Producer and Cinematographer

Marcia Yumi Lise, Thematic Advisor

Jilann Spitzmiller, Executive Producer

Aika Miyake, Editor

Winton White, Music

Dear Friends,

A belated happy new years to you! We have been quietly busy these past few months but have many great announcements to share with you.

Our first screening date has been set! On April 5th we will be screening at the Japan American National Museum in Los Angeles. Filmmakers Lara and Megumi will be present at the post-screening discussion afterwards. Seats are limited so RSVP your spot today.

The screening is part of the 5-day Hapa Japan Festival, which celebrates the stories of the growing number of mixed-Japanese in the US. For those in Los Angeles area this event is not to be missed!…

For more information, click here.

Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist

Penn State University Press
2012-05-19
336 pages
6 x 9, 1 illustration
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-271-05246-5

G. Reginald Daniel, Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839–1908) was Brazil’s foremost novelist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a mulatto, Machado experienced the ambiguity of racial identity throughout his life. Literary critics first interpreted Machado as an embittered misanthrope uninterested in the plight of his fellow African Brazilians. By midcentury, however, a new generation of critics asserted that Machado’s writings did reveal his interest in slavery, race, and other contemporary social issues, but their interpretations went too far in the other direction. Reginald Daniel, whose expertise on Brazilian race relations gives him special insights, takes a fresh look at how Machado’s life—especially his experience of his own racial identity—was inflected in his writings. The result is a new interpretation that sees Machado as endeavoring to transcend his racial origins by universalizing the experience of racial ambiguity and duality into a fundamental mode of human existence.

When Half is Whole: Understanding Mixed Race Identities

Stanford University, Cypress North
Tresidder Union
459 Lagunita
2013-02-01, 12:00 PST (Local Time)

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Consulting Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine & Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity will discuss identity development in persons of mixed racial and national backgrounds.  This topic has particular appeal to those who are interracially married and have children who are racially mixed, as well as people of mixed race heritage or for parents who are raising children who are ethnically different from them.

Free and open to all faculty, staff, retirees, postdocs and their eligible dependents who are part of the Stanford University, SLAC, Stanford hospital and clinics, LPCH.

For more information, click here.

The Effect of Parents’ Ethnic Socialization Practices on Ethnic Identity, Self-Esteem and Psychological Adjustment of Multi Ethnic Children in Malaysia

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
Issue 72 (December 2012)
pages 807-810

Chua Bee Seok

Rosnah Ismail

Jasmine Adela Mutang

Shaziah Iqbal

Nur Farhana Ardillah Aftar

Alfred Chan Huan Zhi

Ferlis Bin Bahari

Lailawati Madlan

Hon Kai Yee

The present study aims to explore the role of parents’ ethnic socialization practices contributes to the ethnic identity development, self-esteem and psychological adjustment of multi ethnic children in Sabah, Malaysia. A total of 342 multi ethnic children (age range = 10 years old to 14 years old; mean age = 12.65 years, SD = 0.88) and their parents participated in the present study. The modified version of Multi group Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM), The Familial Ethnic Socialization Measure (FESM). The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) and Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale Edition 2 (BERS-2) were used in this study. The results showed that: i) parents’ ethnic socialization practice was a strong predictor of ethnic identity development of multi ethnic children; ii) parents’ ethnic socialization practice also was a significant predictor of self-esteem of multi ethnic children; iii) parents’ ethnic socialization practice was not a significant predictor of psychological adjustment of multi ethnic children. The results of this study showed the implications parents’ ethnic socialization practices and ethnic identity development in successful multi ethnic families.

Read the entire article here.

A Lot Like You: A Film by Eliaichi Kimaro

USA/Tanzania
2012
55 minutes/82 minutes

Eliachi Kimaro, Director

• (2012) WINNER, Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary: 35th Annual Asian American International Film Festival (New York)
• (2012) WINNER, Best Documentary: Female Eye Film Festival (Toronto)
• (2012) WINNER, Jury Prize for Best Documentary: 30th Annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
• (2011) WINNER, Public Award for the Best Film Directed By a Woman of Color: African Diaspora International Film Festival (New York)
• (2011) WINNER, Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature: Montreal International Black Film Festival

Eliaichi Kimaro is a mixed-race, first-generation American with a Tanzanian father and Korean mother. When her retired father moves back to Tanzania, Eliaichi begins a project that evocatively examines the intricate fabric of multiracial identity, and grapples with the complex ties that children have to the cultures of their parents.
 
Kimaro decides to document her father’s path back to his family and Chagga culture. In the process, she struggles with her own relationship to Tanzania, and learns more about the heritage that she took for granted as a child. Yet as she talks to more family members, especially her aunts, she uncovers a cycle of violence that resonates with her work and life in the United States. When Kimaro speaks with her parents about the oppression her aunts face, she faces a jarring disconnect between immigrant generations on questions of patriarchy and violence.
 
“One reason this film works,” notes Tikkun Magazine, “is that Kimaro situates her own personal family history within a social, historical, and political context of African decolonization, transnational relations, race, class, and gender politics.” With poignant personal reflection and an engaging visual style, A Lot Like You draws the viewer into a journey that is filled with rich, multifaceted stories and history.

Have a complicated identity? America’s future looks ‘A Lot Like You’

The Seattle Globalist: Where Seattle Meets the World.
2013-01-25

Sarah Stuteville, Cofounder

“The bibimbap, is that dolsot?” asks documentary filmmaker Eli Kimaro looking up from the menu of Wabi-Sabi in Columbia City.

She’s trying to gauge the authenticity of the Korean dish in question. This version doesn’t come in the traditional heated stone pot (dolsot), but she goes for it anyway–calling the rice bowl a favorite “comfort food.”

Kimaro couldn’t be more at home ordering Korean food in a neighborhood with an African American history and a growing reputation for international diversity.

Her father is Tanzanian and her mother is Korean. They both worked in international aid and development in Washington DC and Kimaro grew up in a community where being cross-cultural “was the norm.”…

…Kimaro, who identifies as a black woman and a “Tanzkomerican” explores these themes in “A Lot Like You,” which follows her journey back to Tanzania to explore her family’s roots in the Chagga culture while telling the story of her unique childhood…

Read the entire article here.