Mixed Race Studies

Mixing it Up

Salon
2001-03-08

Suzy Hansen

Alabama just legalized black-white marriage. An expert talks about why it took so long and the American obsession with racial purity.

In November 2000, after a statewide vote in a special election, Alabama became the last state to overturn a law that was an ugly reminder of America’s past, a ban on interracial marriage. The one-time home of George Wallace and Martin Luther King Jr. had held onto the provision for 33 years after the Supreme Court declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. Yet as the election revealed — 40 percent of Alabamans voted to keep the ban — many people still see the necessity for a law that prohibits blacks and whites from mixing blood.

Werner Sollors, a professor of Afro-American studies at Harvard, was born in Germany and came to the United States in 1978. He has been studying and writing about the history of American interracial relationships since 1986. Sollors is the editor of the recently published “Interracialism: Black-White Intermarriage in American History, Literature, and Law,” a fascinating survey of legal decisions, literary criticism and essays by writers and scholars including Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois and Randall Kennedy. Salon spoke with Sollors by phone from his office in Cambridge about the mixed-race origins — and multiracial future — of the nation.

What took Alabama so long to overturn its anti-miscegenation law?

In the years after the Civil War, most of the Southern states made miscegenation bans part of their constitutions. And part of the constitutional provision was that no legislation should ever change them. These were not just ordinary laws that you could modify with a simple majority; they called for very complicated processes and very large majorities to be overturned.

In 1967, the Supreme Court invalidated these anti-miscegenation provisions with the Loving vs. Virginia case, and the Southern states began to adjust. But not right away. In the first 10 or 15 years, there wasn’t a lot of activism or popular support for having the laws changed — no politician wanted to be caught trying to remove those statutes. I think Mississippi did it in 1987 or 1988 — 20 years after the Loving vs. Virginia case…

…What’s been going on with racial categories in the census is also interesting.

The census had two rules. One is the 1997 rule that permitted everyone to mark more than one box in the 2000 census. Then came the 2000 evaluation procedure, which allowed the census to classify anyone who marked more than one box as part of the “people of color” category — if there was a white and color mix indicated.

Essentially, it’s one thing to say that a person can fall into multiple racial categories, but what happens to all the people in the old categories? It can have some disastrous consequences now because in some states, apparently many white Americans found it fashionable to indicate that they were Native American. In some counties where Native Americans were a minority they may now end up as a majority. There are lots of headaches with counting and civil rights and voting rights and districting that are going to come in the next two years as a result of this census decision…

Read the entire interview here.

A Conversation with Eric Hamako

MixedRaceStudies.org
2013-01-23

Steven F. Riley, Creator

This is the first in a series of interviews with scholars, writers, activists and others involved with the topic of multiracilism.

Scholar Eric Hamakois an Ed.D. candidate in the Social Justice Education concentration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a long-time student- and community-organizer of mixed-race activities. Last October, Eric wasappointed to a position on the United States Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee(NAC) on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations for a two-year term. The committee, as one of several National Advisory Committees, advises theCensus Bureauon a wide range of variables that affect the cost, accuracy and implementation of the Census Bureau’s programs and surveys.

I had a chance to sit down with Eric the morning of November 2, 2012, during the2012 Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference (CMRS) at DePaul University in an attempt to learn more about him, his scholarship and his activism and how they intersect. The day before, both Eric and I had presented papers at the conference. Eric also presentedanotherpaper on Saturday followed by a report on the census for the CMRS business meeting on Sunday! Thus our face-to-face time was quite pleasant, yet far too brief. Recently, I caught up with him to follow up on our CMRS chat.

Steve Riley: What inspired you to get involved with mixed-race community and student organizing?

Eric Hamako: In college, like many Mixed-identified folks, I sought out community in various ways with various groups. In some places, I wasn’t seen as belonging or didn’t feel welcomed. In others, I felt I had more opportunities; people saw potential in me and welcomed my contributions. In particular, toward the end of college, I heard about a student organizing a student chapter of Hapa Issues Forum. I attended the small meeting and, as I listened to others, I thought, “Well, I have some thoughts and suggestions for what this group should do…” And, opening my big mouth, people seemed supportive—so much so that they said, “That’s a good idea… you’re in charge of that.” Little did I realize, at the time, that this was the first meeting and that, by virtue of showing up and demonstrating some initiative, I had somewhat inadvertently joined the leadership core of the group. Mixed-Race organizing has, unlike some of my other work and volunteer experiences, been a place where I’ve felt that I could make a more substantial difference. I’ve worked in other positions where, if I was heard at all, my ideas weren’t given much merit and I wasn’t sure what difference I was making. But, with my Mixed-Race work, I’ve felt that I’ve had more sense of community and more sense that I could impact what’s going on. So, I’ve tried to nurture that in my own work, to provide opportunities for others to connect and make their marks, too.

SR: Can you describe the selection process for membership to the Census NAC?

EH: Over the past few years, a number of Multiracial student and community organizations have been networking and getting closer to one another. Through some of our collective work, we were informed by a Census representative that the Census Bureau was putting out a public call for nominations to a new iteration of the Census Bureau’s advisory committee system. Our loose network of Multiracial organizations’ leaders decided we’d nominate someone, in hopes that we’d have a representative on the committee interested in Multiracial issues. Through an internal nomination and vote, the group elected to nominate me for a position. The Census Bureau grandparented in fifteen members of the former advisory committees, the REACs (Racial and Ethnic Advisory Committees), and of the nominations received, selected an additional seventeen new advisory committee members, for a total of thirty-two members on our National Advisory Committee. The Census Bureau chose me as one of the seventeen new nominees. I don’t know much about the process the Census Bureau used to choose among the nominees, but it’s my sense that they were looking for members who would be knowledgeable in various subject-areas and had community connections to various marginalized and hard-to-count populations.

SR: Certainly there are others in the mixed-race community who might have served on the Census NAC. What do you bring as a representative that others may not?

EH: There definitely are other leaders who also have area-related knowledge, historical perspective, and strong connections to Multiracial organizations and networks. I feel fortunate to have been nominated by peers and selected by the Census Bureau. To help share the information I’m learning and to solicit the concerns and opinions of people interested in racial justice and Multiraciality, I’ve created a blog: Two Or More: Mixed thoughts about the Census NAC (http://censusnac.blogspot.com).

SR: Are the NAC meetings in-person?

EH: There are several different National Advisory Committees (NACs), including the NAC on Racial Ethnic and Other Populations. The NAC on which I serve is scheduled to meet in-person four times in two years, as well as holding at least two virtual meetings. These meetings are open to the public and provide comment periods, which I encourage people to use. Additionally, our NAC will have “working groups,” which are tasked with exploring and researching various subtopics, such as how to count hard-to-count populations; the impacts of using third-party databases to supplement Census Bureau data; and what might happen if the Census Bureau combined the “race question” and the “ethnicity question” into a single question. The working groups are also empowered to recruit experts from outside the NAC to contribute to the group’s work. So, for people interested in working with the NAC, you might think about how you could contribute to a working group’s work.

SR: Do you anticipate any changes affecting the Two or More Race (TOMR) option on the 2020 census?

EH: I think it’s important for everyone to know that neither racism nor race are stable or natural. Racism metastasizes and changes over time, changing the ways that race is thought about and implemented in the US. For the last few decades, the Census has been one way to try to observe and track the symptoms of racial inequalities. For example, we can use the data to determine whether a racial group is disproportionately imprisoned or denied access to equitable bank loans. Without such data, it’s difficult to demonstrate racist trends.

At the same time, the Census’ racial categories change from decade to decade; one reason for those changes has to do with the ways racism and race change over time. For example, the more a group is able to assert that it is a group and has valid claims to seek recognition and protection from racism, the more able it might be to seek recognition on the Census. The 1997 Directive No. 15 issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) allowed for the “Mark One Or More” (MOOM) format on the 2000 Census’ race question, resulting in the Two or More Races (TOMR) data we’ve seen from the 2000 and 2010 Census. At this point, I do not have reason to believe that the MOOM format will be significantly altered for the 2020 Census.

But, there are many important issues that are related and less visible. For example, in the lead-up to Directive No. 15, I think many people were talking about “What will the forms allow?” (i.e., “enumeration”) and far fewer people were talking about “How will people’s responses be counted up and reported out?” (i.e., “tabulation” and reporting). I encourage everyone to educate themselves about how the data is tabulated and reported. Different agencies and organizations tabulate and report in different ways—and that impacts how the data can be used and what we can learn about racial inequalities.

SR: What challenges (if any) do you anticipate with your NAC?

EH: I think several of the challenges are logistical, but the logistics of things also impact getting to know each other and working together. All of the committee members are working other jobs and have other responsibilities. We’re spread out across the country and meet in-person only a few times during our term; that makes getting to know each other and remotely coordinating our work more challenging. Thankfully, I think that many of us have had experience collaborating over long distances and the Census Bureau provides some technical support for bridging the distances (e.g., conference calls; a web-based space for communication and collaboration; financial support for travel to our in-person meetings). Another logistical or perhaps communication challenge is sharing information with and gathering concerns and opinions from various populations and communities. While I don’t claim to represent every Multiracial-identified person or every person concerned about Multiracial issues, I do hope to find ways to communicate with other people. For now, I’m counting on my connections to various Multiracial organizations and my attempts to reach out through those channels.

SR: The census in Canada does not collect data on race. Do you think that the U.S. should follow in its footsteps? Why or why not?

EH: Because I think the Census’s data about race is an important way to identify racial inequalities produced by systemic racism, I’m in favor of continuing to collect information about race, rather than discontinuing it. That said, collecting information about race via the Census is merely a way to track the symptoms of racism, rather than the systems through which racism operates. I think we need information about both.

Similarly—and perhaps controversially—I think that we often use a person’s racial self-identification (e.g., on the Census) as a loose way of inferring things about their experiences of racism. Some scholars have pointed out that this is somewhat sloppy and also reinforces the myth that “race” is real, when really race is just a product of racism. So, if what we really want to know is, “What’re your experiences of racism?” then we can and should ask additional questions, beyond just “What’s your racial identity?” or “What race are you?” Part of racism’s myth of race is the idea that members of a so-called racial group are all similar and thus different from everyone of other racial groups—but really, there’s tremendous diversity within so-called racial groups. And racism affects members of a racial group differently, based on racism’s interaction with things like sexism, heterosexism, classism, colorism, ableism, nationalism, and Christian Supremacy.

SR: I was impressed with one of your Facebook posts about the California Mumford Act of 1967, where the National Rifle Association (NRA) and conservative Republicans, led by assemblyman Don Mumford and governor Ronald Regan spearheaded gun-control legislation because of a fear of increased gun ownership by black people. How and why is it important to use an anti-racist social justice framework when engaging in your work?

EH: I can’t claim credit for the content of that post—only for reposting it along to folks; there’s some good stuff out there. As for my own work, I’m trying to find ways to improve the ways that we teach about racism and about monoracism (oppression of Multiraciality). As a student and an educator, I’ve found that much of the anti-racist curricula that’s currently available isn’t well-suited for addressing monoracism or for reaching Mixed-identified participants. So, I’m trying to work with colleagues to identify some of those shortcomings and to improve what and how we’re teaching about racism, about monoracism, and about the other “intersecting” or intertwined forms of oppression. I try to keep a multi-issue analysis in mind when I work and when I teach. For me, I aspire to a social justice analysis that sees how things like racism and sexism are not only “intersecting” but are intertwined and make up each other. And, further, I think Multiracial organizers can learn a lot from other social movements. I’ve been particularly interested in what Multiracial organizers can learn and share with people organizing for bisexual/pansexual liberation and transgender liberation. Certainly, we’re present in each other’s movements, but we’re also each situated as “in-between” and many of the stereotypes and aspects of oppression are similar, too.

SR: How and why is the examination of the “mixed-race metaphor” in science fiction and other genres important in the discussion of mixed-race?

EH: I believe that stories are powerful. Stories shape how we think about ourselves and others; how we think about social problems, their origins, and their solutions; and what we think is possible or desirable. Many negative stories have been told about Multiraciality and, while they continue to be told, now there are also more seductively positive-sounding stories, too. But I want to emphasize: racial stereotypes that sound positive are still racial stereotypes, are still racism, and often play into larger racist agendas.

In the past, we had more stories where Multiraciality was represented as negative, defective, confused or evil. And those stories are still being told (e.g., Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise). But now we’re seeing more stories where a hybrid hero embodies more positive-sounding stereotypes and defeats the hybrid villain. So, the hybrid hero tells us positive-sounding stories, such as “Multiracial people are smarter, healthier, stronger, etc.” or “Multiracial people will be the end of racism!” But as sweet as those stories sound, as seductive as it might be for people to believe those lies, that’s all they are: racist lies. Multiracial people are neither racially inferior nor racially superior. No one and no group is inherently better or worse than another on a racial basis. And, I hope that we will strengthen our mental self-defense skills so that we’re prepared to fight back against racist stories; not just the obviously hateful racist stories, but also the seductive racist stories that try to say, “Hey, we used to say you were bad, but now we’re going to say you’re better… (better than thosepeople).” I think that seeing the problems in stories is an important step to telling different stories, rather than retelling the same old stories.

SR: I found the Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) conference to be an incredible learning experience and thoroughly invigorating. It was great to have the privilege to present a paper and it was also really wonderful to meet many of the scholars that I have posts for on my site. What did CMRS do for you and how might it influence your NAC activities?

EH: I’m so thankful to all the people who’ve made the first two CMRS conferences possible—to everyone who attended, but also to the people who organized the conference and made it happen. As an attendee and a presenter, CMRS continues to be a place where I can meet new people, reconnect with friends and colleagues, feel inspired and useful, and also, as an academic, to be exposed to new ideas and new ways of thinking. As a representative to the NAC, CMRS provides me with opportunities to share information, gather ideas and opinions, and to connect broadly and deeply with people who’re concerned about Multiraciality, monoracism, and social justice. I’m looking forward to CMRS 2014!

^©2013, Steven F. Riley

Danzy Senna

The Southeast Review
2010-05-01

The Southeast Review is published by Florida State University’s Creative Writing Program.

Interviewed by Janeen Price

Danzy Senna is the author of two novels, a memoir, numerous essays and works of short fiction. Her debut novel, Caucasia, a coming-of-age story, was named the Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. It also won the Book-of-the-Month Club’s Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the American Library Association’s Alex Award. Her latest book, Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A Personal History, is a memoir of her journey to solve the enigma of her father’s family history.

Q: Where Did You Sleep Last Night? is your first memoir. What compelled you to write and publish this personal narrative?

A: I was intrigued by this mystery of my father’s mother, a black woman from the South who was educated and ambitious in her youth down South, then gave it all up and became the modest, retiring woman we knew in Boston. There were so many gaps in her story—so much mystery surrounding her. The book began as an investigation into her, and I didn’t think of it as a memoir. But as it progressed, I realized that my relationship to my father—the contradictions in it, the pain and also the love there—was central to the story. So the personal material sort of snuck up on me as I tried to find and tell this other, more historically distant tale. I still consider myself first and foremost a fiction writer…

…Q: You are biracial, the protagonists of your two novels are biracial, and issues of racial identity loom large in all three of your books. How has your exploration of racial identity evolved from one book to the next?

A: That’s a good question, but not one I feel I can really answer. I think my readers could answer that better than I could. But it does lead me to another related thought. Readers have at times over the years asked me, “Are you ever going to write about people who aren’t mixed?” I always feel there is an implicit criticism in the question—as if maybe I should be writing about a white man, or a Chinese woman, to prove my universality. But I never hear white writers being asked, “Are you ever going to write about characters that aren’t white?” And I don’t even hear the question being thrown at black writers who write about black life and black characters. It has made me wonder if the question has more to do with a discomfort with my racial ambiguity. I think people are comfortable with black people writing about black people (and maybe uncomfortable with black people not writing about black people). And I think people assume the universality of white characters, especially if they are male. But they can’t quite wrap their finger around what they see me as. Maybe they see me as white, because that’s what my features read, and can’t really understand why race and blackness would persist as a theme in my work.

So for me I’ve had to really ignore all those questions about subject matter and race, etc., because I think it doesn’t really have to do with my work, the real issues I’m writing about, which I hope are about more than racial identity. Racial identity is there, of course, but to me other questions loom larger. Did Raymond Carver write about white people? Yes, in a way, but in another way, no, that wasn’t his subject. I write books set in multiracial worlds, and from the perspective of multiracial characters. Maybe I won’t always write from that perspective, but I see nothing limiting about it. In writing, the universal is found in the specific. And I have learned that you really have to just write about your obsessions and from a place of truth, and ignore the rest…

Read the entire interview here.

Colorism: The War at Home

Ebony Magazine
News & Views
2013-02-20

Chris Williams

Dr. Yaba Blay discusses the history of ‘the color complex’ and how we can work to destroy it

The “color complex” has remains a source of great controversy and pain in the African American community and across much of the African Diaspora. As one of the leading voices and scholars on Black racial identity, Drexel University assistant teaching professor of Africana Studies Yaba Blay continues her arduous, groundbreaking work on the topic. Her (1)ne Drop Project has been featured on CNN’s Black in America series and expanded the discussion around how Blackness is defined in today’s society.

EBONY recently sat down with Dr. Blay to delve into the history behind colorism and how it has helped to shape Black racial identity in the United States.

EBONY: In the Black community, we seem to continue the tradition of lighter skin and straighter hair being ‘better.’ Why is the train of thought still prevalent in our collective mindset?

Yaba Blay: I definitely think it’s something we’ve internalized. Historically, just through observation we’ve seen that people with more European aesthetics and phenotypes were getting more privileges in this society. And again, for me, it’s really about us thinking about the framework from which we’re operating, like where are these ideas coming from and being able to acknowledge that they operate from outside of our community. These are conceptualizations that have been projected onto us and we see those things being affirmed in our society. It’s been called “the White ideal.” So—it constructs a spectrum of sorts where if I look at you and I can see that you potentially have European blood, I can assume that in comparison to someone who has darker skin, kinkier hair, and a more African phenotype that you’re better than them. It’s the idea that European genetics are your saving grace…

Read the entire interview here.

Interview with PhD Student Karla Lucht: Children’s Literature about Mixed-Race Asian Americans/Canadians

The Center for Children’s Books
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
February 2013

Tad Andracki, CCB Outreach Coordinator

“Everyone deserves to see themselves represented in a book. And a good book at that.”

GSLIS doctoral student Karla Lucht visited the School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia as part of the iSchool Doctoral Student Exchange Program in November 2012. The CCB decided to meet with Karla to discuss her trip and her research. Lucht describes her research as looking at the representations of mixed-race Asian Americans and Canadians in youth literature with a critical race theory lens.

Why do you see your research as important to the field of youth services and children’s literature? Why is it important?

To start with, there’s a gap in this research with lots of underrepresented groups, but with mixed-race people especially. Everyone deserves to see themselves represented in a book… and a good book at that. In the past, we’ve seen some books about mixed-race people, but a lot of them weren’t good. I’m trying to fill in those gaps.

What are some challenges you see in your particular field of research? What are some opportunities?

One primary challenge is just finding titles, especially using subject headings. The Library of Congress Subject Heading that’s closest to my work is Racially Mixed People–Fiction, which isn’t very descriptive. I’ve been sifting through books with that heading. I’m also trying other keywords—adoption, immigration, multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural–and then looking at the books to see if they have the content I’m interested in.

Another problem is that, especially in the late 1980s and the 90s, a lot of the YA books on this topic are a bit problematic and poorly written. You find books that really invest in Othering a character’s Asian side and putting whiteness on a pedestal. In those books, the character vists the Asian side of the family, and it’s always a big problem–the Asianness is “too weird” or something…

Read the entire interview here.

ITYC Interview: Multicultural Psychologist and Author Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu

Is That Your Child? Thought in Full Color
2013-02-11

Michelle Clark-McCrary, Host

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Stanford University

ITYC had the great pleasure of talking with multicultural psychologist and author Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu about his latest book When Half is Whole: Multiethnic Asian Identities. Through deeply personal, raw storytelling, When Half Is Whole explores the complex journey of identity formation in a world where social and economic realities of race affect every facet of human life both here in the United States and abroad in countries like Japan…

Listen to the interview here.

Betwixt & Between~Multiracial Identity=A Denial of Blackness

Mixed Race Radio
2013-02-06, 17:00Z (12:00 EST)

Tiffany Rae Reid, Host

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

G. Reginald Daniel, Professor of Sociology, teaches courses exploring comparative race and ethnic relations. Since 1989, he has taught “Betwixt and Between,” which is one of the first and longest-standing university courses to deal specifically with the question of multiracial identity comparing the U.S. with various parts of the world.

He has numerous publications that explore this topic including several books entitled More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order (2002) and Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths? (2006), Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist (2012), as well as the article “Race, Multiraciality, and Barack Obama: Toward a More Perfect Union?”, which appeared in the journal Black Scholar (2009), and a book chapter with a similar title “Race, Multiraciality, and the Election of Barack Obama: Toward a More Perfect Union?,” which was published in Andrew Jolivette’s edited volume Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority (2012).

On June 16, 2012, Daniel received the Loving Prize at the 5th Annual Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival in Los Angeles. Established in 2008, the prize is a commemoration of the June 12, 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision that removed the last laws prohibiting racial intermarriage. It is awarded annually to outstanding artists, storytellers, and community leaders for inspirational dedication to celebrating and illuminating the mixed racial and cultural experience. More recently, Daniel was interviewed on National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” where he discussed his teaching on multiraciality and the significance of the Loving Prize.

Michael Jeffries on the Cultural Significance of President Obama

Wellesley College News
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts
2013-01-18

New Book by Wellesley American Studies Professor Tackles Race in America

Michael Jeffries, Knafel Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Assistant Professor of American Studies, studies race, gender, politics, identity, and popular culture. His new book, Paint the White House Black: Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America, looks at how race relies on other social forces, like gender and class, for its meaning and impact.

The book features discussions of race and nationhood, discourses of “biracialism” and Obama’s mixed heritage, the purported emergence of a “post-racial society,” and popular symbols of Michelle Obama as a modern black woman; we asked him about some of those themes.

Your book focuses on “an understanding of how race works in America” rather than emphasizing the details of President Obama’s political career; why is it important for the reader to think about the topic this way?

We need to move away from “great man” or “great woman” explanations for historical change. President Obama is a supremely talented politician, and an important thinker and speaker in many ways, but he operates within all sorts of constraints. Likewise, our impressions of the president are constrained by our cultural context—the language we use, the images we see, and the stories that are amplified by media outlets become the raw material for building our own personal models of Barack Obama. The way we talk and think about race is obviously a major factor in all this, but race is such a contentious and taboo topic that racial discussion is fraught with missteps and misunderstandings. The only way to get a grip on Obama-mania and effectively counteract racism is to force ourselves to think about race in concert with other ideas, like class and gender…

Read the entire interview here.

“I Got Indian in my Family”~A Discussion on Indian Identity

Mixed Race Radio
2013-01-23, 17:00Z (12:00 EST)

Tiffany Rae Reid, Host

Dwanna L. Robertson
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

On today’s episode of Mixed Race Radio we will speak with Dwanna L. Robertson and discuss issues of Identity: What does it mean to be Indian in today’s society?

Dwanna is a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma, a public sociologist, an Indigenous rights advocate, and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst having earned with two prior master’s degrees—an MBA and a Master of Science in Sociology.

Currently, she represents over 2600+ graduate students of color as the appointed ALANA (African-, Latin-, Asian-, and Native-American) – graduate student representative for the Faculty Senate Council Committee on the Status of Diversity for UMass-Amherst.

Dwanna writes for Indian Country Today Media Network and speaks (by invitation) at universities and other organizations and forums about the complexities of Indigenous identity in the United States.

Dwanna has authored or co-authored pieces in American Indian Culture and Research Journal, European Sociological Review, Research in the Sociology of Work, and Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History. Her research focuses on the reproduction of social inequality, particularly for American Indians. Her current project examines the problematic processes around American Indian identity within the structures of public policy and the media.

Dwanna will share her expertise with us while educating our listeners on the federal government’s approach to many issues, old and new.

For more information, click here.

On Raising Asian-Jewish Children

The Jewish Daily Forward
the sisterhood: where jewish women converse
2011-05-30

Renee Ghert-Zand

The recent Forward article “Raising Children on Kugel and Kimchi, and as Jews” centered on a new study that found that many families in which one parent is Jewish and the other is Asian are raising their children as Jews. The research was conducted by a married couple of sociologists, Helen Kim, who is of Korean descent, and Noah Leavitt, who is Jewish. Having written a post for The Sisterhood about the stereotypes about Jewish men and Asian women that are found in popular media — a post that garnered quite a few pointed comments — I was eager to get a behind-the-scenes look at Kim and Leavitt’s methodology and findings. The researchers spoke recently with The Sisterhood.

Renee Ghert-Zand: How did you end up choosing the specific 37 couples that ended up being the sample in your study?

Helen Kim: We worked with Be’chol Lashon. They helped us send out a screening survey. There were waves of responses. We recruited people based on where they were in the queue of 250 or so responses as they came in. We also chose couples so there was a wide range of different demographic variables: ethnicity, religious affiliation and religiosity, kids or no kids, age. For instance, we didn’t want to have an overrepresentation of Chinese-Americans…

Read the entire interview here.