Mixed Race Studies

Counting Americans: How the US Census Classified the Nation

Oxford University Press
2017-07-03
376 Pages
6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
Hardback ISBN: 9780199917853

Paul Schor, Associate Professor History
Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France

• Shows that U.S. census categories are more complex than previous histories of the census have shown, and directly contributed to the social construction of race.
• Demonstrates the fluidity of racial categories in the U.S. census between the nineteenth and twentieth century, and the social implications of that fluidity.
• Traces the visible and less known connections between categories such as slave, mulatto, mixed, “Mexican race,” and more current categories of the US census.
• Shows how the mobilization of individuals or groups over contested statistical categories occured in the first half of the twentieth century, much earlier than race-based affirmative action policies since the 1960’s.
• Draws on previously unused documents from the Census Bureau archive and other unpublished sources to explore the interactions between census officials and laypeople.

How could the same person be classified by the US census as black in 1900, mulatto in 1910, and white in 1920? The history of categories used by the US census reflects a country whose identity and self-understanding–particularly its social construction of race–is closely tied to the continuous polling on the composition of its population.

By tracing the evolution of the categories the United States used to count and classify its population from 1790 to 1940, Paul Schor shows that, far from being simply a reflection of society or a mere instrument of power, censuses are actually complex negotiations between the state, experts, and the population itself. The census is not an administrative or scientific act, but a political one. Counting Americans is a social history exploring the political stakes that pitted various interests and groups of people against each other as population categories were constantly redefined. Utilizing new archival material from the Census Bureau, this study pays needed attention to the long arc of contested changes in race and census-making. It traces changes in how race mattered in the United States during the era of legal slavery, through its fraught end, and then during (and past) the period of Jim Crow laws, which set different ethnic groups in conflict. And it shows how those developing policies also provided a template for classifying Asian groups and white ethnic immigrants from southern and eastern Europe–and how they continue to influence the newly complicated racial imaginings informing censuses in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond.

Focusing in detail on slaves and their descendants, on racialized groups and on immigrants, and on the troubled imposition of U.S. racial categories upon the populations of newly acquired territories, Counting Americans demonstrates that census-taking in the United States has been at its core a political undertaking shaped by racial ideologies that reflect its violent history of colonization, enslavement, segregation and discrimination.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Note on Illustrations and Tables
• Note on Terminology
• Introduction
• Part I: The Origins of the U.S. Census: From Enumeration of Voters and Taxpayers to “Social Statistics,” 1790-1840
  • Chapter 1: The Creation of the Federal Census by the Constitution of the United States: A Political Instrument
  • Chapter 2: The First Developments of the National Census (1800-1830)
  • Chapter 3: The Census of 1840: Science, Politics and “Insanity” of Free Blacks
• Part II: Slaves, Former Slaves, Blacks, and Mulattoes: Identification of the Individual and the Statistical Segregation of Populations (1850-1865)
  • Chapter 4: Whether to Name or Count Slaves: The Refusal of Identification
  • Chapter 5: Color, Race, and Origin of Slaves and Free Persons: “White,” “Black,” “Mulatto” in the Censuses of 1850 and 1860
  • Chapter 6: Color and Status of Slaves: Legal Definition and Census Practice
  • Chapter 7: Census Data for 1850 and 1860 and the Defeat of the South
• Part III: The Rise of Immigration and the Racialization of Society: The Adaptation of the Census to the Diversity of the American Population (1850-1900)
  • Chapter 8: Modernization, Standardization, and Internationalization: From the Censuses of J. C. G. Kennedy (1850 and 1860) to the First Census of Francis A. Walker (1870)
  • Chapter 9: From Slavery to Liberty: The Future of the Black Race or Racial Mixing as Degeneration
  • Chapter 10: From “Mulatto” to the “One Drop Rule” (1870-1900)
  • Chapter 11: The Slow Integration of Indians into U.S. Population Statistics in the Nineteenth Century
  • Chapter 12: The Chinese and Japanese in the Census: Nationalities That Are Also Races
  • Chapter 13: Immigration, Nativism, and Statistics (1850-1900)
• Part IV: Apogee and Decline of Ethnic Statistics (1900-1940)
  • Chapter 14: The Disappearance of the “Mulatto” as the End of Inquiry into the Composition of the Black Population of the United States
  • Chapter 15: The Question of Racial Mixing in the American Possessions: National Norm and Local Resistance
  • Chapter 16: New Asian Races, New Mixtures, and the “Mexican” Race: Interest in “Minor Races”
  • Chapter 17: From Statistics by Country of Birth to the System of National Origins
• Part V: The Population and the Census: Representation, Negotiation, and Segmentation (1900-1940)
  • Chapter 18: The Census and African Americans within and outside the Bureau
  • Chapter 19: Women as Census Workers and as Relays in the Field
  • Chapter 20: Ethnic Marketing of Population Statistics
• Epilogue: The Fortunes of Census Classifications (1940-2000)
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Abbreviations
• Sources and Bibliography
• Index

Asian, White, multiethnic, multiracial, mixed-race, interracial, biracial!

2018-03-22

Michele Chan, Master Candidate
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Do any of these labels resonate with you? If so, maybe you would like to participate in a research study about multiracial Asian Americans.

We are seeking participants to participate in a study about the experiences of multiracial Asian Americans. In order to participate, we ask that you are:

1. Aged 18 to aged 44
2. Currently live in the U.S.
3. Have one biological parent who is racially White and another biological parent who is racially Asian

We are very interested in hearing about your unique experiences as an individual with both Asian and White heritages.

Please consider completing our short, online survey, which will take no more than 30 minutes to finish. To take the survey, click here.

In return for your participation, you may choose to enter into a drawing to win a $20 dollar gift card to Target.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the investigators:

• Lisa Kiang, Ph.D., Wake Forest University, Phone: (336) 758-5750, E-Mail: kiangl@wfu.edu
• Michele Chan, B.S., Wake Forest University, Master Candidate, E-Mail: chanmg16@wfu.edu

Thank you.

Editorial: Owning Both Sides

Hapa Mag
2017-12-09

Alison Lea Bender

How do I even begin? I am a person who is trying to navigate this complicated, wonderful, and mysterious life just like everyone else. On top of that, I am in a career that tends to make subjective decisions on race and culture. Needless to say, facing those factors and trying to “fit a bill” for my art constantly makes me analyze and overthink my racial identity. I don’t mind that I’m continuously thinking about it anymore.

I never truly gave my racial makeup much thought my whole life, so I feel like the past few years have been a needed catch-up. I am quite proud of the knowledge I’ve gained from looking at every angle of it, and I feel closer to my roots now. I’ve come a long way, but as far I have come with my own racial identity and accepting and loving every part of myself, it seems that there will always be an obstacle in my way to make me question who I am…

Read the entire article here.

Thoughts on Identity: Who is Hapa?

The Daily Gazette: Swarthmore College’s daily student newspaper. Founded 1997.
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
2016-04-29

Charlotte Iwasaki

The first time that I consciously considered my multicultural background was in fifth grade when a friend jokingly announced to the class that I was both a Jap and a Nazi. At the time, I laughed along with the class, but I later asked my father what they meant by “Jap” after school. He was vague and kind in answering, but I understood. I knew that my dad was Japanese and that my mom was Caucasian, mostly German, but I never saw myself as really either, or even both. Being mixed race wasn’t something I thought about at the time, but I have never since forgotten.

My parents often tossed around the word “hapa” in reference to my sister and me. They picked up the term back when they were in college in southern California where people often describe anyone who is half-Asian as “hapa.” Growing up, I naturally adopted the word without much thought. But after I entered high school, I began to question what exactly I considered to be my personal identity.

I started the cultural club, Hapa, with the intention of creating a space for people that similarly identify as mixed race and Asian. When I first came to Swarthmore, I was surprised that there wasn’t a community for students from multicultural and multiethnic backgrounds. Everyone in SAO (Swarthmore Asian Organization) was kind and welcoming, but I didn’t feel completely comfortable; I didn’t see anyone like myself in the people around me…

Read the entire article here.

American granddaughter of Japanese WW2 detainee searches for clues about his life

NHK World
2018-03-14

Fumio Kanda

The life of a Japanese man who went to the US in search of opportunity was torn apart by World War Two. His life has since been clouded in mystery. Now his granddaughter is on a quest to trace his roots, and connect the pieces of his life.

Growing up, Regina Boone always felt a sense of mystery about her grandfather. But when she turned 13, her father Raymond finally revealed the news. “He just said that ‘You have a Japanese grandfather. I am half-Japanese and half-Black.’ And that makes me one-quarter Japanese. But I didn’t want to make my father uncomfortable. So I stepped back from asking more questions,” she says.

Over the years, Regina’s curiosity grew. And a decade later, she received an old photograph from her father. It was of her grandfather. “It kind took my breath away, actually. Because I didn’t know what to expect,” she says…

View the story here.

I’m Raising A Biracial Daughter In Japan, Where She’s Surrounded By Blackface

The Huffington Post
2018-03-05

Tracy Jones, Guest Writer

Tracy Jones
Me, my wife, Haruki, and daughter, Kantra.

I live in Tokyo, in a homogenous society where 98.5 percent of the population is Japanese. My wife Haruki is Japanese, and my 4-year-old daughter Kantra is the only black girl in her preschool class. I remember when the Japanese delivery nurse called her Halle Berry immediately after my wife gave birth to her.

They were the first words my daughter ever heard. When the nurse sensed my confusion, she tried to improve her comment: “Naomi Campbell?”

Kantra was born in the summer of 2013. As a stay-at-home dad, I used online compilations of Sesame Street to teach her the alphabet, colors, shapes and numbers in English. I thought about getting a TV, but my wife explained to me that Japanese television programs regularly use blackface. Minus watching Japanese TV when visiting my in-laws, I never paid it much attention.

I moved to Japan in 2011 and for the first two years, I couldn’t figure out if I was insane or if Japan was like America where, as a black person, I was accustomed to sensing white fear and the possible danger of it harming my body…

Read the entire article here.

Kopino Children: Half Korean, Half Filipino, Fatherless

Korea Exposé
2017-12-07

Raphael Rashid

Cover image: Filipino mother holding Kopino child (Source: KBS 1 documentary “Searching for Runaway Father“)

Kristi, 23, met a South Korean man in the city of Makati, Philippines, through a blind date. “It was love at first sight. We were dating for a few months. Soon enough, I found out he was already married with kids. It broke my world so I decided to end it there.”

But things didn’t work out for Kristi: Shortly after their break-up, she realized she was pregnant. “He told me ‘Don’t worry I’m here for you, I won’t leave you,’ but one month before giving birth, he just disappeared.”

It’s a recurring theme: South Korean men go to the Philippines, have relationships of varying degrees of commitment with local women, father children, and then at one point or another flee back to South Korea severing all ties and leaving the mothers alone with the children…

Read the entire article here.

Philippines’ generation of sex tourism children

Al Jazeera
2015-03-12

Dave Tacon

Monday evening at ‘Dolls House‘ Go-Go bar, one of the largest establishments on Fields Avenue. The Fields Avenue red light strip originally emerged to service the Clark US Air Force Base, which closed in 1991. Angeles City is now a centre for international sex tourism.

As sex tourists depart Balibago, they leave behind a growing number of children conceived in illicit exchanges.

Angeles City, Philippines – Weekends are busy on Fields Avenue in Balibago. Young women greet meandering men and invite them into the bars that line the street. Known as the “supermarket of sex”, Angeles City’s red light district has fast become a top destination for sex tourism.

Male travellers from Asia, Australia, the US, Europe and the Middle East constitute the bulk of the arrivals at Clark Airport, a former US military airbase. From there, many flock to the bars and clubs of Fields Avenue – and to the impoverished young women who work there.

Acquiring their company for the night is straightforward. For a small fee, the men obtain what is known as an “early work release” that permits them to take the woman of their choice back to their hotel.

It is a trade that thrives in the Philippines, where there are an estimated half-a-million sex workers, almost a fifth of whom are minors. Although illegal in the predominantly Catholic country, an estimated $400m is spent on prostitution there each year.

But when the sex tourists depart, they sometimes leave more behind than they’d arrived with. A large number of children have been conceived in such exchanges and while some foreign nationals provide support for and, in some instances, even marry the mother of their child, many more children never even meet their biological father and are left to live in poverty…

Read the entire article here.

A different portrait of black fatherhood

In Pictures
BBC News
2018-03-06

Zun Lee

Zun Lee was raised in Germany by Korean parents – but as an adult he discovered his real father was a black American with whom his mother had had a brief affair.

After this discovery, he began to explore fatherhood among black Americans.

Lee says the US media mainly portrays black fathers in one of two ways:

• the absent father, often portrayed as a “deadbeat”
• the traditional family patriarch, as seen in TV programmes such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

And his project, on display at the Bronx Documentary Centre, in New York, aims for a more balanced and nuanced portrayal.

Read the entire article here.

We Have Not Stopped Trembling Yet: Letters to My Filipino-Athabascan Family

State University of New York Press
February 2018
200 pages
Paperback ISBN13: 978-1-4384-6952-2

E. J. R. David, Associate Professor of Psychology
University of Alaska, Anchorage

A father’s personal and intimate account of his Filipino and Alaska Native family’s experiences, and his search for how to help his children overcome the effects of historical and contemporary oppression.

In a series of letters to his mixed-race Koyukon Athabascan family, E. J. R. David shares his struggles, insecurities, and anxieties as a Filipino American immigrant man, husband, and father living in the lands dominated by his family’s colonizer. The result is We Have Not Stopped Trembling Yet, a deeply personal and heartfelt exploration of the intersections and widespread social, psychological, and health implications of colonialism, immigration, racism, sexism, intergenerational trauma, and internalized oppression. Weaving together his lived realities, his family’s experiences, and empirical data, David reflects on a difficult journey, touching upon the importance of developing critical and painful consciousness, as well as the need for connectedness, strength, freedom, and love, in our personal and collective efforts to heal from the injuries of historical and contemporary oppression. The persecution of two marginalized communities is brought to the forefront in this book. Their histories underscore and reveal how historical and contemporary oppression has very real and tangible impacts on Peoples across time and generations.