Mixed Race Studies

Brazil Enacts Affirmative Action Law for Universities

The New York Times
2012-08-30

Simon Romero, Brazil Bureau Chief

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s government has enacted one of the Western Hemisphere’s most sweeping affirmative action laws, requiring public universities to reserve half of their admission spots for the largely poor students in the nation’s public schools and vastly increase the number of university students of African descent across the country.

The law, signed Wednesday by President Dilma Rousseff, seeks to reverse the racial and income inequality that has long characterized Brazil, a country with more people of African heritage than any nation outside of Africa. Despite strides over the last decade in lifting millions out of poverty, Brazil remains one of the world’s most unequal societies.

“Brazil owes a historical debt to a huge part of its own population,” said Jorge Werthein, who directs the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies. “The democratization of higher education, which has always been a dream for the most neglected students in public schools, is one way of paying this debt.”…

…But while affirmative action has come under threat in the United States, it is taking deeper root in Brazil, Latin America’s largest country. Though the new legislation, called the Law of Social Quotas, is expected to face legal challenges, it drew broad support among lawmakers.

Of Brazil’s 81 senators, only one voted against the law this month. Other spheres of government here have also supported affirmative action measures. In a closely watched decision in April, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the racial quotas enacted in 2004 by the University of Brasília, which reserved 20 percent of its spots for black and mixed-race students…

…Brazil’s 2010 census showed that a slight majority of this nation’s 196 million people defined themselves as black or mixed-race, a shift from previous decades during which most Brazilians called themselves white…

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Purdu­e Hapa Stude­nt Assoc­iatio­n Callo­ut Sept. 17, 2012

Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana
Class of 1950, Room 121
2012-09-17, 18:00-20:00 CDT (Local Time)

The term “Hapa” refers to a biracial/multiracial person with Asian and/or Pacific Islander roots. As a club, we promote both diversity and unity, and we strive to raise awareness of identity crisis amongst Hapas, as well as Asian interest on campus. With leadership and volunteering opportunities, memorable events, and fellow club members to create long lasting memories and friendships, Purdue HSA is Purdue’s newest upcoming organization. Come to our callout to learn more about what HSA is all about!

For more information, click here.

Brazil Approves University Affirmative Action Bill

Associated Press
2012-08-08

Stan Lehman

San Paulo—The Brazilian Senate has approved an affirmative action bill that reserves half the spots in federal universities for high school graduates of public schools, and distributes them according to the racial makeup of each state.

The Senate’s news agency says the bill that was approved late Tuesday now goes to President Dilma Rousseff, who is expected to approve it.

The reserved spots will be distributed among black, mixed race and indigenous students proportionally to the racial composition of each state, the official agency said…

…The Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that it was constitutional for universities to use racial quotas.

Brazil has more citizens of African ancestry than any nation other than Nigeria. Fifty-one percent of Brazil’s 192 million people are black or of mixed-race,

Backers say the use of scholarships, quotas and other policies aimed at getting more blacks and mixed-race Brazilians into universities is needed to right the historic wrongs of slavery, centuries of stark economic inequality and a society in which whites are overwhelmingly in leadership roles in government and business…

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“Not Half But Double”: Exploring Critical Incidents in the Racial Identity of Multiracial College Students

Journal of College Student Development
Volume 53, Number 4, July/August 2012
pages 524-541
DOI: 10.1353/csd.2012.0054

Angela H. Kellogg, Director of Academic Advising and Career Services
University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point

Debora L. Liddell, Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of the Higher Education and Students Affairs Program
University of Iowa

This qualitative study explored how critical incidents shape multiracial students’ understanding of race and identity at predominantly White institutions. Participants included 14 multiracial undergraduate students from two institutions in the Midwest. Four categories of critical incidents were identified from the data: (a) confronting race and racism, (b) responding to external definitions, (c) defending legitimacy, and (d) affirming racial identity. The incidents took many forms and occurred in many contexts. The majority of incidents involved interactions with other students, underscoring the influence of peers. The study also suggests implications for higher education practice and research.

In Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court struck down restrictions against interracial marriages. Now- just four decades later, multiracial individuals represent one of the fastest growing segments of the population in the United States. According to the 2010 United States Census, 9 million (3%) of respondents indicated membership in two or more racial groups. Accordingly, a growing number of multiracial youth are enrolling in colleges and universities across the United States (Roberts, 2003). In addition to their rising numbers, multiracial students are becoming more visible and vocal as a group, evidenced by the number of multiracial student organizations, programs, and services appearing on campuses nationwide (Wong & Buckner. 2008).

Despite their growing presence, there is still much to he learned about the ways that multiracial identity is understood by students within the unique context of colleges and universities. Institutions of higher education are rich sites for studying identity (Chickering & Reisser, 1993). and provide multiracial students with ample opportunities to explore and reflect on their racial heritage, prompting them to think about their identity in different ways (Renn, 1998, 2004). Literature indicates that some multiracial college students feel pressured to choose one race, and at times have the sense of being “misperceived. misrepresented, miscategorized, and misunderstood” by faculty, staff, and peers (Cortes, 2000, p. 10). However, much of the previous college student research has been conducted with the underlying assumption that the identity processes of multiracial students are the same as for monoracial students, instead of recognizing the unique needs and developmental processes of multiracial students.

In recent decades, various theories and models have been developed to explain the identity development processes of multiracial persons. Early models of multiracial identity development were grounded in model of Black racial identity (Cross, 1971, 1991). and depicted racial identity as occurring in a series…

A Mulatto Area Gets Own School

The New York Times
1962-09-16
page 73

Hedrick Smith, Special to the New York Times

Desegregation Moves Roi Louisiana Caste System

BURAS, La., Sept. 13—Freda’s Hi-Lo Bar sits just off State Highway 23 as the road chases the Mississippi River on its last 100 miles from the suburbs of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico.

It is a white-frame building only slightly larger than the small cottages that surround it on the west bank of the river.

For the last week, workmen have been refurbishing it and improving its lighting and plumbing. For the second time since World War II It is being transformed into a school for mulattoes, or, as they are sometimes called here, Hi-Lo’s.

The bar, long patronized exclusively by mulattoes, is a symbol of one of the most extensive caste systems of the South.

In the life, of Plaquemines Parish (County), and particularly of the town of Buras, there are not just two, but three, racial groupings. At the top of what one writer has called a “layer cake of color” are the whites. At the bottom are the dark Negroes. In between are lighter-skinned Negroes, or mulattoes, whose ancestry is racially mixed.

500 Families in Parish

The mulattoes are sprinkled throughout the parish. Local officials estimate there are about 500 families. The largest group of them lives just north of Buras, in the houses surrounding the Hi-Lo Bar and a Roman Catholic school for mulattoes.

Their faces have a Latin appearance. Many have straight hair, sharp noses, thin lips and freckles. Within families, their color can range from a rich mahogany to a tawny yellow.

Who determines whether they are mulattoes or Negroes?

“They determine it themselves.” say the whites.

Some Negroes assent with bitterness.

“They try to be something: they are not.” said Mrs. Joseph Powell, a Negro woman who tried last year to send her daughter to the Catholic mulatto school but was turned down.

The mulattoes’ presence in this marshy delta territory antedates slave times. Old parish records note a number of slave owners who were “freemen of color.” Some of these are believed to have come here from Santo Domingo…

…Archdiocese Desegregates

The move toward a public school for mulattoes followed the decision of the Archdiocese of New Orleans to desegregate its parochial schools this fall.

Five Negro children went to the white parochial school here on Aug. 29. A white boycott followed, and the parish priest, the Rev. Christopher Schneider, closed down the school briefly because of “threats of physical Violence and economic reprisals.”

Some white students have since returned, but the five Negroes have never been back. Two of them, however, began attending the school for mulattoes.

Luke Petrovich, Commissioner of Public Safety, said that because of this the county was converting the bar into a public school for mulattoes. “Some of the mulatto parents contacted us concerning public school facilities for them” he said.

Others think, however, that the new public school may be an attempt to lure mulattoes away from the parochial school where some racial distinctions are being erased. They think that whites want to keep mulattoes as a buffer between them and the darker Negroes.

But there are indications that the bitterness and” jealousy between the dark Negroes and the mulattoes may be dissolving. Some mulatto parents say they will refuse to take their children out of the Catholic school just because Negroes are there.

Read or purchase the entire article here.

the greek

Story Week Reader
Story Week Reader 2011
pages 31-32

Chris “C.T.” Terry, Writer, Editor, Educator

I was nervous on my first day working in the African-American Cultural Affairs section of my school’s Multicultural Office. My boss Kim introduced me to coworkers, and I imagined my blue eyes to be the subject of appraising gazes. I shook hands—no daps—and wondered if the brief, polite greetings I received were typical professional interactions, or if each person was thinking, “The nerve of this white boy, disturbing the sanctity of African-American Cultural Affairs!”

My mother is white, Irish-American. My father is black. I’m pale, with freckles. Usually, black people can tell that I’m mixed, and white people go, “Oh, I thought you were white, but, like, with an Afro.”

After growing up in a white area outside of white Boston, and having so many people mistake me for white, I get self-conscious around black people. If they don’t recognize my blackness, does it exist? At a party, I’ll screw up an elaborate handshake, clasping when I should be bumping, and one of the other black guys there looks away in shame. Then I die inside a little bit and vow to delete all Hank Williams from my iPod…

Read the entire essay here.

University of Missouri Press to Shut Down in July

Riverfront Times
St. Louis, Missouri
2012-05-25

Aimee Levitt

The Post-Dispatch was not the only publishing institution in Missouri to have a bad week. Yesterday morning, Tim Wolfe, the president of the University of Missouri system, announced plans to shut down the University of Missouri Press.

 The news came as a complete surprise to the ten-member staff, editor in chief Clair Wilcox told the Columbia Daily Tribune.

It was true the press, which was partially funded by a $400,000 annual subsidy from the university system, had continued to operate with a deficit even after seven employees had been laid off three years ago, but who expects a university press to be a major money-making operation?

The purpose of the U of M Press, founded in 1958, was to showcase scholarly work about Missouri and its people which would be ignored by more commercial publishers. The current catalog, likely to be the press’s last, features a memoir by a Bootheel farmer, a study of old-time Missouri fiddlers, histories of the Missouri State Penitentiary and a Civil War draft resistance movement and biographies of Satchel Paige and the folklorist Mary Alicia Owen (the last with the tantalizing title Voodoo Priests, Noble Savages and Ozark Gypsies)…

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Obama’s election changed racial identity of black students

Chronicle Online
Cornell University
2012-02-16

Karene Booker, Extension Support Specialist
Department of Human Development

Barack Obama’s historic election in 2008 stimulated individual and national reflection on race and changed African-American college students’ perceptions of being black, reports a new Cornell study published in Developmental Psychology (47:6).

But how these changes will shape public discourse as the 2012 presidential campaign unfolds or whether the 2012 election outcome will generate similar changes in racial identity is still unknown, say the researchers.

“Obama’s election triggered deep explorations or ‘encounter experiences’ in which these African-Americans [in our study] were challenged to think through the importance and positive value that can be associated with being black,” said Anthony Burrow, assistant professor of human development in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology, co-author of the study with Anthony Ong, associate professor of human development at Cornell, and lead author Thomas Fuller-Rowell, Ph.D. ’10, now a Robert Wood Johnson postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison…

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Changes in racial identity among African American college students following the election of Barack Obama

Developmental Psychology
Volume 47, Number 6 (November 2011)
pages 1608-1618
DOI: 10.1037/a0025284

Thomas E. Fuller-Rowell, Robert Wood Johnson Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Anthony L. Burrow, Assistant Professor of Human Development
Cornell University

Anthony D. Ong, Associate Professor of Human Development
Cornell University

The current study considered the influence of the 2008 presidential election on the racial identity of African American college students (Mage = 19.3 years; 26.3% male). The design of the study consisted of 2 components: longitudinal and daily. The longitudinal component assessed 3 dimensions of racial identity (centrality, private regard, and public regard) 2 weeks before and 5 months after the election, and the daily diary component assessed racial identity and identity exploration on the days immediately before and after the election. Daily items measuring identity exploration focused on how much individuals thought about issues relating to their race. Analyses considered the immediate effects of the election on identity exploration and the extent to which changes in exploration were shaped by racial identity measured prior to the election. We also considered immediate and longer term changes in racial identity following the election and the extent to which longer term changes were conditioned by identity exploration. Findings suggest that the election served as an “encounter” experience (Cross, 1991, 1995, pp. 60–61), which led to increases in identity exploration. Moreover, analyses confirmed that changes in identity exploration were most pronounced among those with higher levels of racial centrality. Results also suggest that the election had both an immediate and a longer term influence on racial identity, which in some instances was conditioned by identity exploration.

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Breaking the Race Barrier

360 Magazine
Ithica College
2012-05-02

Danielle Torres

“I’m Puerto Rican.”

That’s usually what I say when people ask a second time where I am from. The first time someone asks me that question I usually say, “I’m from New York.” Then the person rephrases the question, “What are you? What is your background?”

I come from a Puerto Rican family that is short and loud. Actually, I’m a little West Indian, too, on my mother’s side. I also say I’m Hispanic but I have been told that label falls under ethnicity. I’m a little displaced when it comes to the question of race. Growing up, my family used to chuckle about the race section on the Census. We always lingered on that section a bit longer than the others trying to decide what box or boxes we should check off.

In 2009, when I was a freshman at Ithaca College, none of my peers cared about the Census. It was just another survey and spring finals were coming up. Yet, although it was a single sheet of paper, I felt that it was another symbol of young adulthood. It was my turn to decide for myself how I was going to answer the race question. What is Person 1’s race? Mark X one or more boxes. I paused, pen hovering, weighing my options…

Read the entire article here.