Mixed Race Studies

So what are you anyway?

CYF News (CYF News is the newsletter for the Children, Youth and Families Office)
American Psycological Association
August 2013

Mahogany L. Swanson

Individuals in the U.S. with one Black and one White parent use the concept of “race switching” as one mechanism for coping with pressures of racial identity.

Although biracial individuals include any persons with parents of differing race, this paper uses the term biracial to identify any individual whose parents are of African and European descent. Biracial individuals, or individuals with one black and one white parent, growing up in the United States develop a necessary coping mechanism whereby they are able to race switch. Race switching (see Wilton, Sanchez, & Garcia, 2013) allows individuals to identify and de-identify with different parts of their identity. This process of identification and de-identification is often dictated by the constraints or opportunities in the social milieu. Although viewed by some as opportunistic, an often-hostile environment may compel the need for racial fluidity in many self-identified biracial and multiracial individuals; however, the consequences of race switching can be deleterious for these individuals.

Multiracial and biracial individuals experience unique challenges with regards to their racial self-identification. Although in 1967 the Supreme Court ruled that the criminalization of miscegenation by the state was unconstitutional it was not until 2000 that the children of such marriages were permitted to self-identify as biracial on the national census (Roth, 2005). Additionally, in a study conducted by Herman (2004), biracial individuals with at least one black ancestor reported significantly more perceived discrimination than any other minority monoracial group, including Blacks (Herman, 2004). This finding is disconcerting given that Jackson, Yoo, Guevarra, & Harrington (2012) found individuals expressing greater amounts or perceived racial discrimination concomitantly reported lower levels of psychological adjustment.

This racial discrimination can result in the individual de-identifying with his or her biracial or multiracial identity, and choosing to self-identify with the more accepted minority and monoracial race. Historically, the singularly black identity was given to all biracial and multiracial individuals, regardless of whether they espoused this identity. Coined the “one-drop rule“, and often a means of hegemony, an individual with one black ancestor was considered singularly black.  Overtime, this method of racial reporting was accepted and used by Blacks and Biracials alike (Roth, 2005).

In addition to the one-drop rule, racial classification is frequently done through a process known as physiognomy, or the practice of making decisions about a person’s race based off his or her physical appearance. In a national longitudinal study conducted by Doyle and Kao (2007), 97 percent of self-identified biracial individuals who believed they appeared more black were identified by others as looking more black, where as only 17 percent of self-identified biracial individuals who believed they appeared more white were also described as being white by an outside observer. According to Doyle & Kao (2007), black/white biracial individuals are often compelled by society to self-identify as black due to physiognomy; whereas those minorities with lighter skin color, such as Native and Asian Americans are often given more latitude in terms of self-identification. The last three types of racial self-identification used by biracial individuals include: singularly white, border identity, protean and transcendent identity (see Roth 2005; Hitlin, Brown, and Elder, 2007)…

Read the entire article here.

Living Color: Fathers Talk to Their Bi-Racial Sons

NBC News
2015-01-14

Photographs by André Chung

Teaching lessons they never had to learn, fathers speak to their bi-racial sons about identity, perception, and dealing with law enforcement.

Mark Johnson-Lewis, 48, and his son, Tyler Lewis, 22, of Columbia, MD (André Chung/NBC News)

…Mark: You’re black in this world, and it doesn’t matter what you think of who you are, you have to be conscious of how others are going to see you. And when you bump up against the law, it’s probably not going to be the best experience because of how others see you.

Tyler: I want to become a police officer and it’s kind of something that I struggle with being a black man. There needs to be a change in mindset of the way people view law enforcement. And there needs to be a change in the way law enforcement views the average American. You know, not as a black American, not as a white American, but as a person, as a human being…

Benjamin Jancewicz, 31, with his son, Arion, 6, of Baltimore, MD. (André Chung/NBC News)

Benjamin: Regardless of how light he is, he’s still going to be, you know, with a lot of other people doing a lot of other things. And he needs to be prepared. And that just really worries me because, you know, as much of a perspective as I do have coming from a– a [diverse] culture, I still know that my own skin tone allows me to get away with a lot of other stuff…

View the entire photo-essay here.

Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families

University of Massachusetts Press
1997-11-21
160 pages
0.5 x 8 x 10.5 inches
ISBN (paper): 978-1-55849-101-4
ISBN (cloth): 978-1-55849-100-7 (out of print)

Gigi Kaeser, Co-director
Family Diversity Projects, Inc., Amherst, Massachusetts

Peggy Gillespie, Co-director
Family Diversity Projects, Inc., Amherst, Massachusetts

Photographs by Gigi Kaeser. Interviews by Peggy Gillespie.

Based on an award-winning photo exhibit, this book documents the feelings and experiences of Americans who live in multiracial families. Of Many Colors tells the stories of thirty-nine families who have bridged the racial divide through interracial marriage or adoption. In these pages, parents and children speak candidly about their lives, their relationships, and the ways in which they have dealt with issues of race.

Although the number of mixed-race families in America is steadily rising, this trend remains controversial. For centuries, America has depended on distinct racial categories for its social, political, and economic organization. The current debate over the inclusion of a “multiracial” category on census forms illustrates the extent to which the deeply embedded construct of race continues to divide our society.

Transracial adoption has also generated fierce controversy and debate. As in the case of racial categories, the discussion of transracial adoption reflects ever-changing social standards. As recently as 1987, thirty-five states had laws prohibiting the adoption of black children by white families. In 1996, however, President Clinton signed a bill making it illegal to prohibit adoptions based on race.

The interviews in this book provide the reader with a clear understanding of how mixed-race families contradict stereotypes, challenge racism, and demonstrate that people of different races can indeed live together in harmony. Family members also have much to say about the most intimate form of integration, familial love, and this love is made visible in the superb photographs by Gigi Kaeser.

Intermarried Couples and “Multiculturalism” in Japan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
ISSN 1481-4374
Volume 15, Issue 2 (2013)
DOI: 10.7771/1481-4374.2216

Kaori Mori Want
Shibaura Institute of Technology

In her article “Intermarried Couples and ‘Multiculturalism’ in Japan” Kaori Mori Want discusses why hyphenated names for the children of intermarried children are important for the achievement of multiculturalism in Japan in an era of globalization. In Japan the number of people who marry interracially or inter-ethnically is increasing, but changes to naming practices must occur for Japan to become a multicultural society. Intermarriage is not a reliable indicator of the maturity of multiculturalism. Foreign residents who have intermarried in Japan do not have the rights of Japanese, such as those of voting, social welfare, education, and so on. This fact alone makes Japan far from multicultural. One of the aspects missing in the critiques of multiculturalism in Japan has to do with naming practices. Children of intermarried couples have at least two cultural heritages but under the present Japanese family law, it is almost impossible to give children a hyphenated last name that would reflect their multicultural heritage.

Read the entire article here.

The Talk: After Ferguson, a Shaded Conversation About Race

The New York Times
2014-12-13

Dana Canedy, Senior Editor

LIKE so many African-American parents, I had rehearsed “the talk,” that nausea-inducing discussion I needed to have with my son about how to conduct himself in the presence of the police. I was prepared for his questions, except for one.

“Can I just pretend I’m white?”

Jordan was born to African-American parents, but recessive genes being what they are, he has very fair skin and pale blue eyes. I am caramel brown, and since his birth eight years ago people have mistaken me for his nanny.

When I asked why he would want to “pass” for white, I struggled with how to respond to his answer.

“Because it’s safer,” Jordan replied. “They won’t hurt me.”…

Read the entire article here.

Explaining Ferguson to interracial children

KSDK TV-5
St. Louis, Missouri
2014-11-27

Christina Coleman, Anchor-Reporter

Family Counselor Michael Herold strongly recommends having plenty of discussions about the different cultural traditions experiences that make up the child’s racial background on both sides of their family.

View the video here.

Is Parental Love Colorblind? Human Capital Accumulation within Mixed Families

The Review of Black Political Economy
2014-07-04
DOI: 10.1007/s12114-014-9190-1

Marcos A. Rangel, Assistant Professor
Sanford School of Public Policy
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Studies have shown that differences in wage-determinant skills between blacks and whites emerge during a child’s infancy, highlighting the roles of parental characteristics and investment decisions. Exploring the genetics of skin-color and models of intrahousehold allocations, I present evidence that, controlling for observed and unobserved parental characteristics, light-skinned children are more likely to receive investments in formal education than their dark-skinned siblings. Conscious parental decisions regarding human capital acquisition for their children seem to contribute for the persistence of earnings differentials and socio-economic stratification in Brazil.

Read or purchase the article here.

Gillian Wearing redefines Birmingham for the 21st century

The Telegraph
London, United Kingdom
2014-10-31

Bernadette McNulty, Music Editor and Arts Writer

Gillian Wearing’s A Real Birmingham Family Photo: Courtesy of Birmingham City Council, Arts Council England and Ikon

With her statue of a mixed-race, single-parent family, Gillian Wearing has transformed Birmingham’s city centre, says Bernadette McNulty

Birmingham has had an uneasy relationship with public sculpture over the last few decades. In 1991, the council unveiled a work by the city-born artist Raymond Mason in the newly created Centenary Square. Called Forward, it depicted a throng of the city’s great and good at key moments in the area’s history – including Joseph Chamberlain and Josiah Mason. Made out of butter-coloured polyester resin, the monument was comically dubbed the Lurpak statue by locals and in 2003 destroyed by arsonists.

In nearby Victoria Square, Antony Gormley’s ominous Iron Man looms over a corner, while Dhruva Mistry’s 1994 River Goddess – known as the Floozie in the Jacuzzi – is currently trussed up in a neon pink bikini for a breast cancer campaign. To her left, a towering column props up a magisterial Queen Victoria, who looks away disapprovingly.

But the latest statue in Centenary Square, while no less controversial than Mason’s, stands a better chance of connecting with the feelings of the city’s residents. Gillian Wearing’s A Real Birmingham Family was unveiled on Thursday outside the new Library of Birmingham. This flagship building, thronged with people, has transformed the square, now unrecognisable from its Mason days. Before it was revealed to a small, excited crowd (including local dignitaries and the artist), the piece looked dwarfed by the monumental proportions of the library behind it…

…It wasn’t until plans for the new library were finalised in 2010, with a site in front of it designated for a statue, that the project was set in motion. The Ikon set about a painstaking two-year search for entries of what people nominated as their “real” family, including groups of friends or even single people. In the end a committee whittled down hundreds of entrants to the two mixed-race, single parent Jones sisters: “They were passionate about knowing their identity as a family and the bond between them. They also spoke of how proud they were to be from Birmingham and how Birmingham was such an accepting place, and how they can be a family here more than anywhere else.”…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed race in the UK: am I the future face of this country?

The Telegraph
London, United Kingdom
2014-11-08

Laura Smith

With ‘mixed race’ now the fastest-growing ethnic minority in the country, prejudice should be a thing of the past – but as one writer reveals, we’ve still got a long way to go

Where I grew up, a mixed-race family was something of an anomaly. Families, according to our neighbours – and the pictures on cereal boxes, board games and holiday brochures – meant a white mother and a white father and two children, preferably a boy and a girl, ideally blonde. The father went to work in a suit; the mother stayed home and sang along to Radio 1 while doing the housework.

My family wasn’t like that. My mother was from Guyana and wore her hair in a short Afro. She liked jumpsuits and jewellery and, shockingly, worked full-time. My father was from Scotland and wore embarrassing checked jackets from the 1960s (he was in his forties when my brother and I were born). Neither had heard of Radio 1.

My childhood memories of growing up in a mainly white, expensively heeled north London suburb include the following…

…Reaction to this social change has been contradictory, and peppered with hyperbole. On the one hand, the rise of “beige Britain” is eulogised as evidence of an open, tolerant country that’s moved beyond outdated notions of race and racism. It has become fashionable to shrug and say, “Well, we’ll all be brown soon.” On the other, it is not unusual to see alarmist articles about white people becoming the minority (two recent stories predicting that so-called “indigenous white children” would be “outnumbered” in state schools by 2037 were illustrated with images of mixed children), while in the black press there are reports about the disappearance of the Caribbean presence as increasing numbers “marry out”…

…Negative ideas around racial mixing have a long history. In Britain, concern about interracial unions reached a peak in the first half of the 20th century, when mixed neighbourhoods such as Toxteth and Tiger Bay were portrayed as immoral and dangerous, mixed children as tragic outcasts. Marie Stopes, then a prominent eugenicist, called for all “half-castes” to be “sterilised at birth”. Caballero says this notion of mixed people as divided and confused – the “marginal man” of early social science – remains. “When I started in this area I got sick of reading about how we were all psychologically traumatised and about all these broken relationships when my own parents have been together for 30 years,” she says…

Read the entire article here.

My Children and the Limits of White Privilege

Nursing Clio: Because the Personal is Historical
2013-08-28

Danielle J. Swiontek, Assistant Professor of History
Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara, California

Nursing Clio is honored to have Danielle J. Swiontek as our guest author today. Danielle is an Assistant Professor of History at Santa Barbara City College. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation, entitled “With Ballots and Pocketbooks: Women, Labor, and Reform in Progressive California” examines California women’s campaign for, and subsequent use of, the vote in the 1910s and 1920s.

The community in which I live held a march in memory of Trayvon Martin two weeks ago. It seemed so dated, in a way. In this 24-hour news cycle that we live in, it feels like forever ago since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed on February 26, 2012. It seems like ages since the jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of his death this past July. Yet the killing of Trayvon Martin continues to haunt me, as it probably does the people who joined the march. The news cycle has moved on, but the issues that Trayvon Martin’s death brought to the forefront have not. When I first heard about Trayvon Martin’s death, it made me fear for my son. That fear has not gone away in the last two months. It will probably never go away.

In a very specific, concrete way, I worry that my almost three-year-old boy will someday be shot by an overly zealous neighborhood watcher, by a police officer, or by someone who simply feels threatened by him, because of his size and the color of his skin. This is not a fear I would have if my son were white. I know this in my bones.

When President Obama offered his thoughts on Trayvon Martin and the experience of race in the U.S., I was not surprised by the experiences that others have found so striking. He talked about how he had been followed in department stores, how people locked their car doors when he walked down the street, how women were visibly nervous when he got on the elevator with them.

I am a middle-class white woman, but I believe I have some understanding of what those experiences feel like. I come to this conversation about race from a position of racial and class privilege. I was raised in a white, middle-class neighborhood by parents who lived out an archetypical American narrative of rising from working-class roots to a comfortable upper-middle class life…

Read the entire article here.