Mixed Race Studies

Whose Sperm Counts?

Nursing Clio: Because the Personal is Historical
2014-08-19

Lara Freidenfelds, Historian of Sex, Reproduction, and Women’s Health in America

Recently, a Canadian fertility clinic made the news because it refused to allow a white client to be impregnated with sperm from a donor of color. The clinic director told the media, “I’m not sure that we should be creating rainbow families just because some single woman decides that that’s what she wants.”

When I first read this, I felt offended. Personally. My husband and I are different races, and our kids are bi-racial. I guess I had never proclaimed us a “rainbow family,” but ok. The clinic’s decision to avoid creating bi-racial children seemed like a judgment on my family. Like, my family’s not terrible or anything, but as a society we wouldn’t want to go making extra families like mine if we can stick to normal, uni-racial families. Am I a bad mother because I ignored race when I chose my spouse? Would it have been more responsible of me to have my kids with a white father?

The media and Canadian officials agreed with my gut feeling. Journalists have written highly critical stories. Through a spokesperson, Health Minister Rona Ambrose declared, “Our government believes that discrimination in any form is unacceptable.” Through my twitter feed came declarations of “old time racism” in Calgary.

So, case closed? If we chastise the backward clinic director and remove the race stipulation, everyone is happy, no one is second-class, and the infertility client can have a “rainbow family” just like mine?…

Read the entire article here.

Ethnic-Racial Socialization and Its Correlates in Families of Black–White Biracial Children

Family Relations
Volume 63, Issue 2 (April 2014)
pages 259–270
DOI: 10.1111/fare.12062

Annamaria Csizmadia, Assistant Professor, Human Development & Family Studies
University of Connecticut, Stamford

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

Jessica P. Kaneakua
University of Connecticut

Child, family, and contextual correlates of ethnic-racial socialization among U.S. families of 293 kindergarten-age Black–White biracial children were investigated in this study. Children with one White-identified and one Black-identified biological parent who were enrolled in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort participated in this study. Parents’ racial identification of children, parent age, family socioeconomic status, urbanicity, and region of country predicted the likelihood of frequent ethnic-racial socialization. Relative to their biracially and Black-identified peers, White-identified biracial children were less likely to have frequent discussions about ethnic-racial heritage. Findings suggest that ethnic-racial socialization is a prevalent parenting practice in families of young biracial children and that its frequency varies depending on child, family, and situational factors. Implications for practice are discussed.

Read or purchase the article here.

Mixed roots, common bonds

The Kansas City Star
Kansas City, Missouri
2014-07-21

Jeneé Osterheldt

Her first year at KU [University of Kansas], Jasmin Moore noticed the black students sat together. The Hispanic students sat together. And everyone else did the same. This was over a decade ago.

“For the first time, I was trying to figure out where I belonged,” she says. Her mom is white and her dad is black, and students pulled her in different directions, wanting her to declare herself. She found herself gravitating toward the Hispanic students. She looked like them. At the time, it was easier.

As she and her husband pursued graduate programs, they moved to Little Rock, Ark., where things are still very segregated and being mixed is an anomaly.

“People didn’t know what to make of me,” she says. “I got stares. I realized that for people in other places, being biracial is still a unique experience, and it’s important to support others.”

And that’s why, now that she’s back in town, she is helping rebuild the Multiracial Family Circle, now called Kansas City Mixed Roots…

Read the entire article here.

Stunning Portraits of Mixed-Race Families

Slate
2014-06-24

David Rosenberg, Editor of Slate’s Behold blog

Fascinated by the evolution of identity, the photographer Cyjo, who styles her name CYJO, has created a series of portraits that examines how race, ethnicity, and heritage contextualize a person as an individual, and how they coexist within the framework of a family.

Cyjo identifies herself as a Westerner of Korean ethnicity (she was born in South Korea and raised in the United States) and photographed the series “Mixed Blood” from 2010–13 in both New York and Beijing. She has explored the dynamic between individual and collective identities in her previous work via a more abstract approach, but, with “Mixed Blood,” she uses the more literal approach of portraiture.

Over time, as humans migrate and change environments, the definition of identity has evolved to adjust to a broader definition of race and ethnicity. Cyjo pointed out that, in 2000, the United States Census for the first time allowed people to choose more than one identifier when noting their race. Almost 7 million people chose to count themselves as mixed race, a number that has continued to grow over the past decade and a half…

Read the article and view the photo essay here.

‘Mixed Blood’

Ecns.cn: The Official English-language website of China News Service
2014-06-05

To many, the US is no doubt a cultural melting pot as over the years people from various ethnic backgrounds have inhabited the land and collectively created an all new culture. Yet, all the way on the other side of the Earth, a similar situation seems to be emerging in China. Through images seen at the exhibition for Mixed Blood at the Today Art Museum in Beijing, visitors will have the chance to glimpse these changes for themselves.

Cosponsored by the US Embassy in Beijing and the Today Art Museum, the Beijing exhibition for Mixed Blood features photographs and documents created by artist CYJO from 2010 to 2013 documenting 19 families of mixed ethnicities, races and cultures living in Beijing and New York.

In the photographs, family members stand in their own homes in a line with arms at their sides, while next to the photographs are introductions explaining the background of each family member and the story of their family.

Standing in the exhibition hall, these photographs don’t just provide a clear image of the life of “mixed families” commonly seen in big cities, but also raise the question: “How far has our society progressed when it comes to ethnicity and race?”…

Read the entire article here.

Learning from the Collusions, Collisions, and Contentions with White Privilege Experienced in the United States by White Mothers of Sons and Daughters whose Race is not White

Cardinal Stritch University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2014
405 pages
ATI Number: 3614469

Jennifer Lee Slye Chandler

The purpose of this study was to collect and examine stories from women who identify as White in the United States who are mothers whose sons and daughters they do not identify as White. The stories collected are about their interactions as White women (who are mothers of daughters and sons who are not White) with family, friends, strangers, doctors, daycare providers, teachers, and principals. Their stories are also about their thoughts, feelings, decisions, and actions regarding themselves as White and as mothers. The research question was: How is White privilege manifested in the lives of White women who are mothers of daughters and sons who they do not identify as White?

Based on interviews with thirty White mothers whose sons and daughters they do not identify as White living in twenty-four locations across the United States interviewed over an eight month period, three manifestations of White privilege were identified and analyzed: collusions, collisions, and contentions. These three social processes were incorporated into Harro’s (2013) cycle of socialization. The findings from the current study were correlated with findings from prior studies of White privilege with White mothers of daughters and sons who they do not identify as White and also with the findings from studies with White teachers. The conclusions from this study support recommendations in three areas of theory: (1) updating theories on White privilege; (2) updating one of the tenets of Critical Race Theory; and (3) updating theories on motherhood. The conclusions from this study support also recommendations in three areas of research: (1) research on White privilege; (2) research on teacher preparation; and (3) research on motherhood.

Purchase the dissertation here.

Talking Mixed-Race Identity with Young Children

Hyphen—Asian Americans Unabridged
2014-05-06

Sharon H. Chang

“Mom, am I White?”

A few weeks ago, when I got this question from my four-year-old, I wasn’t sure what to say. Technically my son is “biracial” — but that label does him a severe representative injustice, because his bloodline is actually Japanese, Taiwanese, Slovakian, German, French Canadian, British, and Welsh. He also does not possess a parent of just one race and a parent of another race, as if often assumed when people hear the term “biracial”—because both my husband and I are mixed-race Asian/White too. For these reasons, I much prefer to describe us, and our son, as multiracial.

I write about and research race, families, and children, with an especial focus on multiraciality. I don’t believe in avoiding race talk with my child, though I do try to discuss it in age-appropriate ways. I’ve tried to stand by my conviction that it’s better he learn how to think and talk about these issues within the family first, rather than have normative ideals force-fed down his throat by everyone else when he walks out the door. That said, I wasn’t fully prepared when he turned to me and asked, “Mom, am I White?”…

Read the entire article here.

Communication Accommodation Strategies in Malaysian Multiracial Family Interactions

Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences
Volume 118 (2014-03-19)
pages 259–264
DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.035

International Conference on Knowledge-Innovation-Excellence: Synergy in Language Research and Practice (2013)
Organized by School of Language Studies and Linguistics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia)

Mahanita Mahadhir
School of Language Studies & Linguistics Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Nor Fariza Mohd Nor
School of Language Studies & Linguistics Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Hazita Azman
School of Language Studies & Linguistics Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

In multiracial families, intergroup salience is an important parameter influencing their daily interpersonal communication dynamics; this is due to the relevance of issues related to heritage loyalty and sense of belonging. As such, there is an obvious need for multiracials to appropriately strategise and manage their communication with both paternal and maternal family members. Using the Communication Accommodation Theory, this preliminary study investigates the range of accommodation strategies employed by a multiracial individual interacting with her monoracial mother. Qualitative in nature, data was obtained from spontaneous interactions that were audio-taped over a period of eight weeks in the home setting. Out of the 12 total hours of transcribed interactions, seven episodes were deemed to contain features of intergroup context. Despite the limited number of interaction samples, findings revealed that the multiracial daughter managed her family relations by employing approximation, interpretability, discourse management and interpersonal control strategies.

Read the entire article here.

‘Chinese, on the Inside’

The New York Times
2014-03-03

Liz Mak, writer and multimedia producer
Oakland, California

Catie and Kimberly were adopted from China by a couple from Maine, who attempt to pass on a culture they’ve never known firsthand.

About a decade ago, Barbara Cough adopted two girls from China, Kimberly and Catie. Barbara and her partner, Marilyn Thomas, are raising the children in Portland, Me. I filmed the family last year when the girls (who are not biological sisters) were ages 9 and 11.

More than 80,000 girls have been adopted from China by Americans since 1991. In recent years, China has made adoptions by same-sex couples, already difficult, nearly impossible.

But at the time the girls were adopted, in 2003 and 2004, Barbara and Marilyn felt that adopting girls from China afforded them more protections as parents than domestic adoptions would have, given the complex rules around birth parents’ rights in America.

For Barbara, it was also a way to reconnect with her own history: her great-grandfather Daniel Cough was the first Chinese man in Maine to become a naturalized citizen of the United States. Though Barbara’s generation is only one-eighth Chinese, the family members proudly identify with their cultural heritage…

Read the opinion piece and watch the video here.

The Mixed Marriage

The New York Times
2014-01-11

Interview by Lise Funderburg

Lise Funderburg, a journalist, interviewed Yael Ben-Zion, a photographer raised in Israel, about her new book, “Intermarried,” published by Kehrer, which features families from the Washington Heights neighborhood where she lives with her French husband and 5-year-old twins.

Q. What inspired this project?

A. I saw an Israeli television campaign that showed faces on trees and bus stops, like missing children ads. A voice-over said, “Have you seen these people? Fifty percent of young Jewish people outside of Israel marry non-Jews. We are losing them.” I happen to be married to a person who is not Jewish. And, so for me it was, “Aah, they’re losing me.” I’m not religious, but this campaign made me wonder more generally why people choose to live with someone who is not from their immediate social group, and what challenges they face.

Q. How did you establish your taxonomy for what qualified as mixed?

A. I wasn’t going to go in the street and ask couples if they were mixed. I didn’t grow up here; I didn’t even know what terminology to use. But I live in a very diverse Manhattan community that has an online parent list with more than 2,000 families on it. I put up an ad saying I was looking for couples that define themselves as mixed. I said it could be different religion, ethnicity or social background. I didn’t use the word race, because I wasn’t sure how politically correct that was. All the couples who responded are either interfaith or interracial or both, but my goal from the beginning wasn’t to create some statistical visual document. For example, I have hardly any Asian people, and I don’t think there are any Muslims, and the reason is that they didn’t approach me…

Read the entire interview and view the slide shows here.