Mixed Race Studies

Colorblind parents could handicap their biracial kids

The Grio
2010-09-16

Jennifer H. Cunningham

When he was still a toddler, Rebecca Romo’s son, Emilio asked her why his skin was darker than hers.

The now 8-year-old Emilio, who is of Mexican and African-American heritage, also went through a stage where he hated his hair, telling his mother that he wished it was straight and blonde instead of curly and brown.

Romo realized that Emilio had been exposed to — and possibly internalized — what many perceive to be a normal standard of appearance. It was a standard that didn’t look like him.

“I had to reinforce a positive image that curly hair was beautiful,” said Romo, Mexican-American sociology doctoral student at University of California, Santa Barbara. “I would have to constantly tell him that. I realized that I had to start with him very young in fostering a positive self-image.”…

…Non-African-American mothers with biracial children can struggle not only with issues like hair and skin tone, but also with intangible matters, like fostering a sense of African-American identity or heritage in their children. And that can be especially difficult for single, non-African-American mothers.

“To me, honesty and being straightforward is really critical,” said G. Reginald Daniel, Ph.D, professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “When a child raises a question, it needs to be addressed immediately.”

Daniel said it is key that parents address their children’s questions about race, racial differences and racism in an empathetic manner, but also in a way that the child can understand. They may believe that by not addressing the child’s query that they are shielding the child or sharing their pain. But in reality, ignoring their concerns can do the exact opposite…

Read the entire article here.

The Language of Ham and the Language of Cain: “Dialect” and Linguistic Hybridity in the Work of Adam Small

The Journal of Commonwealth Literature
Volume 45, Number 3 (September 2010)
pages 389-408
DOI: 10.1177/0021989410377550

Nicole Devarenne, Lecturer in English
University of Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom

The “coloured” South African writer Adam Small has made an important and largely unrecognized contribution to anti-apartheid literature in Afrikaans. His pioneering use of “Kaaps” (a linguistic variety spoken by “coloured” Afrikaners at the Cape) in his poetry and plays complicated the racial designation of Afrikaans as a “white” language and challenged the dominance of the “white” Afrikaans literary tradition. In a literature where the variety used by the white nationalist government was also that used by (albeit some of them dissident) Afrikaans writers, he created an appetite and appreciation for vernacular language as a medium of resistance against white supremacy. His work has helped to make possible a continuing investment by Afrikaans writers (white as well as “coloured”) in non-standard language as resistance to cultural imperialism and nationalism. During apartheid, however, he faced considerable criticism for his use of what was seen as a degraded and degrading “dialect”, and for his ostensible complicity in apartheid as a self-avowed “brown Afrikaner”. This article examines some of the difficulties which faced “coloured”Afrikaans writers during apartheid, taking Small as a specific example of a writer whose career displays the impact of the collision between “coloured” separatism and a politically pragmatic universalism, and proposes a reconsideration of his work as a subversive, ironic and ground-breaking intervention in South African literature.

Read or purchase the article here.

Reducing Race: News Themes in the 2008 Primaries

The International Journal of Press/Politics
Volume 15, Number 4 (October 2010)
pages 375-400
DOI: 10.1177/1940161210372962

Catherine R. Squires, Cowles Professor of Journalism, Diversity and Equality
University of Minnesota

Sarah J. Jackson
University of Minnesota

This article presents a content analysis exploring how racial issues were addressed in newspaper and news magazine coverage of the 2008 Democratic primaries. Despite the presence of Latino and biracial candidates, discussion of race was limited by binary racial frames, resulting in the construction of racial groups as competing voting blocs (including frequent references to white voters) and few references to Barack Obama’s biracial heritage. The dominant framing constricted the range of racial issues to matters of interpersonal insensitivity and misguided statements and ignored matters of public policy and racial equity.

Read or purchase the article here.

Fall 2010 Honors Colloquium: RACE

University of Rhode Island
Tuesday evenings, 19:00 ET (Local Time); (23:00Z through November; 00:00Z on Wednesday after November 9).
2010-09-14 through 2010-12-07
Edwards Auditorium, URI Kingston Campus

A series of public programs at the University of Rhode Island presented by the URI Honors Program

Join us! The public is invited to attend this series of free events.

Perceptions about race shape everyday experiences, public policies, opportunities for individual achievement, and relations across racial and ethnic lines. In this colloquium we will explore key issues of race, showing how race still matters.

You will be able to watch the Colloquium live by clicking here or watching below. This link will only work in real time, while the presentation is going on.

Note: the live feed is only active during live events.

Includes noted scholars (Times and dates below are in UTC.  Please read carefully!):

2010-10-05, 23:00Z
Race, Identity, and Medical Genomics in the Obama Age
Duana Fullwiley, Assistant Professor of African and African American studies and of Medical Anthropology
Harvard University

2010-10-12, 23:00Z
The Invisible Weight of Whiteness: The Racial Grammar of Everyday Life in Contemporary America
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Professor of Sociology
Duke University

2010-11-31, 00:00Z
How Black Women’s Stories Complicate Race and Gender Politics
Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies
Princeton University

For more information, click here.

HAFU: a film about the experiences of mixed-race people living in Japan

Hafu Film Sneak Preview in Kyoto
Institut Franco-Japonais du Kansai, Kyoto, Japan
Saturday, 2010-10-23. 19:30 – 22:00 (Local Time)

Filmmakers

Lara Perez Takagi
and
Megumi Nishikura

David Yano (29). David was born in a small village in Ghana, to a Ghanaian mother and a Japanese father. His father, an architect, was in Ghana to build the Noguchi Hideo Memorial when he met David’s mother. After spending 6 years in Ghana, they moved to Tokyo. However due to difficulty of adjusting to their new life in Japan, his parents filed for divorce when he was 10. The next 8 years were spent in an orphanage school in Japan with his two brothers. There he discovered his greatest passion: music and performance. He started modeling when he was a university student and now works as a multitalented TV presenter. Due to his dark complexion, David is regarded by default as a gaijin (foreigner) when people meet him for the first time. However, having spent much of his life in Japan, he feels he acts and identifies as Japanese more than anything else. Despite this claim David, has returned to Ghana once a year since the age of 20. Seeing the dramatic difference between the two countries, David felt the call to use his talents to benefit the people of Ghana. He has set an ambitious goal of raising $30,000 over the course of 8 months in order to build kindergarten back in Ghana. Audiences will watch him as he organizes various fundraisers and events has he struggles to attain his goal.

With an ever increasing movement of people between places in this transnational age, there is a mounting number of mixed-race people in Japan, some visible others not. “Hafu” is the unfolding journey of discovery into the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experience in modern day Japan. The film follows the lives of five “hafus”—the Japanese term for people who are half-Japanese—and by virtue of the fact that living in Japan, they are forced to explore what it means to be multiracial and multicultural in a nation that once proudly proclaimed itself as the mono-ethnic nation. For some of these hafus Japan is the only home they know, for some living in Japan is an entirely new experience, and others are caught somewhere between two different worlds.

For more information, click here.

Multidisciplinary considerations for clinical work with the multiracial identity: a project based upon an independent investigation

Smith College School for Social Work
Northampton, Massachusetts
2010
76 pages

Kate Lee Esther De Soto

A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work.

This project was conducted with the intentions of broadening the discussion that is occurring in clinical fields regarding the multiracial identity. Much of the discussion that occurs is treated as though racial dynamics are fixed (Leary, 2000). This theoretical paper aims to exemplify the nuance of the multiracial identity by combining clinical theory with a more culturally grounded analysis of racial discourse. Intersubjectivity theory is used in this paper to exemplify the value of using a clinical theory when conceptualizing racial issues, while cultural studies provides a deeper understanding of the system of race in the United States. The use of the intersubjectivity theory and the writings of cultural studies as applied to the phenomenon of the multiracial identity is exemplified through the use of a case study. This paper concludes with a proposal for a set of principles and considerations for practice with multiracial individuals that is rooted in a historically and politically aware, socially based approach to working intersubjectively with multiracial individuals.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION
II CONCEPTUALIZATION AND METHODOLOGY
III PHENOMENON
IV INTERSUBJECTIVITY THEORY
V CULTURAL STUDIES
VI DISCUSSION
REFERENCES

Read the entire project here.

A dissertation: ‘Mixed-race’ identity among young adults in Britain

University of Sussex
2010

Sophie Kingham

This article addresses the various processes through which ‘mixed-race’ identity is constructed with relation to a national British identity. A multiplicity of belongings which are negotiated on an everyday basis were explored and analysed, alongside theoretical issues and problematic terminology. Based on triangulate qualitative research on young ‘mixed-race’ adults in Brighton and Hove, this research found that many factors contributed to the ability to form a positive identity including the ability to define identity in itself, and the negative impact of being ascribed an identity by other parties. The research also found that many participants were able to positively negotiate an English identity irrespective of their race; contradictory to many theories, although predominantly a British identity was preferred as it allowed them to acknowledge other affiliations. However, factors such as transnational and ethnic practices, familial relations, and racial demographic either heightened or lessened their sense of multiple heritages. These multifaceted identities follow common theories of identity construction and highlight the transient nature of culture and nationality. The research adds to the current literature by exploring more diverse heritages and affiliations, building on current literature that primarily focuses on a black/white dichotomy.

Table of Contents

• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• List of plates and figures

1. Introduction
2. Literature review
   • Terminology
   • Race & Ethnicity
   • Nationalism & Culture
3. Practical methodology and limitations
   • Finding the Participants
   • Statistical Analysis
   • Self-Directed Photography
   • Follow-up Interviews
4. Brighton and Hove’s Ethnicity and Religion statistics
5. Results and analysis
   • Nationality & culture
   • Transnationalism
   • Childhood Family & Home
   • Visual appearance & racial markers difference
6. Conclusion
   • Further Research
7. Bibliography
8. Appendix
   • Census Questions

List of plates and figures

• Table 1: 2001 Census data.
• Figure 1: Jessica celebrating Chinese year with the Asian society
• Figure 2: The children from Tibet that Alex taught.
• Figure 3: Andy with his younger brother.
• Figure 4: The Greek Church in which Nicole was christened

Read the entire paper here.

Passing and Performance in the 21st Century: Black-White Biracial Americans and Passing as Black

American Sociological Association
Annual Meeting 2010
Regular Session: Multi-Racial Classification/Identity
Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Monday, 2010-08-16, 16:30-18:10 EDT (Local Time)
35 pages

Session Organizer: Rebecca C. King-O’Riain, Senior Lecturer of Sociology, National University of Ireland-Maynooth 
Presider: Carolyn A. Liebler, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota

Nikki Khanna Sherwin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Vermont

Drawing on interview data with black-white biracial adults, I examine the considerable agency most have in asserting their racial identities to others. Extending research on “identity work,” I explore the strategies they use to perform race, and the individual and structural-level factors that limit the accessibility and/or effectiveness of some strategies. I further find that how these biracial respondents identify is often contextual – most identify as biracial, but in some contexts, they “pass” as monoracial. Scholars argue that “passing” may be a relic of the past, yet I find that “passing” still occurs today and quite frequently. Most notably, I find a striking reverse pattern of “passing” today – while “passing” during the Jim Crow era involved “passing” as white, I find that these respondents more often report “passing” as black today. Motivations for “passing” are explored, with an emphasis on “passing” as black.

Read the entire paper here.

The Influence of K-12 Schooling on the Identity Development of Multiethnic Students

University of British Columbia, Vancouver
April 2010

Erica Mohan

Thesis submitted in the partial fulfullment of the requirments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Graduate Studies (Educational Studies)

This study examined the influence of K-12 schooling on the racial and ethnic identity development of 23 self-identified multiethnic students attending high schools across the San Francisco Bay Area. All of the students participated in a semi-structured interview, nine participated in one of two focus groups, and five completed a writing activity. I approached this study with a postpositivist realist conception of identity (Mohanty, 2000; Moya, 2000a/b) that takes seriously the fluidity and complexity of identities as well as their epistemic and real-world significance. In defining racial and ethnic identity formation, I borrowed Tatum’s (1997) understanding of it as “the process of defining for oneself the personal significance and social meaning of belonging to a particular racial [and/or ethnic] group” (p. 16).

The findings from this study indicate that the formal aspects of schooling (e.g., curriculum and diversity education initiatives) rarely directly influence the racial and ethnic identity development of multiethnic students. They do, however, shape all students’ racial and ethnic understandings and ideologies, which in turn shape the informal aspects of schooling (e.g., interactions with peers and racial and ethnic divisions within the student body) which exert direct influence over multiethnic students’ experiences and identities. Of course, schooling is not alone in shaping the racial and ethnic understandings and ideologies of the general student body; other influences such as family and neighborhood context cannot be discounted. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that schools are sites of negotiation, that these negotiations influence multiethnic students’ identities, and that these negotiations occur in the context of, and are shaped by, both formal and informal aspects of schooling, including, but not limited to, school demographics, curricula, race and ethnicity-based student organizations, and interactions between all members of the school community. Based on the findings, it is recommended that educators infuse the curriculum and classroom discussions with issues of race, ethnicity, multiethnicity, and difference; actively engage in the process of complicating, contesting, and deconstructing racial and ethnic categories and their classificatory power; and end the silence regarding multiethnicity in schools and ensure its authentic inclusion in the curriculum.

Table of Contents

• ABSTRACT
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• LIST OF TABLES
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
  • Context
  • Problem Statement and Purpose
  • Research Questions and Methods
  • Definitions
    • Schooling vs. Education
    • Race, Ethnicity, and Multiethnicity
  • Limitations and Delimitations
  • Overview of the Dissertation
  • Significance of the Study
• CHAPTER TWO: CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMING OF IDENTITY
  • An Essentialist Approach to Identity
  • Postmodern and Poststructural Approaches to Identity
  • A Postpositivist Realist Approach to Identity
  • A Theory of Multiplicity
  • Conclusion
• CHAPTER THREE: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
  • Section I: Multiethnic Identity Development
  • Section II: Problem, Equivalent, and Variant Approaches to Multiethnic Identity
    • Problem Approaches to Multiethnic Identity
    • Equivalent and Variant Approaches to Multiethnic Identity
  • Section III: Schooling and Student Identity Construction
    • Overview of Multicultural and Antiracism Education
    • Critiques of Multicultural and Antiracism Education
  • Section IV: The K-12 Schooling Experiences of Multiethnic Students
  • Section V: Integrating the Literature
• CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY
  • Participant and Site Selection
  • Research Procedures
    • Semi-Structured Interviews
    • Focus Groups
    • Writing Activity
  • Data Analysis and Presentation
    • Starting Points
    • Generating Participant Profiles
    • Analysis of the Data Relating to K-12 Schooling Experiences
  • The Complexities of Researching Multiethnic Identities
  • Self as Research “Instrument”
    • Insider/Outsider Research
    • Self as Insider/Outsider
    • Additional Methodological Considerations
  • Conclusion
• CHAPTER FIVE: PARTICIPANT PROFILES
  • Jill
  • Mialany
  • Dana
  • Andrea
  • Anthony
  • Frank
  • Jasmine
  • David
  • Cara
  • Amaya
  • Raya
  • Barry
  • Christina
  • Kendra
  • Renee
  • Jen
  • Hip Hapa
  • Kelley
  • Josh
  • Jordan
  • Anne
  • Hannah
  • Marie
  • Discussion
• CHAPTER SIX: PARTICIPANTS’ EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE FORMAL ASPECTS OF K-12 SCHOOLING
  • Documentation of Racial and Ethnic Identities
  • Race and Ethnicity-Based Student Organizations
  • Relationships and Interactions with Teachers and Administrators
  • Specific Lessons, Projects, and Classroom Activities
  • (Not) Learning about Multiethnicity
  • (Not) Learning about Race and Ethnicity
  • Diversity Education Initiatives
  • Integrating the Data
• CHAPTER SEVEN: PARTICIPANTS’ EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE INFORMAL ASPECTS OF K-12 SCHOOLING
  • School Diversity
  • Friendships
  • Diverse Friendship Networks and Boundary Crossing
  • Friends with Similar Identities and Heritages
  • Stereotypes
  • Challenged Identities
  • Racial Tension at School
  • Integrating the Data
• CHAPTER EIGHT: PARTICIPANTS’ BROADER REFLECTIONS ON SCHOOLING AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EDUCATORS
  • Participant Perspectives
  • Integrating the Data
    • Correcting a “Blindness” Towards Multiethnic Students
    • Talking About Race (and Ethnicity and Multiethnicity)
    • Specifically Addressing Multiethnicity
    • Getting an Early Start
    • We All Have Similar “Needs”
    • A Desire for Awareness and Understanding
• CHAPTER NINE: CONCLUSION
  • Research Questions and Findings
  • Implications and Recommendations for Educators
  • Future Research Directions
  • Reflections on the Research Methodology
  • Reflections on a Postpositivist Realist Framing of Identity
  • Concluding Thoughts
• REFERENCES
• APPENDICES
  • Appendix I – Semi-Structured Interview Protocol
  • Appendix II – Writing Activity Prompt
  • Appendix III – Maria Root’s 50 Experiences of Racially Mixed People
  • Appendix IV – Behavioral Research Ethics Board Certificate of Approval

Read the entire thesis here.

Equally Multiracial? A Study of Asian/Whites and Black/Whites

American Sociological Association Annual Meeting
Hilton Atlanta and Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Atlanta, Georgia
2010-08-13
19 pages

Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl
University of Virginia

In a study with 28 individuals with either Asian/White or Black/White descent I find that all the participants prefer some variation of a multiracial identity. However, when investigating how class and gender intersect with race to affect one’s racial identity, I find that Asian/Whites have more positive experiences of their multiracial identity than Black/Whites. This discrepancy is largely due to persistent stereotypical and racist depictions of Blacks and of Asians.

…The Asian/White women in this study spoke of their mixed race identity with pride and ownership, which was often connected to beauty ideals. Their “exotic” look got them attention, most often to White men. One woman, Nancy, 29 years old and a graduate student is often asked “what are you?” When I asked her if that question bothered her, she said:

Uh, honestly I don‘t take offense. I think its kinda cool cause I have people stop me on the streets sometimes or in the elevator or something or when I go to work and meeting new people and they‘ll say,—I‘m sorry, I have to ask you, “what are you?” I always find it intriguing that people can look at me and be like she stands out—she‘s unique. I‘ve been told that I‘m beautiful, that I‘m exotic because I stand out. I actually don‘t mind, I love people questioning.

This woman repeatedly noted that she liked being seen as pretty and that her mixed-race identity did not lead to uncomfortable situations or discrimination. Instead, it was a positive experience for her. All of the Asian/White women noted having predominantly or all White partners (as well as White friends), revealing, I argue that their beauty is acceptable by the standards of the dominant White society. None of them remarked on having problems with dating or finding a partner; in fact one Asian/White woman, Kelly, 22 years old, and an artist, actually remarked that she often found men that have an “Asian fetish” men that were particularly attracted to the cultures and physical looks associated with Asian. This woman also noted that she enjoyed being “ethnically ambiguous” and that others were attracted to this feature; she notes:

I actually kind of take pride in being biracial because it… I kind of get a lot of attention as a result and I think being one or the other doesn‘t give you as much as attention, is that weird? I‘m so conceited. No, I‘m not saying that I love attention all the time but it does, it‘s more gratifying to say that you‘re biracial than to say that you‘re one, it makes you more special.

In this case, she clearly receives positive attention from being biracial and from appearing mixed race. She is attractive both because she is Asian and because she is “ethnically ambiguous” her identity serves her overall in a positive capacity.

In contrast to those of Asian/White descent, women of Black/White descent spoke to more distressing experiences related to their gender. In their case, although their biraciality likewise lent to a more unique look, it also was a point of contention when developing potential friendships with Black women, when having mostly all White friends, and when navigating relationships with men. Many of the women commented on how interactions with other Black women were problematic, teasing about skin color and hair texture were common experiences. Ashley, 24 years old, and a senior in college, noted that she continues to feel some animosity from Black women. In this passage she talks about how she goes to a bar that is often frequented by Black women, she says:

Again, love the music so I‘m going to keep going there but it was like, the Black girls were like, and I get there is this hair thing in the Black community so it‘s like my hair is always a dead give away for them to want to not like me or something like that… then I would assume that… Black people are kind of like ―oh, she‘s the mixed girl, she thinks she‘s better than us…

Read the entire paper here.