Mixed Race Studies

I Call Myself What I like: Mixed Race Identity & Social Media

University of Leicester
October 2013
68 pages

Nadia Riepenhausen

Submitted for the degree of MA in Mass Communications, Media & Public Relations

This research study asserts that mixed race people are hyper-visible in terms of their images in media and popular culture, yet still remain largely invisible, due to a lack of recognition and acknowledgment, in mainstream media. As a result of a lack of representation, social media has become an important and significant way for mixed race people to interact, in terms of producing and consuming content. The study uses a qualitative research methodology, in the form of in-depth interviews, as well as incorporating several theories, including a ‘uses and gratifications’ approach. The research also shows that social media allows those who identify as mixed race to navigate multiple identities more freely and express themselves in ways that are not always possible in ‘real life’.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1 Research questions
  • 1.2 Why mixed race?
• 2. Theoretical Perspective
  • 2.1 Representation theory
  • 2.2 New ethnicities
  • 2.3 Critical theories and mixed race
  • 2.4 Uses and gratifications theory and social media
• 3. Literature Review
  • 3.1 Mixed race studies
  • 3.2 Race, mixed race and media
  • 3.3 Social media and race
• 4. Research Methodology
  • 4.1 Objectives of research
  • 4.2 Qualitative Research/In-depth Interviews
  • 4.3 Research sample
  • 4.4 Shared Identities
  • 4.5 Data Collection and analysis
• 5. Results and Discussion
  • 5.1 Multiple Identities
  • 5.2 Mixed race identity and gender
  • 5.3 Media representations of mixed race
  • 5.4 Navigating mixed race and social media
  • 5.5 Creating new identities.
  • 5.6 ‘Produsage’
  • 5.7 Cheerios Commercial
  • 5.8 The way forward
• 6. Conclusion
  • 6.1 Limitations
  • 6.2 Future Research
• 7. Appendices
• 8. References

Read the entire thesis here.

Infant Perceptions of Mixed-Race Faces: An Exploration of the Hypodescent Rule in 8.5 Month-Old Infants

Pitzer College, Claremont, California
Senior Theses
Spring 2013
42 pages

Sophie Beiers

Studies have shown that adults often categorize mixed-race individuals of White and non-White descent as members of the non-White racial group, an effect said to be reminiscent of the “hypodescent” or “one-drop rule.” This effect has not yet been thoroughly studied in infants, although 9-month-old infants have been shown to be able to categorize mono-racial faces into different racial groups. In the present study, the perception of mixed-race White and Asian/Asian American faces was studied in sixteen 8.5-month-old infants. The infants were randomly assigned to two stimulus groups. The stimuli were the photographed faces of female college students who had self-identified as White, Asian/Asian American, or a 50-50 mix of those two races. Half the infants were habituated to White faces and half were habituated to Asian/Asian American faces, after which all infants were shown a mixed-race face. The results revealed that only infants in the White stimulus group recovered looking to the mixed-race face. This effect suggests that 8.5- month-old infants might see the mixed-race face as part of a different racial group than the White faces, and may see the mixed-race face as part of the same racial group as the Asian faces. Implications of this study on a larger scale are discussed. Further research including a larger sample size and participants of Asian/Asian American descent is recommended.

Read the entire thesis here.

Faces of the Future: Race, Beauty and the Mixed Race Beauty Myth

Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota
American Studies Department Honors Projects
2012-05-01
129 pages

Clara Younge

Introduction

In November 2009, popular fashion magazine Allure revealed the “Face of the Future”. Between pages of glistening models with features ranging from freckled faces with full lips to loosely curled afros and almond-shaped eyes, photographer Marilyn Minter gave us not only the changing face of America, but the changing face of American beauty. As the highlight reads: “more than ever before, beauty is reflected in a blend of ethnicities and colors.” The accompanying editorial by fashion journalist Rebecca Mead extolls the “extraordinary” beauty of mixed race people and their potential to change “the fashion and beauty industries.”

She begins with the growing numbers of mixed race people in the US. With 6.8 million Americans identifying as mixed race in 2000, and nearly half of these being under 18, she says, “young America is starting to look very different from old America, and not just because it has far fewer wrinkles and better muscle tone.” The article goes on to describe each of the models according to her ethnicities, which are given in terms of both nationalities (“Barbadian,” “German,” and “Brazilian) and American ethnic or cultural groups (“African-American,” “Hispanic,” and “Creole”). Mead includes brief quotes from two of the women about their experiences with mixed race identity, particularly around phenotypic ambiguity. She emphasizes the unique looks of these models, saying that “fashion and beauty industries sometimes don’t know what to do with these models, but they had better get used to their like,” because they will soon be—if they aren’t already—the epitome of American beauty…

…To satiate readers’ need to categorize, the women’s ethnicities are listed in the corner caption of each picture along with the makeup products that they wear. In these representations, their heritages or composite “parts” become nothing more than products that they can put on for a photo shoot, and that the reader might just as easily purchase for herself. This reduction of identities and histories to an optional appendage that one can simply put on and take off at will, or to a commodity that can be bought in stores, reflects current post-racial ideology of the neoliberal individual subject who is supposed to move freely through society unfettered by race, class or gender.

Problematically, while the article claims to celebrate ‘ethnic’ beauty and ‘difference,’ it still upholds whiteness as dominant, as all of these models have European heritages, and all, as blogger Latoya Peterson critiques, “would easily pass the paper bag test” (2009). This rhetoric of inclusion only reinforces the boundaries of difference by excluding blackness as too other—too far outside the norm to be accepted.

In the narrative about mixed race bodies that Allure weaves, identity is individualized, privatized and depoliticized. The mixed race subject is included in the institution of beauty, but this comes at the cost of others. Here, inclusion of the mixed race subject not only reifies the dominance of whiteness, but also further otherizes blackness. This inclusion also hinges upon racialized and gendered paradigms of bodily essentialism. While mixed people may be welcomed into the institution of beauty, it is under specific stipulations. Mixed race identity is defined as inherently different from all other racialized groups, as necessarily part-white, as socially and racially flexible, and as inherently beautiful…

…But what prompts the proliferation of conversations in popular magazines, television, advertising and model agencies, and even scientific inquiry, about the reigning beauty of multiracial women, ultimate cuteness of mixed race kids, and overall attractiveness of “mixed” people? What (other than vanity) prompts us to say that mixed people are the most beautiful? In this project I hope to explore the question: Why are mixed people the most beautiful?—or why does everyone seem to think they are?

To get at this question I take two routes: I will first examine popular conceptions of beauty and how these have been linked with race, I will bring mixed race bodies into the conversation of beauty standards and ideals, asking: What do people mean when they talk about “beautiful mixed people”? Is it a certain type or combination of racial identities? And if so, how does this image fit into pre-formed ideas about race and beauty?

For the second leg of my journey, I will take on the question of beauty as something more than skin-deep. Many scholars of beauty have said that the construct and its definition – who it includes and excludes – is linked to not only personality and moral character, but also to racial inferiority and national identity. Here I ask: What is being said about beauty and mixed race? How is this discourse being circulated?

And finally: Why now? Why mixed race? How does the myth of mixed race beauty fit into current discourse around mixed race identity? How is the concept of ‘beauty’ representative of broader social trends such as citizenship, neoliberal inclusion, and new racial projects concerning multiracial identity?

This paper combines an interdisciplinary review of theories on beauty, race, gender with a critical mixed race studies lens. Previous scholarship on the history of American beauty standards and ideals lays the groundwork for my exploration of racialized beauty standards. Scholarship in critical mixed race studies and critical race studies are the-foundation for my discussion of the beauty myth as part of a larger social trend around race and mixed race identity. Contemporary cultural texts such as the “Face of the Future” article inform my investigation of current beauty ideals and my discussion of the discourse around the mixed race beauty myth and beauty in general. This project uses commentary from focus groups conducted with students at Macalester College. The findings from these focus groups represent the opinions, ideas and dialogues of and between contemporary subjects who live within this beauty culture. The results from these focus groups situate my work in the experiences and opinions of real people and guide my analysis of the mixed race beauty myth.

My contribution to the discussion on beauty will be the inclusion of modern-day mixed race subjects. Thus far there has been research on the hypersexualization of mulatto women during slavery, but the racialized sexualization of mixed-race women today has been less explored. I also critically analyze the presence of previously described beauty ideals and types in contemporary culture, testing the theories of previous scholarship and the standards of years past for relevance in our current cultures
of beauty.

I place the mixed race beauty myth within a broader conversation about multiraciality. Both of these discourses elevate the mixed race subject in the popular racial imaginary-to the status of super hero. Through analysis of the mixed race beauty myth, I want to contribute to a larger critique of the idea that mixed people will all somehow save the world, simply by existing—or simply by being beautiful.

I chose this project out of personal interest. As a woman with a mixed race identity, I have heard this statement that “mixed people are the most beautiful” many times. As a woman immersed in a culture that emphasizes the importance of femininity and attractiveness, the question of beauty has concerned me. And as a light-skinned woman of color I have been bombarded with conflicting messages telling me that people who look like me are or aren’t attractive, or that I am, but my darker-skinned sisters cannot be. It is necessary for me to recognize the positionality that I bring to this project, because it doubtless informs the way I approach these questions, their answers, and my entire process…

Read the entire honors thesis here.

Living in Ambiguity: The Mixed Race Experience at Colorado State University

Colorado State University
Fall 2012
77 pages

Carl Izumi Olsen

In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts Colorado State University, Fort Collins

This study analyzes the experiences of mixed race students at Colorado State University by using semi-structured interviews of nineteen students. The interviews reveal that multiracial students exhibit different forms of racialization as compared to monoracial students. Despite some commonalities, the study also demonstrates that multiracial students are not monolithic group. In an effort to highlight the uniqueness embedded in the diversity of multiracial students, the study analytically identifies three main clusters based on how they are perceived. These include: Non-White Mixed Race, In-Between Mixed Race, and White-Identified Mixed Race. The interviews also show that the three dominant themes mediate their multiracial identity: perception, self-identification and connection to culture. Finally, the participants in this study all point to the inability of the existing cultural centers in meeting their specific needs and call for the establishment of multiracial center that would provide resources for education, outreach and retention issues for multiracial students.

Read the entire thesis here.

The Duty to Miscegenate

University of Michigan
152 pages
2013

Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Philosophy)

In ‘The duty to miscegenate’, I harness John Stuart Mill’s 19th century theory of social freedom to explain and to dismantle contemporary racialised and gendered injustice. In the first chapter—Social stigmatisation: ‘a social tyranny’—I argue that persons racialised-and-gendered-as-black-women were, in the past, unjustly stigmatised by legal penalties against ‘miscegenation‘ and are still, today, unjustly stigmatised by white male avoidance of cross-racial marriage and companionship. In the second chapter—Encounters that count: ‘a foundation for solid friendship’—I argue that we can dismantle this stigmatisation, by engaging in regular and frequent cross-racial commensality with persons racialised-and-gendered-as-black-women. In the third chapter—White right: ‘a right to avoid’—I argue that, although we have a right to avoid commensal encounters with others, we do not have a right to avoid persons we racialise as black. On the contrary, we have a duty to encounter them, on terms of equality and intimacy.

Table of Contents

• DEDICATION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• LIST OF TABLES
• 1. Social stigmatisation: ‘a social tyranny’
  • The chief mischief of the legal penalties
  • They strengthen the social stigma
• 2. Encounters that count: ‘a foundation for solid friendship’
  • The real remedy for breaking caste is inter-marriage
  • Another plan of action for the abolition of caste is to begin with inter-caste dinners
• 3. White right: ‘a right to avoid’
  • We have a right to avoid it
  • A right to avoid blacks?
• BIBLIOGRAPHY

Read the entire dissertation here.

Indiana’s Miscegenation Laws: An Ineffective Racist Agenda

Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana
May 2013
57 pages

Megan M. Harris

An Undergraduate Honors Thesis (HONRS 499)

Miscegenation laws have played an influential and explanatory role in Indiana’s perception and attitudes about interracial relationships. Indiana had stringent regulations against such unions, which existed for a large portion of the Hoosier state’s history. Despite the unusually harsh legislations against these couples, interracial marriages continued to occur in Indiana. In fact, some multiracial communities, such as the Longtown Settlement, were created as safe havens for these couples. Although these laws were repealed in Indiana two years before the country abolished them nationwide in 1967, the state has had persistent attitudes against interracial marriage that couples must endure. In the face of the continual growth of such unions, local and national attitudes can be adjusted to greater social acceptance, especially with a clear understanding of the racism that underlies the previous miscegenation laws that outlawed interracial marriages.

Read the entire thesis here.

Visualizing Race: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the Struggle for Koreanness in Contemporary South Korean Television

University of Texas at Austin
August 2013
240 pages

Ji-Hyun Ahn

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

“Visualizing Race: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the Struggle for Koreanness in Contemporary South Korean Television” investigates visual representations of multicultural subjects in both celebrity culture and the reality television genre to examine the struggle for Koreanness in contemporary Korean television. My aim is to explain the transformation from a modern monoracial Korea to a multicultural, global Korea as a national project of what I call “neoliberal multiculturalism” and to problematize the implicit tie between the two words, “neoliberal” and “multiculturalism.” Using the category of mixed-race as an analytical window onto this cultural shift, I attempt to link the recent explosion of multiculturalism discourse in Korea to the much larger cultural, institutional, and ideological implications of racial globalization. To illustrate this shift, the dissertation analyzes both black and white mixed-race celebrities as well as ordinary multicultural subjects appearing on Korean reality programs. I examine historical archives, popular press sources, policy documents, and television programs in order to analyze them as an inter-textual network that is actively negotiating national identity.

Utilizing the concept of neoliberal multiculturalism as an overarching framework, the dissertation explicates how concepts such as nationality, race, gender, class, and the television genre are intricately articulated; it also critically deconstructs the hegemonic notion of a multicultural, global Korea presented by the Korean media. I argue that Korean television deploys racial representations as a way to suture national anxiety over an increasing number of racial others and projects a multicultural fantasy towards Koreans. This interdisciplinary project contributes to several fields of study by explicating the changed cultural meaning of mixed-race in the age of globalization, defining the organic relation between the medium of television and racial representation, broadening our understanding of Asian multiculturalism and the racial politics in the region, and examining the particulars of ethnic nationalism appearing in the Korean media and popular culture.

Read the entire dissertation here.

The Influence of Spirituality on the Implicit Identity of Racial African American Women of Ethnically Cherokee Ancestry

Argosy University, Washington, D.C.
December 2009
141 pages

Daryl Harris Thorne

Submitted to the Faculty of Argosy University – Washington, DC Campus College of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences In partial fulfillment of The requirements for the  Degree of Doctor of Education

This dissertation examines the influence of spirituality on implicit identity using a heuristic-case study approach. This research attempted to recognize the complexity of identity construction by acknowledging the myriad of factors that contribute to the human experience beneath surface identity. Historical trauma, marginalization, and the Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924 were also explored using Symbolic Interaction as a theoretical frame. Based on the findings, counselors are reminded to remain open to the possibility that there are people who present a certain way, externally, due to external features or socialization yet, internally, identify in a different way. This study adds a substantive dimension to theories of identity formation that place primary focus on spirituality vs. racial, historical and societal constructions.

The Rise and Demise of the Gens De Couleur Libre Artists in Antebellum New Orleans

University of Florida
2012
173 pages

Karen Burt Coker

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

The gens de couleur libres of New Orleans occupied a unique position as worldly practitioners of the arts. This situation was created by social, legal and cultural circumstances. Louisiana, as a French colony, implemented the “Code Noir,” to control the large population of free people of color. These laws, although designed to control, granted opportunities for free people of color. This led to a three-caste social system with the gens de couleur libres occupying the central position, between whites and enslaved peoples.

Restrictions forbidding the marriage of free people of color to whites, or enslaved blacks, combined with the fact that free women of color outnumbered free men of color, led to the system of plaçage, an extralegal system of common-law marriage between white men and women of color. When children resulted from plaçage unions, additional laws sought to hinder those children from obtaining an education. This was remedied by the custom of wealthy white fathers sending their sons to Paris for schooling. This education frequently concentrated on the fine arts.

New Orleans was a rapidly growing city, eager to prove its sophistication and dispel any reputation as a backwater colony. The newly French-educated artists were eagerly received by Francophile New Orleans patrons keen for the newest demonstration of the superior culture of their motherland.

This thesis explores the work of these artists, while focusing upon the rise and fall of the tri-caste system that created a positive environment for artists of color when most free blacks faced open hostility elsewhere.

Read the entire thesis here.

One Drop of Love: Finding the Love in the One-drop Rule through Documentary Storytelling and Performance

California State University, Los Angeles
May 2013
84 pages

Fanshen DiGiovanni

A Project Report Presented to The Faculties of the Departments of Television, Film & Media Studies, and Music, Theatre & Dance In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts

One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for her Father’s Racial Approval is a solo-play incorporating filmed images, photographs and animation to examine how ‘race’ came to be in the United States, and how it influences the relationship between a father and daughter. The show journeys from the 1700s to the present, to cities throughout the United States, and to East and West Africa where both father and daughter spent time in search of their ‘racial’ roots. This project report chronicles and evaluates Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni’s process as a playwright, producer and actor in developing One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for her Father’s Racial Approval.