Mixed Race Studies

I now see fluid identity as a strength. I like being able to move in and out of different communities, being able to express the cultural characteristics of my surroundings without much thought. Perhaps the best example of this came a few years ago while I was in line at Disneyland with a few friends. The women ahead of us were exchange students from Japan. We talked for the forty-five minutes or so it took to get on the roller coaster, and when we got off the ride, my friends commented on how I “became Japanese” as I talked with the students. “Your sentence structure changed. You bowed your head a lot. It was like you became a different person. Do you always do that around Japanese people?” Their questions truly caught me off guard, not because I felt insecure in who they perceived me to be, but because I really hadn’t noticed I did that. Fluid identity is just as it sounds: the ability to identify in a way that takes into account the cultural currents and adjust accordingly. The issues it raises permeate all aspects of who I am.

Amiko Matsumoto, “Fluid…: Identity In the Making,” The Vermont Connection Journal, (July 29, 2002).

Fluid…: Identity in the Making

The Vermont Connection Journal
The University of Vermont
2002-07-29

Amiko Matsumoto

I get the “what are you” question a lot. I usually get a warning that the question is coming: a tilt of the head, a squint of the eyes, a puzzled look as the wheels turn in my questioner’s head. She or he will try to figure out where I fit, what possible combination or part of the world looks like me. And when the search of the database ends without a satisfactory answer, my questioner will ask, “What are you?”

For a long time, I didn’t like this question because I didn’t have a neatly packaged answer. “My dad is sansei, a third generation Japanese American, and my mom’s ancestry goes back three generations to France and Switzerland,” I’d respond. Sometimes that answer would be satisfactory, but most often, it was not. “But what are YOU?” or “But you don’t look THAT Japanese” or even “Wow, your English is really good”—that’s what would usually follow.

When it did, I would feel like I had done something wrong, that I had failed, and that I should do more to explain myself. I wanted to be understood so badly that I sometimes tried to deny part of who I was in order to more successfully fit into someone’s perception of who I should be. But a few years ago, all of that changed. It wasn’t an overnight decision for me, but rather a process that was the result of many conversations, confrontations, and tears. At some point during my time in Burlington, I became comfortable with my biracial identity. More than comfortable, I became proud…

…I now see fluid identity as a strength. I like being able to move in and out of different communities, being able to express the cultural characteristics of my surroundings without much thought. Perhaps the best example of this came a few years ago while I was in line at Disneyland with a few friends. The women ahead of us were exchange students from Japan. We talked for the forty-five minutes or so it took to get on the roller coaster, and when we got off the ride, my friends commented on how I “became Japanese” as I talked with the students. “Your sentence structure changed. You bowed your head a lot. It was like you became a different person. Do you always do that around Japanese people?” Their questions truly caught me off guard, not because I felt insecure in who they perceived me to be, but because I really hadn’t noticed I did that. Fluid identity is just as it sounds: the ability to identify in a way that takes into account the cultural currents and adjust accordingly. The issues it raises permeate all aspects of who I am…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed Race… Mixed Up?

Presentation at the Canadian Critical Race Conference 2003

Charito Gailling

Mee Lain Ling

Our workshop will explore “mixed race experience” by referring to our own experiences as mixed race women. We are particularly interested in fostering discussion that critically examines racial binaries of whiteness vs non-whiteness and how mixed race voices are negotiated and made invisible. Using exercises, discussion and group work, we will invite participants to consider how re-presentations of power and privilege are present in popular and academic discourses on this topic. We hope to challenge participants to become aware of their own specific “lenses” and think through intersections of identity, racialization, gender, etc. which can be highlighted through the experience of being a mixed race person.

View the presentation here.

Proposed Session: Multiracial/ethnic families

XVII ISA World Congress of Sociology
Sociology on the Move
International Sociological Association
2010-07-11 through 2010-07-17
Gothenburg, Sweden

Programme Coordinators

Rudy R. Seward, Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, and Associate Chair of Sociology
University of North Texas, USA

Ria Smit, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Organizers:

Cynthia M. Cready, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of North Texas, USA

George Yancey, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of North Texas, USA

Empirical and theoretical papers that address any aspect of multiracial/ethnic families are invited for this session. Possible topics include: attitudes toward racial/ethnic dating and intermarriage and multiracial/ethnic families; trends in racial/ethnic dating and intermarriage; individual- and community-level effects on racial/ethnic dating and intermarriage; the impact of racial/ethnic dating and intermarriage on other aspects of individual and community life; representations of multiracial/ethnic families in the media; interracial/ethnic adoption; socialization in multiracial/ethnic families; racial/ethnic identity of children from multiracial/ethnic families; identity issues among adults in multiracial/ethnic families; developmental outcomes of children from multiracial/ethnic families; theoretical and methodological approaches and challenges to the study of multiracial/ethnic families; and the interaction of social policy and multiracial/ethnic families.

For more information, click here.

Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada

Harper Collins Canada
September 2001
256 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9780006385080; ISBN10: 0006385087

Lawrence Hill

Lawrence Hill’s remarkable novel, Any Known Blood, a multi-generational story about a Canadian man of mixed race, was met with critical acclaim and it marked the emergence of a powerful new voice in Canadian writing. Now Hill, himself a child of a black father and white mother, brings us Black Berry, Sweet Juice, Hill: On Being Black and White in Canada, a provocative and unprecedented look at a timely and engrossing topic.

In Black Berry, Sweet Juice, Hill movingly reveals his struggle to understand his own personal and racial identity. Raised by human rights activist parents in a predominantly white Ontario suburb, he is imbued with lingering memories and offers a unique perspective. In a satirical yet serious tone, Hill describes the ambiguity involved in searching for his identity – an especially complex and difficult journey in a country that prefers to see him as neither black nor white.

Interspersed with slices of his personal experiences, fascinating family history and the experiences of thirty-six other Canadians of mixed race interviewed for this book, Black Berry, Sweet Juice also examines contemporary racial issues in Canadian society. Hill explores the terms used to describe children of mixed race, the unrelenting hostility towards mix-race couples and the real meaning of the black Canadian experience. It arrives at a critical time when, in the highly publicized and controversial case of Elijah Van de Perre, the son of a white mother and black father [Theodore “Blue” Edwards] in British Columbia, the Supreme Court of Canada has just granted custody to Elijah’s mother, Kimberly Van de Perre.

A reflective, sensitive and often humourous book, Black Berry, Sweet Juice is a thought provoking discourse on the current status of race relations in Canada and it’s a fascinating and important read for us all.

Any Known Blood

Harper Collins Canada
2001-09-20
528 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9780006391760; ISBN10: 0006391761

Lawrence Hill

Langston Cane V is 38, divorced and working as a government speechwriter, until he’s fired for sabotaging the minister’s speech. It seems the perfect time for Langston, the eldest son of a white mother and prominent black father, to embark on a quest to discover his family’s past—and his own sense of self.

Any Known Blood follows five generations of an African-Canadian-American family in a compelling story that slips effortlessly from the slave trade of 19th-century Virginia to the modern, predominantly white suburbs of Oakville, Ontario—once a final stop on the Underground Railroad. Elegant and sensuous, wry and witty, it is an engrossing tale about one man’s attempt to find himself through unearthing and giving voice to those who came before him.

Check All That Apply: The Psychological Costs and Benefits of Adopting a Multiracial Identity

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Royal Pavilion 6
Friday, 2010-01-29, 09:45-11:00 PST (Local Time)

Chair: Todd L. Pittinsky, Harvard University

Multiracial people have always challenged the conventional notions of racial categorization, exemplified by the recent debate over President Obama’s racial identity—was he “Too Black” or “Not Black enough”? Despite his biological multiracial background, he consistently self-identifies as Black. This example illustrates the inherent flexibility in racial identification and raises questions about how this flexibility affects both the target and perceiver. This symposium assembles four diverse programs of research that explore race as a flexible construct. Our findings demonstrate how examining multiracial people can offer novel insight into the relationship between racial identification and discrimination, as well as their links to health and cognitive outcomes. Giamo and colleagues discuss how both perceptions of discrimination and parental ethnicity influence multiracial individuals’ conveyance of their racial identity. Sanchez and colleagues investigate how White ancestry reduces multiracial individuals’ credentials as an ethnic minority, affecting their worthiness as a candidate for affirmative action. Shih and La Plante explore the prevalence of health risk behaviors among monoracial and multiracial individuals. Finally, Pauker and Ambady examine whether multiracial individuals can flexibly adopt different racial identifications to guide preferential “own-race” memory and the involvement of discrimination narratives in such changes in racial identification. These studies introduce new advances in thinking about how perceived experiences with discrimination shape both self and other perceptions of racial identity. Additionally, they highlight that the adoption of a flexible, multiracial identity can engender a complex set of consequences and benefits, including both negative health outcomes and positive cognitive outcomes.

Talk 1- The Influence of Perceptions of Discrimination and Parental Ethnicity on Multiracial Identity

Lisa S. Giamo
Simon Fraser University

Michael T. Schmitt
Simon Fraser University

H. Robert Outten
Simon Fraser University

Talk 2 – Minority Status Perceptions of Black/White Biracial Individuals

Diana T. Sanchez
Rutgers University

Jessica J. Good
Rutgers University

George Chavez
Rutgers University

Talk 3 – Health Risk Behaviors of Multiracial and Monoracial Young Adults

Margaret J. Shih
University of California, Los Angeles

Debi A. LaPlante
Harvard Medical School

Talk 4 – Multiracial Individuals’ Flexible “Own-Race” Memory

Kristin Pauker
Stanford University

Nalini Ambady
Tufts University

For complete information on the four talks, click here.

Identity & Issues for Multiracial Students and College Campuses (Pre-Conference Institute #111)

NCORE^® 2010
23 Annual National Conference on Race & Enthnicity in American Higher Education
National Harbor, Maryland
2010-06-01 through 2010-06-05

A three‑part, highly interactive institute designed to provide participants a greater understanding of racial identity development for multiracial people and the issues surrounding them as they interface with different racial groups in their respective sociocultural environments. Using an assortment of educational approaches, the institute (1) presents historical and current models of racial identity development in multiracial people; (2) provides in‑depth reflection on personal perspectives and assumptions about multiracial identity; (3) discusses the implications of defining one’s self as multiracial, in campus and contemporary social settings; and (4) outlines some ways to promote inter‑group dialogue and coalition building between different racial groups and multiracial people on campuses and in community settings. The institute includes dialogue among participants who bring a wide range of perspectives about what it means to be multiracial on campus. In addition, the institute provides opportunities for participants to assess programs at their colleges and universities and develop action plans to further address the multiracial issues on their campuses. Presentations, experiential activities, and small- and large-group discussions allow participants to actively engage throughout the institute.

Overall Objectives:

1. Provide an overview of theoretical approaches to identity development of multiracial people.
2. Provide a minimum of three creative and experiential tools for exploring and understanding multiracial identity.
3. Provide roundtable discussions to address contemporary issues faced by Multiracial people on college campuses.
4. Provide roundtable discussions to assist participants in evaluating and growing their own institution’s multiracial programs.

Facilitated by: Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe, Meg Chang and Dennis Leoutsakas.

For more information, click here.

ETHN 115 – Biracial+Multiracial Iden (3 Units)

Sacramento State University
Spring 2010

Examination of biracial/multiracial populations, their social histories, social experiences and social identities within various sociological and social psychological theoretical frameworks. An exploration of the relationship biracial/multiracial groups have had, and continue to have, with the larger white majority and monoracially identified minorities.

Love’s Revolution: Interracial Marriage

Temple University Press
January 2001
240 pages
6×9
3 tables 1 figure
Paper: EAN: 978-1-56639-826-8; ISBN: 1-56639-826-6
Cloth: EAN: 978-1-56639-825-1; ISBN: 1-56639-825-8

Maria P. P. Root

When the Baby Boom generation was in college, the last miscegenation laws were declared unconstitutional, but interracial romances retained an aura of taboo. Since 1960 the number of mixed race marriages has doubled every decade. Today, the trend toward intermarriage continues, and the growing presence of interracial couples in the media, on college campuses, in the shopping malls and other public places draws little notice.

Love’s Revolution traces the social changes that account for the growth of intermarriage as well as the lingering prejudices and false beliefs that oppress racially mixed families. For this book author Maria P.P. Root, a clinical psychologist, interviewed some 200 people from a wide spectrum of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Speaking out about their views and experiences, these partners, family members, and children of mixed race marriages confirm that the barriers are gradually eroding; but they also testify to the heartache caused by family opposition and disapproving strangers.

Root traces race prejudice to the various institutions that were structured to maintain white privilege, but the heart of the book is her analysis of what happens when people of different races decide to marry. Developing an analogy between families and types of businesses, she shows how both positive and negative reactions to such marriages are largely a matter of shared concepts of family rather than individual feelings about race. She probes into the identity issues that multiracial children confront and draws on her clinical experience to offer child-rearing recommendations for multiracial families. Root’s “Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People” is a document that at once empowers multiracial people and educates those who ominously ask, “What about the children?”

Love’s Revolution paints an optimistic but not idealized picture of contemporary relationships. The “Ten Truths about Interracial Marriage” that close the book acknowledge that mixed race couples experience the same stresses as everyone else in addition to those arising from other people’s prejudice or curiosity. Their divorce rates are only slightly higher than those of single race couples, which suggests that their success or failure at marriage is not necessarily a racial issue. And that is a revolutionary idea!

Read an exceprt from Chapter 1 here.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Love and Revolution
2. Love and Fear
3. Sex, Race, and Love
4. The Business of Families
5. Open and Closed Families
6. The Life Cycle and Interracial Marriage
7. Parents, Children, and Race
8. Ten Truths of Interracial Marriage
Appendix
Notes
References
Index