Mixed Race Studies

Slave Mothers and White Fathers: Defining Family and Status in Late Colonial Cuba

Slavery & Abolition
Volume 31, Issue 1 (March 2010)
pages 29-55
DOI: 10.1080/01440390903481647

Karen Y. Morrison, Assistant Professor of Afro-American Studies
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

This paper outlines the mechanisms used to position the offspring of slave women and white men at various points within late nineteenth-century Cuba’s racial hierarchy. The reproductive choices available to these parents allowed for small, but significant, transformations to the existing patterns of race and challenged the social separation that typically under girded African slavery in the Americas. As white men mated with black and mulatta women, they were critical agents in the initial determination of their children’s status-as slave, free, mulatto, or even white. This definitional flexibility fostered an unintended corruption of the very meaning of whiteness. Similarly, through mating with white men, enslaved women exercised a degree of procreative choice, despite their subjugated condition. In acknowledging the range of rape, concubinage, and marriage exercised between slave women and white men, this paper highlights the important links between reproductive practices and the social construction of race.

Read or purchase the article here.

The Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting 2010

81st Annual PSA Meeting
2010-04-08 through 2010-04-11
Marriott Oakland City Center
Oakland, California

Theme: Revitalizing the Sociological Imagination: Individual Troubles & Social Issues in a Turbulent World

Selected programs from the Preliminary Program Guide include:

Friday, 2010-04-09, 12:00-13:10 PDT (Local Time)

86) Roundtables

Table 3: Mixed Race & Identity: The Social Construction of Race
Organizers: Michael McKail & Joanna Norton, UCR [University of California, Riverside]
Krystale Littlejohn, Stanford Univ.: Interracial Dating & Endogamy among Mixed race Youth in the U.S.
Charlene Johnson, Univ. of New Mexico: “Brokers” of Culture: Hearing Children of Deaf Adults at the Interchange of Ethnic Identity

Saturday, 2010-04-10, 15:30-17:00 PDT (Local Time)

192) Multi-Racial & Multi-Ethnic Identity: Contemporary Trends in Research
Organizer: Shigueru Tshua, UCR & Reginald Daniel, UCSB
Adam Louis Horowitz, Stanford Univ.: Don’t Hate on the Halfies: Religious Identity Formation Among Children of Inter-Religious Couples
Shigueru, Tshua, UCR: The Stacked Bar Model of Ethnic Identity: Peruvian Nikkei’s Shifting Identities from Peru to California
Rebecca Romo, UCSB: Between Black & Brown: Blaxican Identity in the United States
Reginald Daniel, UCSB: Hypocritical Hybridity & the Critical Difference: Postraciality in the Age of Obama

Sunday, 2010-04-11, 11:15-11:45 PDT (Local Time)

220) Minority Experiences
Organizer: Aya Kimura Ida, CSU Sacramento
Sabeen Sandhu, Santa Clara Univ.: Migration & Medical Degrees: U.S. Born Foreign Medical Graduates
Sarah Schlabach, UCLA: Family, Race & Gender: What Does It Mean To Be Multiracial?
Aya Kimura Ida, CSU Sacramento: Coping with Discrimination: Role of Self-Esteem for African Americans, Caribbean Americans & European Americans

For more information, click here.

Census Chief Apologizes for ‘Negro’ Category

The New York Times
2010-03-26

Kate Phillips

When Robert Groves, the director of the Census Bureau, appeared on C-Span’s “Washington Journal” program Friday morning, he found himself having to defend the racial designations on the census form…

Read the entire article here.

The Meaning of Style: Black British Style, and the underlying political and social environment

New Art Exchange
Nottingham, England
2010-01-16 through 2010-04-10
Monday to Friday 10:00-19:00 BT; Saturday 10:00-17:00 BT
Admission:  Free

Artists:

Vanley Burke (Photography)
Clement Cooper (Photography) [Includes a selection of prints from the DEEP Project]
Michael Forbes (Photography)
Gerard Hanson (Painting / Photography)
Barbara Walker (Painting / Drawing)
 
Curated By:

David Schischka Thomas

New Art Exchange presents an exhibition exploring the presence of young African Caribbean men in Britain over the last 40 years, and how Black music, fashion and culture have influenced mainstream society.

Young African Caribbean men have often been portrayed as low achievers and perpetrators of crime in British society. But now, with Barack Obama winning the presidency of the biggest superpower in the world, will we see these same young men portrayed in a different light; as a source of huge potential for the future? Will the achievement of black youth in Britain over the last 40 years be recognised and honoured?

Read the complete description here.

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)

The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) consists of fifty-nine high-precision samples of the American population drawn from fifteen federal censuses, from the American Community Surveys of 2000-2007, and from the Puerto Rican Community Surveys of 2005-2007. Some of these samples have existed for years, and others were created specifically for this database. These samples collectively constitute our richest source of quantitative information on long-term changes in the American population. However, because different investigators created these samples at different times, they employed a wide variety of record layouts, coding schemes, and documentation. This has complicated efforts to use them to study change over time. The IPUMS assigns uniform codes across all the samples and brings relevant documentation into a coherent form to facilitate analysis of social and economic change.

For more information, click here.