Mixed Race Studies

Mixed: Reflections on Race

Mamapedia
Mamapedia Voices
2010-03-30

Kip Fulbeck, Professor of Performative Studies, Video
University of California, Santa Barbara

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I could be anywhere, picking up some innocuous bureaucratic form on a clipboard, filling in lines and checking boxes.

Name
Address
Age
Gender
And there it is, staring me in the face.
Race (check one)

I’m amazed, on a regular basis, to find this query still printed. Like some old joke that’s lost its humor and turned sour. A true anachronism, as out of place and completely out of bounds as smoking on airplanes, WMD fabrications, or actors wearing blackface. A textual solecism. A farce. Yet I constantly hear from people still confronted with it—on job questionnaires, school surveys, traffic violations, health forms, community and housing assessments. And I still come across it occasionally myself.

For millions of Americans, this question amounts to asking us to lie. It’s asking us to choose one parent over another, or one great-great-grandparent over another, or one part of ourselves over another. And despite centuries of ignoring (or denying) the idea of racial mixing, multiracial heritage and multiracial identity are core ingredients of our society. Interracial unions have been part of America’s history since its inception, yet only recently have these collective and individual histories begun to be recognized…

…And while we can rehash the fact that race doesn’t exist biologically, that the very idea of human beings being broken down into genetically discrete groups is scientifically unsound, that somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago our common ancestors migrated out of what is now Africa, we must also acknowledge that, for better or worse, in the reality of our daily lives, race exists. In the broadest sense, viewing others as inherently different has allowed our species to commit some of the worst atrocities in our young history … the enslavement of western African peoples, the decimation to near extermination of Native Americans, the genocides of the Ottoman Empire, Auschwitz, Rwanda, and Nanking to name a few…

Read the entire article here.

For some, question #9 is number one

Nguoi Viet 2 Online
2010-04-02

Denise L. Poon
LASpot.Us

When she fills out her 2010 Census form, Mei-Ling Malone is looking forward to answering Question #9 “the race question.” She’s adamant about documenting her multiracial background.

Malone, who studied multiracial politics at UC Irvine and is now pursuing a doctorate at UCLA, has an African American father and a Taiwanese mother. For Malone, 26, this is her first opportunity to respond to a Census and possibly provide a different answer to the race question than what her parents may have noted for her 10 years ago.

“President Obama is called our first black president, yet his mother was white,” she said. “For a majority of people who are black and multiracial, we are physically viewed as black, and treated, or discriminated as such. I’m glad that when I indicate I’m multiracial, I’m also counted as black.”

On 2010 Census forms, respondents have the option to self-identify more than one race. Ten years ago, when, for the first time, respondents had options to self-identify as more than one race, nearly 7 million people (roughly 2.4 percent of the respondents) indicated such…

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“Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids” Exhibition in L.A.

The Huffington Post
2010-04-19

Victoria Namkung, Lifestyle Journalist

Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids from artist, slam poet, UCSB professor and filmmaker Kip Fulbeck, features over 70 framed photographic images of multiracial children along with own their statements or drawings. Also a book by the same name, Mixed has a foreward by Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng (President Obama’s sister) and afterword by Cher. The family-friendly and timely exhibition is on display at the Japanese American National Museum through September 26, 2010. I recently caught up with author and photographer Kip Fulbeck to chat about Mixed…

Read the entire article here.