Mixed Race Studies

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.

Mixed Is/Mixed Ain’t

Mixed Dreams: towards a radical multiracial/ethnic movement
2010-08-09

Nicole Asong Nfonoyim, Assistant Director, Multicultural Resource Center and Africana Community Coordinator
Oberlin College

…As someone who has never passed as anything other than black (and maybe a lil’ somethin’ else from time to time, but always black), I was surprised to find just how much of Birdie’s story resonated with me—the idea that our mixed bodies become at once the canvas and the mirror upon which others cast their perceptions of who we are. At the same time, I kept wanting to get inside Cole’s head. I wanted to hear her side of the story—the story of the sister “left behind”—the sister who’s “black” body could not be erased or so easily forgotten. Instead of feeling like Birdie, I found I felt much more like Cole. We only hear about Cole through Birdie and see her through Birdie’s eyes. Birdie seems envious of the ease with which her sister can pass through and into the black community, while she struggles to make her blackness visible. Ultimately, Birdie passes as white, Cole passes as black.

Lately, this idea of passing has been nagging me. Racial ambiguity and passing are big issues in our multi experiences, yet  are they prerequisites? How do our current conceptions of passing support the centering of white/non-white identities in the mixed community? Can we think of passing as multidirectional—not just passing as white, but also the ability to pass as black, Asian, Latin@ or even races/ethnicities we don’t identify with at all?…

Read the entire essay here.

America’s Changing Color Lines: Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Multiracial Identification

Annual Review of Sociology
Volume 30 (August 2004)
pages 221–242
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110519

Jennifer Lee, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

Frank D. Bean, Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology and Economics; Director of the Center for Research on Immigration, Population, and Public Policy
University of California, Irvine

Over the past four decades, immigration has increased the racial and ethnic diversity in the United States. Once a mainly biracial society with a large white majority and relatively small black minority—and an impenetrable color line dividing these groups—the United States is now a society composed of multiple racial and ethnic groups. Along with increased immigration are rises in the rates of racial/ethnic intermarriage, which in turn have led to a sizeable and growing multiracial population. Currently, 1 in 40 persons identifies himself or herself as multiracial, and this figure could soar to 1 in 5 by the year 2050. Increased racial and ethnic diversity brought about by the new immigration, rising intermarriage, and patterns of multiracial identification may be moving the nation far beyond the traditional and relatively persistent black/white color line. In this chapter, we review the extant theories and recent findings concerning immigration, intermarriage, and multiracial identification, and consider the implications for America’s changing color lines. In particular, we assess whether racial boundaries are fading for all groups or whether America’s newcomers are simply crossing over the color line rather than helping to eradicate it.

Read the entire article here.

In the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured (also known as Bruinmense, Kleurlinge or Bruin Afrikaners in Afrikaans) refers or referred to an ethnic group of mixed-race people who possess some sub-Saharan African ancestry, but not enough to be considered Black under the law of South Africa. They are mixed race and often possess substantial ancestry from Europe, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaya, Mozambique, Mauritius, Saint Helena and Southern Africa. Besides the extensive combining of these diverse heritages in the Western Cape—in which a distinctive ‘Cape Coloured’ and affiliated Cape Malay culture developed—in other parts of Southern Africa, their development has usually been the result of the meeting of two distinct groups. Genetic studies suggest the group has the highest levels of mixed ancestry in the world.

Wikipedia

Hang Tough, Martina

Frear Ensemble Theatre
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
2004-02-27 through 2004-02-29
Saturday at 20:00, Sunday at 14:00

Composed and Performed By: Audrey Pernell
In Collaboration with: Vernice Miller and Jessica Nakamura
Directed by: Vernice Miller
Music: Ralph Denzer

The Department of Theater presents an honors thesis project by Audrey Pernell, directed by Vernice Miller as Artist-in-Residence. Hang Tough, Martina is a work in progress composed and performed by Audrey Pernell ’04 in collaboration with Vernice Miller and Jessica Nakamura ’03. It is an exploration of light-skinned black/biracial black-white identity using a fusion of European and African performance elements, made most evident through the characterization of a contemporary griot-opera-diva.