Mixed Race Studies

Creole Identity in the French Caribbean Novel

University Press of Florida
2001-01-18
320 pages
6 x 9
ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-1835-5; ISBN 10: 0-8130-1835-8

H. Adlai Murdoch, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Literature
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Adlai Murdoch offers a detailed rereading of five major contemporary French Caribbean writers–Glissant, Condé, Maximin, Dracius-Pinalie, and Chamoiseau. Emphasizing the role of narrative in fashioning the cultural and political doubleness of Caribbean Creole identity, Murdoch shows how these authors actively rewrite their own colonially driven history.

Murdoch maintains that the culture of the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique is less homogeneous and more creatively fragmented than is commonly supposed. Promoting a new vision of this multifaceted region, he challenges preconceived notions of what it means to be both French and West Indian. The author’s own West Indian origin provides him with intimate, firsthand knowledge of the nuances of day-to-day Caribbean life.

While invaluable to students of Caribbean literature, this work will also appeal to those interested in the African diaspora, French and postcolonial studies, and literary theory.

What Are You? Mixed-Heritage Brooklyn

Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn, New York
2011-09-26, 19:00 EDT (Local Time)

All events are held at BHS and are free with museum admission ($6 adults, $4 students/teachers/seniors, free for children under 12) unless otherwise noted. Admission is always free for BHS members.

Participate in this discussion at BHS about mixed heritage co-sponsored by Loving Day, a global network fighting racial prejudice through education and building multicultural community. This conversation will be facilitated by Jen Chau of Swirl, a multi-ethnic, anti-racist organization that promotes cross-cultural dialogue, with Suleiman Osman, author of The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification, Race, and the Search for Authenticity in Post-War New York; performance artist Judith Sloan, co-author and co-creator with Warren Lehrer of Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America; and writer and actress Katrina Grigg-Saito, whose documentary and installation FishBird is titled for the saying “a fish can love a bird but where would they live?” This event is free and open to the public; light refreshments will be served.

This event is part of Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations, a public programming series and oral history project about mixed-heritage families, race, ethnicity, culture, and identity, infused with historical perspective. This project is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Humanities, New York Council for the Humanities, Two Trees Management, Brooklyn Brewery, Sweet’N Low, and Con Edison.

For more information, click here.

Race, Blood, and What the Alligator Knows: A Review of What Blood Won’t Tell

Southern California Law Review
Volume 83, Number 3 (March 2010)
pages 425-440

Jason A. Gillmer, Associate Professor of Law
Texas Wesleyan School of Law

From the opening pages of Ariela J. Gross’s What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America, it is clear that the reader is about to embark on something special. The story begins in a Louisiana courthouse in 1857, with an enslaved woman named Alexina Morrison claiming that she is white. For her contemporaries, the assertion no doubt carried troubling implications. James White, the man who insisted Morrison was black, had papers to prove that he paid good money for her and that she was his property. But her “blue eyes and flaxen hair” told a different story, and her recent appearances at public balls in Jefferson Parish had convinced a number of residents that her graceful mannerisms and affectations were those of a white woman rather than slave. The courtroom was soon bombarded with a dizzying array of evidence for such a simple question—was she white or was she black?—with men eventually stripping her to the waist to examine her body for the tiniest signs of her true identity. Three trials later, the community still had not resolved the issue. But more importantly, from Gross‘s view, this case provides an unparalleled opportunity to examine the complex and constantly shifting ground of race and its import for this nation‘s history…

Read the entire essay here.

When Gray Matters More Than Black or White: The Schooling Experiences of Black-White Biracial Students

Education and Urban Society
Volume 45, Number 2 (March 2013)
pages 175-207
DOI: 10.1177/0013124511406917

Rhina Maria Fernandes Williams, Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education
Georgia State University, Atlanta

Although research is scant, there is a growing interest in the manifestation of the racial and cultural context on the schooling of biracial students. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the schooling experiences of 10 Black–White biracial students. Specifically, the goals of the study were to (a) identify the factors Black–White biracial students, ages 16 to 22, perceive as influential in their schooling; and (b) identify the factors the students’ parents perceive as influential in their children’s schooling. This study includes a brief review of the literature related to the schooling experiences of Black–White Biracial students. A qualitative phenomenological methodology was used to guide the design, implementation, and analysis of the study. The findings from the interviews with the biracial youth and their parents resulted in five themes, which were (a) region and school diversity; (b) peers; (c) teachers; (d) curriculum; and (e) socioeconomic status. Implications for researchers, policy makers, and teachers are outlined.

Read or purchase the article here.

The Origins of the Afrikaners and their Language, 1652-1720: A Study in Miscegenation and Creole

Race & Class
Volume 15, Number 4 (April 1974)
pages 461-495
DOI: 10.1177/030639687401500404

Ken Jordaan

We are a bastard people with a bastard language. Ours is a bastard nature. That is good and fine. And like all bastards, uncertain of their identity, we have begun to cling to the concept of purity.

— Breyten Breytenbach, the Afrikaner poet

Introduction

The purpose and scope of this paper may be summarized as follows: 1. From the middle of the fifteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, Portuguese was a world language, having been spoken in the Caribbean and Latin America, Africa and Asia, consequent upon the expansion of the Portuguese empire. It was used as literary or High Portuguese, but mainly as Creole or Low Portuguese, the lingua franca. Europeans spoke it among themselves when they could not communicate with one another in their own languages. It was also spoken among slaves and between master and slave. Dutch officials, sailors and soldiers as well as African and Oriental slaves introduced the lingua franca into the Cape of…

Read or purchase the article here.