Mixed Race Studies

Jenifer L. Bratter, an associate sociology professor at Rice University who has studied multiracialism, said that as long as race continued to affect where people live, how much money they make and how they are treated, then multiracial families would be met with double-takes. “Unless we solve those issues of inequality in other areas, interracial families are going to be questioned about why they’d cross that line,” she said.

Susan Saulny, “In Strangers’ Glances at Family, Tensions Linger,” The New York Times, October 13, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us/for-mixed-family-old-racial-tensions-remain-part-of-life.html.

The melungeons: A mystery people of east Tennessee

Ethnos
Volume 29, Issue 1-2 (1964)
pages 43-48
DOI: 10.1080/00141844.1964.9980946

Paul G. Brewster
Cookeville, Tennessee, USA

The United States has long been called, and with some justification, “the melting-pot of nations” and the intermarriage of members of different races is a commonplace. The children born to such unions are as a rule aware of their mixed ancestry and identify themselves as Swedish-French, Irish-Italian, Welsh-English, etc. However, there are many groups which have no knowledge at all as to their racial origin or, at best, only a tradition supported by no historical evidence. Such are the Weromos and the Renabees of Virginia, the “Rivers” of North Carolina, and similar groups in Delaware and Maryland. Of this type are also the “Jackson Whites” of upper New York State and the Ramapo Mountain area of northern New Jersey, some of whom live hardly more than twenty-five miles from New York City and yet have all the clannishness, hostility toward the outside world, and primitive way of life usually associated with mountain people of the Deep South. Although they themselves know (or care) nothing about their ancestry, research has established that they are the descendants of some 3500 women shipped to New York for the pleasure of British troops during the American Revolution. The name Jackson derives from that of the contractor who supplied them, and they were called “Whites” to distinguish them from the West Indian women included in the shipment. At the close of the War they were released by the British and left to fend for themselves, with the…

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I Am What I Say I Am: Racial and Cultural Identity among Creoles of Color in New Orleans

University of New Orleans
2009-05-15
62 pages

Nikki Dugar

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History

This paper examines the generational changes in the culture and racial self-identification of Creoles of Color of New Orleans. This study argues that the key to understanding Creole culture is the role that isolationism has played in its history. While White ethnics pursued a path of assimilation, Creoles of Color pursued a path of isolationism. This path served them well during the Jim Crow era, but it suddenly became undesirable during the Black Power era. Now, however, new values of multiculturalism have resurrected Creole identity as a cultural asset.

Table of Contents

• List of Figures
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Historiography
• Early Debate
• Distinctly Creole
• Passing
• Light Skin With Good Hair
• Civil Rights Creoles
• Contemporary Creoles
• American Racial Policy and Ideology
• Multiracial Chic
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Vita

List of Figures

• Figure 1. Map depicting the proximity of traditional Creole institutions to each other
• Figure 2. Plan of New Orleans, 1872
• Figure 3. Geographic Distributions and Shifts of the Creole Population in New Orleans, 1800-2000
• Figure 4. North Claiborne Avenue before the construction of Interstate Highway 10, 1966
• Figure 5. North Claiborne Avenue after the construction of Interstate Highway 10, 2009

Introduction

“I‟m too white to be black and too black to be white,” remarked Ronald Ricard, a New Orleans Creole of Color, in an interview in the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1977. Ricard was expressing a sentiment that many Creoles of Color continue to have about themselves. The feeling of not quite belonging to one race or the other has been an issue for many since the antebellum period. Since that time, the Creole community has gone through many political and social changes, which have affected not only the community‟s structure but also ideas about its racial identity. This study will focus particularly on three generations of Creoles: those who came of age before World War II, here called “Traditional Creoles” (born during the colonial period up to the 1930s); those who matured in the post war years, designated “Civil Rights Creoles” (born between 1940s and 1960s); and “Contemporary Creoles” (born in the 1970s to present day). In comparing these pre- and post-war groups, this study will explore how generational differences exist in how Creoles racially identify themselves.

To complicate matters further, Contemporary Creoles do not share a monolithic racial identity, for older and younger members of this category view certain issues very differently. This is to be expected, because identity is a constantly evolving phenomenon influenced by many external factors. Rather than gloss over their differences, this study will examine them closely in search of trends and patterns that will illuminate the entire history of Creoles of Color in New Orleans.

Primary sources used in this study include newspaper and magazine articles, maps, census data, and interviews conducted by the author. The latter were comprised of written questionnaires and follow-up oral interviews administered between Spring 2008 and Spring 2009. The sixteen interviewees were Creoles of Color, meaning people of mixed French-, African-, Spanish-, and Native-American ancestry, most of whom reside in or have familial ties to Louisiana. On the questionnaires, respondents supplied background information on themselves and family members including name, age, gender, current and previous neighborhood residences, and schools attended. They were then asked their opinions regarding Creoles of Color in New Orleans: what traits define the group, what racial and cultural differences separate Creoles from other African Americans, and what racial identity they and their families claim. After completing the questionnaires, participants were invited to contribute additional details, stories, and comments. These interviews, combined with other primary materials noted above, constitute the core of this research endeavor.

An array of secondary sources also informs this study. Secondary sources include works that examine the development of Creole culture. Sources on New Orleans history are used to place the different generations of Creoles within a historical context. Sources on multiculturalism, American popular culture, and Whiteness studies were also used to discuss the generations of Contemporary Creoles.

On the basis of the aforementioned primary and secondary sources, this study argues that the key to understanding Creole culture is the role that isolationism has played in its history. While White ethnics pursued a path of assimilation, Creoles of Color pursued a path of isolationism. This path served them well during the Jim Crow era, but it suddenly became undesirable during the Black Power era. Now, however, new values of multiculturalism have resurrected Creole identity as a cultural asset…

Read the entire thesis here.