Mixed Race Studies

Nation’s First Asian American Rabbi Inspires Social Change

KoreAm: The Korean American Experience
2011-12-06

Rebecca U. Cho

Unorthodox Rabbi

As a child, Angela Buchdahl stood out as the lone Asian face in the synagogue and at Jewish camps. Today, she holds the distinction of being the nation’s first Asian American rabbi and is helping to redefine what it means to be Jewish.

On Friday nights at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, a crowd of 600 gathers for service, voices unifying in centuries-old songs of worship. Leading the attendees in fluent Hebrew, her passion-laden voice soaring to the tops of the temple, is Korean American Angela Buchdahl.
 
A decade ago, Buchdahl shook up the ranks of Jewish leadership in the U.S. by becoming the country’s first Asian American rabbi. She is “emblematic of the changing face of Judaism,” declared an article in Newsweek, which named the biracial 39-year-old to its 2011 list of 50 Most Influential Rabbis. Not only is she helping to redefine what it means to be Jewish, she is at the forefront of a movement among Reform Jews to inspire social change and push for greater involvement in community organizing.
 
Her leadership and vision seem to have connected with Jews around the world. Since her arrival five years ago to the prominent New York synagogue as cantor, or song leader, attendance on Friday nights has doubled. Thousands more worldwide recently listened in on a live web stream of services for the High Holy Days…

…The need to connect to a Jewish community is close to Buchdahl’ s heart. Born Angela Lee Warnick to a Korean Buddhist mother and a Jewish American father, she spent much of her childhood with a perpetual sense of being “the only one.”
 
Buchdahl’ s parents met and married in South Korea, where her father had been visiting as a civil engineer in the ROTC program and her mother was studying English literature at Yonsei University. After the family relocated to the U.S. when Buchdahl was 5 years old, she and her sister grew up as the lone Jewish kids in a large Korean American community in Tacoma, Wash. At the same time, in the synagogue and Jewish camps, she stood out as the only Asian face.
 
“My ‘Koreanness’ wasn’t anything I could escape because it was on my face,” says Buchdahl. Her younger sister, on the other hand, was often mistaken for being Hispanic…

…She sees her bicultural heritage reflected in the diverse Jewish community in New York and at Central Synagogue, which counts at least a dozen Asian-Jewish families. Racial diversity has been on the upswing, with about 20 percent of the 6.1 million Jews in America being of African, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern or mixed-race descent, compared to prior estimates of 10 to 14 percent, according to a 2005 book by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research…

Read the entire article here.

How Is Biracialism Changing America – And The Jewish community?

RepairLabs: Resources and strategies for volunteer engagement and Jewish Service-Learning
2012-02-10

Diane Tobin, President
Institute for Jewish & Community Research

As the parent of a Black Jewish child, I want my son to feel at home in the Jewish community. It seems to me that it is in our self interest to welcome everyone with open arms, yet it occurs to me that we may need to be sensitive to what Alvin Toffler described in the 70’s as “Future Shock”—the stress and disorientation of too much change in too short a time. I wonder how much time is too short? And, what role does race and ethnicity play in being Jewish in America.
 
Jews are part of American life and are affected by social trends. Taboos around interracial and LGBT unions are diminishing, transracial adoption is increasing, and people see being Jewish as one of many identities…

Read the entire article here.

Welcome! Please Check Your Identity at the Door

RJ.org: News & Views of Reform Jews
2012-06-27

Lacey Schwartz, National Outreach/New York Regional Director
Be’chol Lashon

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who was planning on enrolling her daughter in a local Hebrew school, a decision she is now reconsidering. Why? After meeting with the school’s principal and expressing her concerns about the unique challenges of race in this setting, the principal smiled and earnestly told her not to worry, “We have had African-American kids before. We are truly a colorblind school.” A nice gesture, but most thoughtful people know color blindness to be negative—and not just for traffic lights and fashion choices. Though well intentioned, dismissing students’ racial identities does not signify acceptance. Yet, in the world of synagogues and Jewish camps, color blindness is often touted as plus.
 
I can appreciate the desire for racial neutrality that motivates people who claim not to see race. To them, it speaks to a vision of a world where the color of one’s skin does not matter. But, as a Black Jewish woman in America, I know this to be wishful thinking. Even if I wanted to discard my racial identity, I can’t. Moreover, I don’t want—nor should I have to—leave a part of my identity at the door when I walk into a JCC or synagogue. I want to be fully present. For me, Jewish peoplehood means including race in the conversation, not pretending it doesn’t exist…

Read the entire article here.

“Mixed-Race in the Bible (“Chino-Chicano” Part II)

Jesus for Revolutionaries: A Blog About Race, Social Justice, and Christianity
2013-01-09

Robert Chao Romero, Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies and Asian American Studies
University of California, Los Angeles

As an expression of my multiracial struggles, I used to wrestle a lot with the issue of marriage. I used to say to myself: “If I marry someone who’s Mexican, then my kids will be 75% Mexican. They’ll have a solidified racial identity. If I marry someone who is Chinese, then they’ll be 75% Chinese, probably look mostly Asian, and then they might have some identity problems. If I marry someone who’s Anglo, then my kids will probably look Latino, even though they’ll be only 25% Mexican. But they’ll have the last name Romero, so they’ll probably just pass as Latino.” I can’t believe I used to think this way!

In my heart I knew that this was not the right way to be thinking about marriage. Every time I went down this path of reasoning I would end up deeply frustrated, practically to the point of tears. This is led me, one day in law school to cry out to God and say, “God, please help me to understand the topic of race from Your perspective!” The answer to that prayer is what I hope to share with you in the next several blog posts.

After many years of wrestling with my mixed race identity, I feel that God has given me peace, healing, and a deep security in my unique identity. I have discovered a biblically-grounded understanding of race and ethnicity which allows me to be a whole-human being, and which allows me to understand, celebrate, and accept all of who I am. Thank You God. I hope that I might be able to share this understanding with you now, and that what I share might help bring healing to many individuals who have gone through, or are going through, the same struggles I have experienced as a mixed race individual…

Read the entire article here.

In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People

Institute for Jewish & Community Research
September 2005
272 pages
ISBN-10: 1893671011; ISBN-13: 978-1893671010

Gary A. Tobin

Diane Tobin

Scott Rubin

Foreword by:

Lewis Gordon, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and Director of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies
Temple University

2006 Independent Publisher Book Award Finalist for the category “Multicultural Non-Fiction Adult.”

A groundbreaking look at the changing faces of the Jewish people and the implications for the world Jewish community

Jews have always resembled the peoples among whom they live, whether in Africa, Asia, or Europe. Why should American Jews be an exception? In a land where racial and ethnic boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred, the American Jewish community is also shifting. In Every Tongue is both a groundbreaking look at the changing faces of the Jewish people and an examination of the timelessness of those changes. Ranging from distinct communities of African American Jews and adopted children of color in white Jewish families to the growing number of religious seekers of all races who hope to find a home in Judaism, In Every Tongue explores the origins, traditions, challenges, and joys of diverse Jews in America.

This book explodes the myth of a single authentic Judaism and shines a bright light on the thousands of ethnically and racially diverse Jews in the United States who live full and rich Jewish lives. It is impossible to read In Every Tongue without coming away with a deeper respect for and a broader understanding of the Jewish people today. In a time when Jewish community leaders decry the shrinking of the Jewish population, In Every Tongue imagines a vibrant and daring future for the Jewish people: becoming who they have always been.

Table of Contents

• Foreword
• A Synonym for Jewish
• Describing the Tapestry
• Racial and Religious Change in America
• Jewish Diversity in America and the Politics of Race
• The Last Taboo: Interracial Marriage
• Feet in Many Rivers: Navigating Multiple Identities
• Jews Have Always Been Diverse
• Who Is a Jew? Ideology and Bloodlines
• By Choice or by Destiny
• And for Those Too Young to Ask: Transracial Adoption
• Patches of Color, Patches of White
• Toward a More Inclusive Future
• Who Is a Jew, Really?
• Be’chol Lashon: A Visual Journey
• Methodology
• Notes
• Glossary
• Index
• Selected Bibliography

Family of Freedom: Presidents and African Americans in the White House

Paradigm Publishers
February 2011
288 pages
6″ x 9″
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-59451-833-1
EBook ISBN: 978-1-61205-000-3

Kenneth T. Walsh

This book examines the intertwined relationships between the presidents and the African Americans who have been an integral part of the White House since the beginning of the Republic. The book discusses the racial attitudes and policies of the presidents and shows how African Americans helped to shape those attitudes and policies over the years. The analysis starts with the early presidents who had slaves and tells the compelling stories of their interactions, with an emphasis on how these slaves dealt with bondage in the supposed citadel of American freedom and independence. The book moves through the era of Abraham Lincoln, whose views on emancipation were greatly influenced by the African Americans around him, especially by White House seamstress Elizabeth Keckley and valet William Slade. The book covers the Jim Crow era and proceeds through the political and cultural breakthroughs on civil rights accomplished by Lyndon Johnson in partnership with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The book ends with an insightful analysis of the rise, election, and administration of Barack Obama, the first African American president, including an exclusive interview with Obama.

Census Bureau Names Eric Hamako to National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations

United States Census Bureau
News Release
CB12-R.33
2012-10-12

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today the establishment of the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations and has named Eric Hamako as a member of the committee.
 
The National Advisory Committee will advise the Census Bureau on a wide range of variables that affect the cost, accuracy and implementation of the Census Bureau“s programs and surveys, including the once-a-decade census. The committee, which is comprised of 32 members from multiple disciplines, will advise the Census Bureau on topics such as housing, children, youth, poverty, privacy, race and ethnicity, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other populations…

…Eric Hamako has been involved in mixed-race student and community organizing since 2000. Currently completing his doctorate in social justice education at the University of Massachusetts, Hamako studies how community education can support mixed-race people’s political movements and ways to incorporate stronger anti-racist frameworks into those educational efforts. Hamako has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Stanford University, the University of Massachusetts, Ithaca College, and the Smith College School for Social Work. As an independent trainer and consultant, Hamako has presented on multiraciality and other social justice issues to universities, professional associations and community organizations across the United States.

Read the entire press release here.

Hall of Fame Has Always Made Room for Infamy

The New York Times
2013-01-08

Bill Pennington

The Baseball Hall of Fame, the most august fraternity of its kind in American sports, unveils its latest induction class Wednesday. For the first time this year, balloters must weigh the fate of two eminent stars, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who are also the most celebrated poster boys for the game’s disgraced steroid era.

Players linked to steroid use have been resoundingly rejected by Hall of Fame voters in recent years, shunned as synthetically enhanced frauds. But drawing an integrity line in the sand is a tenuous stance at a Hall of Fame with a membership that already includes multiple virulent racists, drunks, cheats, brawlers, drug users and at least one acknowledged sex addict.

In the spirit of Groucho Marx, who refused to join any club that would have him as a member, would not baseball’s 77-year-old gallery of rogues be the perfect fit for Bonds and Clemens?

Robert W. Cohen, who wrote the 2009 book “Baseball Hall of Fame — or Hall of Shame?”, readily recalled a catalog of reprehensible acts by Hall of Fame inductees.

“Baseball has always had some form of hypocrisy when it comes to its exalted heroes,” he said. “In theory, when it comes to these kinds of votes, it’s true that character should matter, but once you’ve already let in Ty Cobb, how can you exclude anyone else?”…

…“Cap Anson helped make sure baseball’s color line was established in the 1880s,” Thorn said of the Chicago Cubs first baseman and manager who was enshrined in the Hall of Fame the year it opened in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1939. “He was relentless in that cause.”

Anson repeatedly refused to take the field if the opposing roster included black players. Anson had plenty of co-conspirators. The Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, also a member of the Hall of Fame class of 1939, “outed” the African-American infielder Charlie Grant, who was posing as a Cherokee on the preseason exhibition roster of the Baltimore Orioles team led by John McGraw (Hall of Fame class of 1937).

Overseeing baseball’s segregationist policy in three decades was Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis (Hall of Fame class of 1944). When Landis died in 1944, an initiative was begun to break the color barrier, an effort that culminated with Jackie Robinson’s Brooklyn Dodgers debut in the spring of 1947…

Read the entire article here.

Tragic No More: Mixed Race Women and the Nexus of Sex and Celebrity

University of Massachusetts Press
December 2012
176 pages
6 x9; 6 illustrations
ISBN (paper): 978-1-55849-985-0
ISBN (cloth): 978-1-55849-984-3

Caroline A. Streeter, Associate Professor of English
University of California, Los Angeles

A timely exploration of gender and mixed race in American culture

This book examines popular representations of biracial women of black and white descent in the United States, focusing on novels, television, music, and film. Although the emphasis is on the 1990s, the historical arc of the study begins in the 1930s. Caroline A. Streeter explores the encounter between what she sees as two dominant narratives that frame the perception of mixed race in America. The first is based on the long-standing historical experience of white supremacy and black subjugation. The second is more recent and involves the post–Civil Rights expansion of interracial marriage and mixed race identities. Streeter analyzes the collision of these two narratives, the cultural anxieties they have triggered, and the role of black/white women in the simultaneous creation and undoing of racial categories—a charged, ambiguous cycle in American culture.

Streeter’s subjects include concert pianist Philippa Schuyler, Dorothy West’s novel The Wedding (in print and on screen), Danzy Senna’s novels Caucasia and Symptomatic, and celebrity performing artists Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, and Halle Berry. She opens with a chapter that examines the layered media response to Essie Mae Washington-Williams, Senator Strom Thurmond’s biracial daughter. Throughout the book, Streeter engages the work of feminist critics and others who have written on interracial sexuality and marriage, biracial identity, the multiracial movement, and mixed race in cultural studies.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Essie Mae Washington-Williams’s Secrets and Strom Thurmond’s Lies
• 2. The Wedding’s Black/White Women in Prime Time
• 3. Sex and Femininity in Danzy Senna’s Novels
• 4. Faking the Funk? Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, and the Politics of Passing
• 5. From Tragedy to Triumph: Dorothy Dandridge, Halle Berry, and the Search for a Black Screen Goddess
• 6. High (Mulatto) Hopes: The Rise and Fall of Philippa Schuyler
• Afterword
• Notes
• Index

Being Mixed and Black: The Socialization of Mixed-Race Identity

University of Chicago
2012-12-13
92 pages

Brett R. Coleman

Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 2012

This study examined the relationship between parental racial-ethnic socialization and racial-ethnic identity development from the perspective of biracial young adults. Despite the recent advances in theory regarding mixed-race identity development, few studies have examined how parents’ attitudes about race and ethnicity influence the identities of mixed-race youth. Similarly, racial-ethnic socialization theory is largely based on the assumption that individuals identify with single racial-ethnic groups that are discrete and mutually exclusive. Participants were eight biracial young adults with one Black and one White parent. Through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, participants revealed that the socialization of their racial-ethnic identities involved balancing discrete and overlapping, mixed and Black identities. The relationship between socialization and identity development was subject to various ecological influences associated with living in a racialized society in which races are historically thought to be discrete groups with impermeable boundaries. Results are discussed in relation to ecological models of mixed-race identity development.

Read the entire thesis here.