Mixed Race Studies

In Japan’s Okinawa, saving indigenous languages is about more than words

The Washington Post
2014-11-29

Anna Fifield, Tokyo Bureau Chief

NISHIHARA, Japan — Rising in turn at their wooden desks, the students giggled, squirmed or shuffled as they introduced themselves, some practically in a whisper.

“Waa naamee ya — yaibiin . . . (My name is . . . ).” One by one, the classmates at Okinawa Christian University managed to get out their names, a few confidently, but most of them sheepishly.

Teacher Byron Fija waved his arms around, laughed and tried to encourage the class, which looked like a college group anywhere — some in hoodies, others in baseball caps and one guy with green hair.

But it was clear that the language — Okinawan — didn’t come naturally to most of them.

It’s the biggest of the six main indigenous languages spoken in this subtropical Japanese island chain, once the independent Ryukyu kingdom but now best known for hosting most of the American military bases in Japan…

…Fija is almost evangelical in his promotion of Okinawan, poetically called “uchi-naa-guchi” here.

In addition to teaching, Fija, 45, plays the sanshin, a three-stringed Okinawan banjo, and sings. For five years he hosted a radio show in Okinawan.

He sees the language as intrinsic to his identity. A product of the military occupation, he is the son of an Okinawan mother and an American father, a man he has never heard from.

Fija cites two experiences that motivated him to embrace the local language and culture.

First, he learned to play the sanshin.

“Someone told me that my playing was fine but my Okinawan sounded American, even though I don’t speak any English. Maybe it was because I don’t look Japanese or Okinawan,” Fija said after class, wearing a traditional Japanese outfit with an Okinawan pattern. His Okinawan pronunciation, he said, was the equivalent of a Japanese person singing in English “I rub you” instead of “I love you.”.

Then, in the 1990s, he spent a year or so in Los Angeles, hoping to make it as a rock star. But as he discovered how hard that was, he had an epiphany. Because of his Caucasian looks, he said, he had never really been accepted as Japanese. But with no knowledge of his father and little proficiency in English, he clearly wasn’t American, either…

Read the entire article here.

Smoking Trajectories Among Monoracial and Biracial Black Adolescents and Young Adults

Journal of Drug Issues
Volume 45, Number 1 (January 2015)
pages 22-37
DOI: 10.1177/0022042614542511

Trenette T. Clark, Assistant Professor of Social Work
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Anh B. Nguyen, Cancer Prevention Fellow
Science of Research and Technology Branch (SRTB)
Behavioral Research Program (BRP)
National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Maryland

Emanuel Coman
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Cigarette-smoking trajectories were assessed among monorace Blacks, Black–American Indians, Black–Asians, Black–Hispanics, and Black–Whites. We used a subsample of nationally representative data obtained from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The sample consisted of adolescents who were in Grades 7 to 12 in 1994, and followed across four waves of data collection into adulthood. Wave 4 data were collected in 2007-2008 when most respondents were between 24 and 32 years old. Respondents could report more than one race/ethnicity. Poisson’s regression was used to analyze the data. We found distinct smoking trajectories among monorace and biracial/ethnic Blacks, with all groups eventually equaling or surpassing trajectories of Whites. The age of cross-over varied by gender for some subgroups, with Black–American Indian males catching up earlier than Black–American Indian females. Black–White females smoked on more days than monorace Black females until age 26 and also smoked more than Black–White males between ages 11 and 29 years. Black–Hispanic males smoked on more days than Black–Hispanic females from ages 11 to 14. The results of the interaction tests also indicated different smoking trajectories across socioeconomic status (SES) levels among White, Black, and Black–White respondents. Significant heterogeneity was observed regarding smoking trajectories between monorace and biracial/ethnic Blacks. Knowledge of cigarette-smoking patterns among monorace and biracial/ethnic Black youth and young adults extends our understanding of the etiology of tobacco use and may inform interventions.

Read or purchase the article here.

Privilege is like oxygen: You don’t realize it’s there until it’s gone. As white folks, we can’t know what it’s like to go through life without racial privilege because we literally haven’t.

Sally Kohn, “What white people need to know, and do, after Ferguson,” The Washington Post, November 28, 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/28/what-white-people-need-to-know-and-do-after-ferguson/.

FOLKS MIXED WITH WHITE: Calling out white supremacy does not mean that you don’t love your white family. If anything, seeing our friends and family as real people with flaws, is true love. We have all been raised in this system, we are all complicit. Let us remember that the revolution starts at home.

Rema Tavares, “Mixed-Race Identity, Ferguson & Why it Matters to Us,” Mixed In Canada, November 25, 2014. https://mixedincanada.com/2015/11/30/mixed-race-identity-ferguson-why-it-matters-to-us/.

Obama Plans Meetings on Ferguson Unrest at the White House

The New York Times
2014-11-30

Julie Hirschfeld Davis, White House Reporter

WASHINGTON — President Obama is planning a day of meetings at the White House on Monday to respond to the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and racially tinged anger across the country after a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager.

Mr. Obama, who has labored to strike the right balance in reacting to the crisis, has not scheduled a trip to Ferguson despite days of speculation about a presidential visit there.

But he will gather his cabinet on Monday to discuss the results of a review of federal programs that provide military-style equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies. The initiatives were called into question in August, after the Ferguson police responded with riot gear and assault-style weapons to protests in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown, the teenager, by Officer Darren Wilson…

…The president has faced a challenge in calibrating his response to the situation in Ferguson, working to balance the task of urging calm and unity with his desire, as America’s first black president, to acknowledge racial wounds — all while being careful not to interfere in the investigation…

Read the entire article here.

‘Pelo Malo’ Director Mariana Rondon: Why Her Movie Hits A Nerve

NBC News
2014-11-19

Sandra Guzman

For Latinos born with Afro-textured, curly hair or kinky hair – referred to as pelo malo or “bad hair” in Latin America and the Caribbean – their experiences can be quite intense and in many cases negative, as an Afro-Honduran recently told NBC News Latino contributor Raul A. Reyes.

Precisely because Afro-textured hair holds such a complex, racial history in our home countries, it can be tricky to explore as a topic. But in the skillful hands of Venezuelan director/writer Mariana Rondón, black hair is a window into Latin America’s soul.

The Venezuelan movie Pelo Malo, which opens Wednesday in selected theaters across the country, has generated controversy in Venezuela and grabbed audiences and juries alike. It has already won several awards, including top prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The plot of the film seems simple enough: a nine-year old boy wants to straighten his afro-like hair to look like his favorite pop singer—a Justin Bieber type – for his school picture. His unemployed single mom, who is light skinned, will have none of it; she also worries he might be gay. As the battle between mother and son unfolds, with the backdrop of chaotic modern day Caracas and the child’s paternal black abuela, this brilliant film exposes every layer of modern day Venezuelan society—its negated racism, its beauty queen culture, its urban violence, poverty, its polarized politics, and its deeply rooted homophobia.

NBC News spoke to the Ms. Rondón who is visiting New York for today’s film’s premiere…

…Why black hair?

Black hair serves as a portal. In the beginning, the boy goes to the mirror; the mirror is a window into the most profound part of our identity. We all have that thing we don’t like about us, a nose, a body part. It’s where we begin to recognize ourselves.

In that sense, we all have pelo malo…

Read the entire interview here.

Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories ed. by Andrew Garrod, Robert Kilkenny, Christina Gomez (review)

Journal of College Student Development
Volume 55, Number 8, November 2014
pages 856-858
DOI: 10.1353/csd.2014.0077

Jessica C. Harris

Andrew Garrod, Christina Gómez, and Robert Kilkenny, Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013)

Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories presents multiracial student essays focusing on growing up and living as a mixed-race individual in a society founded on monoracial understandings of race. The purpose of the book is “to capture the phenomenology of being mixed-race in a compelling way, and in so doing to inspire, engage, and move our readers” (p. xi). The edited book contains 12 narratives written by self-identified multiracial students: six men and six women, either current students or recent graduates of Dartmouth College. For the most part, the multiracial individuals’ narratives included in this book were enrolled in one of several Dartmouth education courses taught by Andrew Garrod, one of the editors of Mixed. Students who were not enrolled in one of Garrod’s courses, but whose narratives are included in the book, were recommended to the editors by other Dartmouth students and faculty. All of the students worked closely with Garrod over a 10-week period, either face to face or via email, to craft the narratives that are presented in this book.

The book begins with a preface that explains the creation of the 12 narratives, and subsequently, the book. The editors explained how the essays were crafted over a great deal of time with Garrod’s help and input. Using a list of thought-provoking questions, which were included in the preface, the 12 student authors were asked to reflect and write on their experiences with race and identity throughout their lifetime. Robert Kilkenny, the second editor, reviewed each essay and offered feedback to Garrod and the multiracial students.

The introduction provides an important context for the 12 narratives. The first half of the introduction turns a critical eye to the social construction of race in America and the implications this has on multiracial individuals. Moreover, the connection between multiraciality and post-racial rhetoric is explored in an attempt to expose the contemporary realities of multiracial Americans. The authors explain that neoconservatives have begun to position multiraciality as an object that symbolizes the end to race and racism. However, the 12 narratives contained in this book suggest that race and racism are indeed present in the lives of multiracial students, refuting the notion that we are living in a post-racial nation.

The second half of the introduction provides an overview of the three different sections into which the book is divided. Additionally, a summary of each of the 12 narratives is offered in this overview. While this roadmap is helpful, individual summaries may have been better placed as an introduction to each respective section. Instead, the reader must continually refer to the introduction to read about the purpose of each of the three sections and the narratives within them.

The first of three sections in Mixed, Who Am I?, contains four first-person narratives from multiracial students. These four narratives focus on the incongruence students encountered between racial self-identification and others’ perceptions of their race. The narratives expose how physical features, such as hair and skin-color, caused non-multiracial individuals to question multiracial students’ racial identities. The four narratives in this section included stories from students who grew up or spent time internationally, relaying the complexities of being both multiracial and multicultural. For instance, one woman grew up in Japan, identified with Japanese heritage and culture, but understood that she did not “look Japanese” in an American context.

In-Betweenness, the second section in Mixed, explores four more multiracial students’ experiences of being mixed-race in a post-racial America. This section exposes the fluidity of race for four multiracial students. For instance, one “Happa”-identified male asserted he could be White, Asian, or somewhere in between. While this liminal space was a positive aspect for this student, other narratives in this section provided an alternate reality, one of being caught between racial identities. Specifically, one Chinese, Indian, and White female student conveyed the complexities of navigating multiple racial heritages and the influence this had on her relationship with her parents. She described privilege that comes with being monoracial and not having to oscillate or navigate between the cultures and races of one’s parents.

The final section…

Latino Life: Are We Tolerant Of Our Own Hispanic Diversity?

NBC News
2014-08-02

Raul A. Reyes

Being Latino means being part of a rich, diverse culture. Or does it? Some Latinos feel removed from their peers because of their skin color, language ability, or mixed-race heritage. Others have faced criticism for holding political views at odds with the Hispanic mainstream. In fact, many Latinos know all too well what it is like not to fit in with their own community.

“Most people believe that all Latinos look like the stereotypical Puerto Rican or Mexican,” said Mirna Martinez-Santiago, 43, a New York attorney. “I am from Honduras. I am black, racially, but I identify as Latina.”

The host of The Opinion Talk Show gave some examples of how her skin color has caused confusion – and awkward moments.

“I walk into a Dominican hair salon and the employees are talking about me,” Martinez-Santiago said. “I can hear them talk about my pelo malo (bad hair). I tell them there is nothing wrong with my hair, and they are shocked that I can understand them. I try to educate people, but the best way to educate people is just by being,” said Martinez-Santiago…

…Julie A. Dowling, associate professor of Latina/o Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said Latino identity depends on many factors, including regional differences, national origin, physical features and language ability.

“There are wide, diverse experiences in competition with the stereotypical images. So people are constantly judged by these images,” Dowling explained.

“The stereotype of Latinos is that they are Mexican, Spanish-speaking immigrants, and possibly undocumented,” Dowling said. “And because it is such a strong stereotype, people often define themselves in relation to it.”

The author of a new book on Latino identity, Dowling added that “even the U.S. Census Bureau is still trying to figure out who Latinos are.”…

Read the entire article here.