Mixed Race Studies

Skin color matters in Latino/a communities: Identifying, understanding, and addressing Mestizaje racial ideologies in clinical practice.

Professional Psychology: Research and Practice
Volume 47, Issue 1 (Feb 2016)
pages 46-55
DOI: 10.1037/pro0000062

Hector Y. Adames, Professor of Clinical Counseling Psychology

Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, Child Clinical Psychologist, Professor, Researcher

Kurt C. Organista, Associate Dean; Professor of Social Welfare
The San Francisco Foundation, San Francisco, California

Little attention has been paid to within-group differences among Latino/as, particularly with regards to skin color and related racial features. The few available studies suggest that skin color, physiognomy, and colorism (a form of within-group racial discrimination) can negatively affect interpersonal relations, mental health, educational attainment, and income among Latino/as. Considering factors such as skin color and physiognomy in the general well-being and mental health treatment of Latino/as may foster rapport building in therapy and better treatment outcomes for individuals across the color gradient. Integrating such factors may also contribute to the provision of culturally responsive and racially conscious services to individuals from this community. Thus, there is an urgent need for mental health practitioners to understand and address the impact of skin color and physiognomy on the lived experience of Latino/as. The purpose of this paper is to help prepare mental health practitioners working with Latino/as to identify, acknowledge, and respond to the clinical implications of skin color, racial features, and colorism. To achieve this goal, 3 objectives are outlined. First, the concept of Mestizaje racial ideologies, a myopic view that places individuals of Latino/a descent from the entire color spectrum into one racial category, is presented. Second, a case vignette is offered to illustrate how topics related to skin color and colorism may present themselves in clinical practice. Finally, the article concludes with a model to assist mental health practitioners, educators, and clinical supervisors gain the knowledge, awareness, and clinical skills to competently address the role of skin color and physiognomy when working with Latino/as.

Read or purchase the article here.

Mom Writes Book, ‘Bad Hair Does Not Exist!’ For Daughters

NBC News
2016-02-17

Maya Chung

Bad Hair Does Not Exist/Pelo Malo No Existe! is a Children’s Book by Sulma Arzu-Brown.

“Bad Hair Does Not Exist!” is a new bilingual book that encourages young Black, Afro-Latino, and multi-racial girls to see themselves, and their hair, as beautiful.

Sulma Arzu-Brown, who calls herself a “Garifuna” woman or Afro-Latino from Honduras, was inspired to write the book after her three-year-old daughter’s babysitter commented that little Bella Victoria had “pelo malo,” which is a Spanish term for “bad hair.”

She knew then that she could either be angry or be a part of the solution, so she chose to write a book.

“The book is a tool of cultural solidarity and a tool of empowerment for all of our little girls,” said Arzu-Brown whose daughters are now 4 and 11. “The term ‘Bad hair’ or ‘Pelo Malo’ is divisive to both community and family, and can contribute to low self-esteem.”…

Read the article here.

Call for papers: Mana Tangatarua: Mixed heritages and biculturalism in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Dr Zarine L. Rocha
2015-11-22

Deadline: 29 February 2016

This volume seeks to explore the diversity of research on “mixed race”/mixed ethnic identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand. “Mixed race” identities have been the subject of growing scholarly interest over the past two decades, particularly in North America and Britain. In multicultural societies, increasing numbers of people of mixed ancestry are identifying themselves outside of traditional racial categories, challenging systems of racial classification and sociological understandings of “race”.

This volume aims to reorient the field of study to look specifically at New Zealand. New Zealand provides a particularly interesting context, with a diverse population, and an unusual state framework around race and ethnicity: mixedness and “mixed ethnic identity” have been officially recognised for more than 20 years. The proposed book will draw on research across disciplines, seeking to explore both the past and the present by looking at how race relates to ethnicity, and how official and social understandings of these terms have changed. It will focus on the interactions between race, ethnicity, national identity, indigeneity and culture, especially in terms of visibility and self-defined identity. The range of themes covered will include the complexity of the lived mixed race experience, the role of indigenous identity, migration, generational change and identity, and the complexities of a multicultural society within a bicultural national framework.

Book Overview

The proposed book will be edited by Dr Zarine L. Rocha (National University of Singapore) and Dr Melinda Webber (University of Auckland).

It will include an introduction written by the editors surveying the current condition of the field of scholarship in the country, putting this in an international context. This will be followed by up to 15 chapters of original research by a selection of senior, mid and early career researchers across a range of disciplines.

Please send your abstracts (150-200 words) and bio (50-100 words) by 29 February 2016, to: Dr Zarine L. Rocha (z.l.rocha@ajss.sg).

The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
2016-02-02
368 pages
6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
Hardcover ISBN: 9780544387669
eBook ISBN: 9780544386426
Paperback ISBN: 9780544811805

Michael Eric Dyson, Professor of Sociology
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Michael Eric Dyson explores the powerful, surprising way the politics of race have shaped Barack Obama’s identity and groundbreaking presidency. How has President Obama dealt publicly with race—as the national traumas of Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and Walter Scott have played out during his tenure? What can we learn from Obama’s major race speeches about his approach to racial conflict and the black criticism it provokes?

Dyson explores whether Obama’s use of his own biracialism as a radiant symbol has been driven by the president’s desire to avoid a painful moral reckoning on race. And he sheds light on identity issues within the black power structure, telling the fascinating story of how Obama has spurned traditional black power brokers, significantly reducing their leverage.

President Obama’s own voice—from an Oval Office interview granted to Dyson for this book—along with those of Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, and Maxine Waters, among others, add unique depth to this profound tour of the nation’s first black presidency.

Mixed-Race Youth and Schooling: The Fifth Minority

Routledge
2016-02-26
256 pages
10 B/W Illus.
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-13-802191-4
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-13-802193-8

Sandra Winn Tutwiler, Professor of Education
Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas

This timely, in-depth examination of the educational experiences and needs of mixed-race children (“the fifth minority”) focuses on the four contexts that primarily influence learning and development: the family, school, community, and society-at-large.

The book provides foundational historical, social, political, and psychological information about mixed-race children and looks closely at their experiences in schools, their identity formation, and how schools can be made more supportive of their development and learning needs. Moving away from an essentialist discussion of mixed-race children, a wide variety of research is included. Life and schooling experiences of mixed-raced individuals are profiled throughout the text. Rather than pigeonholing children into a neat box of descriptions or providing ready made prescriptions for educators, Mixed-Race Youth and Schooling offers information and encourages teachers to critically reflect on how it is relevant to and helpful in their teaching/learning contexts.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Part I: Being Mixed-Race in Society
  • Chapter 1: The Context of Race for Mixed-Race People
  • Chapter 2: Mixed-Race People in Society Over Time
  • Chapter 3: Racial Identity: Multiple Perspectives on Racial Self-Understanding
• Part II: Family, Community, and Peers
  • Chapter 4: Structures, Practices, and Socialization in Interracial and Multiracial Families
  • Chapter 5: Community, Social Class and Sociocultural Interactions
  • Chapter 6: Peer Relations and Friendship Formations
• Part III: Education and Schooling: People, Places, and Practices
  • Chapter 7: Teachers’ (Mixed) Race Constructions and Teaching in Multiracial Classrooms
  • Chapter 8: The Racial Context of Schooling and Mixed-race Youth
  • Chapter 9: Schooling Supportive of Mixed-Race Youth
• Index

Black Lives Matter Activist Says Obama Meeting Was Positive

TIME
2016-02-18

Maya Rhodan

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 18: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) speaks about race relations while flanked by Brittany Packnett (L), and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, February 18, 2016 in Washington, DC. President Obama met with African American faith and civil rights leaders before an event to celebrate Black History Month. Mark Wilson—Getty Images

For over an hour on Thursday, 31-year-old activist and educator Brittany Packnett sat beside President Obama at a table in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for a unique meeting of the minds.

The nation’s first African American president convened a group of activists, both young and old, for a discussion on how he can spend his final year in office tackling issues that impact the black community—from criminal justice reform to police-community relations. Though one activist from Obama’s hometown of Chicago publicly slammed the meeting as a “photo opportunity and a 90-second sound bite for the president,” according to Packnett, the meeting was the complete opposite of that.

“We had a conversation that lasted over 90 minutes,” Packnett tells TIME. “The president actually extended himself because he wanted to continue the conversation. We had a lot of opportunity to elevate various strategies that are happening on the ground as far as criminal justice reform, working on police violence, and systemic educational inequities.”…

Read the entire article here.

Meet Team One Drop: Ben Affleck

Fanshen Cox
2016-02-10

One Drop of Love is a multimedia one-woman show exploring the intersections of race, class and gender – and in search of justice and love. The show is written and performed by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni.

For more information, click here.

An Exploration of Racial Considerations in Partnered Fathers’ Involvement in Bringing Up Their Mixed-/Multi-Race Children in Britain and New Zealand

Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice about Men as Fathers
Volume 13, Number 2 (2015)
26 pages

Rosalind Edwards, Professor of Sociology
University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

Chamion Caballero, Visiting Senior Fellow
Department for Social Policy
London School of Economics

This article considers how partnered fathers’ involvement may be shaped by their understandings of the salience and impact of their children’s racial belonging where fathers do not share the same race as their (biological) children. We draw on findings from a small-scale study of fathers with a partner from a different racial background living in Britain and New Zealand, to consider their involvement with their mixed or multi-racial children. Bringing up mixed/multi-race children can involve white fathers in thinking about issues that they would not necessarily otherwise have to consider. It could, for example, mean that they supported their children’s access to minority cultural knowledge and challenge racism. Equally, bringing up mixed/multi-race children can involve fathers from racial minorities in thinking about racial considerations in different ways. Notably they may transmit racial pride and cultural history to help their children deal with prejudice from the father’s own minority ethnic group as well as racism from Whites.

Read the entire document (in Microsoft Word format) here.

The Complexity of Immigrant Generations: Implications for Assessing the Socioeconomic Integration of Hispanics and Asians

National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Working Paper No. 21982
February 2016
58 pages
DOI: 10.3386/w21982

Brian Duncan, Professor of Economics
University of Colorado

Stephen J. Trejo, Professor of Economics
University of Texas, Austin

Because of data limitations, virtually all studies of the later-generation descendants of immigrants rely on subjective measures of ethnic self-identification rather than arguably more objective measures based on the countries of birth of the respondent and his ancestors. In this context, biases can arise from “ethnic attrition” (e.g., U.S.-born individuals who do not self-identify as Hispanic despite having ancestors who were immigrants from a Spanish-speaking country). Analyzing 2003-2013 data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), this study shows that such ethnic attrition is sizeable and selective for the second- and third-generation populations of key Hispanic and Asian national origin groups. In addition, the results indicate that ethnic attrition generates measurement biases that vary across groups in direction as well as magnitude, and that correcting for these biases is likely to raise the socioeconomic standing of the U.S.-born descendants of most Hispanic immigrants relative to their Asian counterparts.

Read the entire paper here.

An inquiry on racial, ethnic, and national identity among ‘mixed race’ persons of Indian and Fijian descent

University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
February 2015
149 pages
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.5141.7360

Rolando Alonzo Cocom

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the partial requirements for the completion of Master of Arts in Sociology

This explorative research provides an interpretive understanding of racial, ethnic, and national identity among ‘mixed race’ persons of Indian and Fijian descent in Suva, Fiji. This study was motivated by three research questions: (1) How do ‘mixed race’ Indian-Fijians identify themselves with an ethnic label or labels? (2) How do they identify with the term ‘Fijian’, given its recent institutionalization as a national identity construct? and (3) What do such experiences and views tell us about the racialization and politicization of identity in Fiji? Answers to these questions were interpreted from information generated during multiple individual and group interviews with ten ‘mixed race’ participants in Suva, who were accessed through the snowballing sampling method.

The study contributes to the discourse of identity in Fiji by presenting for the first time the experiences and opinions of being a ‘mixed race’ Indian-Fijian in a social context where political events and social structures have demarcated a set of dichotomized in-group and out-group relations and practices. It also contributes to the field of Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) and to contemporary political debates in light of the underrepresentation of literature from the South Pacific region; the limited literature on ‘mixed race’ in Fiji; and the recent state policy to classify all citizens with the term ‘Fijian’. Based on the interviews conducted, this research demonstrates how the participants reinforced, resisted, and accommodated the social structures and discursive practices of identity in Fiji.

Read the entire thesis here.