Mixed Race Studies

Not-So-Solid South

Triton
University of California, San Diego Alumni
2016-05-05

Sherilyn Reus ’16

Historian Victoria Bynum, M.A. ’79, Ph.D. ’87, is a Civil War myth-buster.

Folklore is deeply embedded in American culture—whether told at the dinner table, around the campfire or just before bedtime, tall tales and legends about the nation’s history have the power to build a common identity and unify its people. For Victoria Bynum, M.A. ’79, Ph.D. ’87, American folklore is not just an opportunity for a great story, but a chance to look more closely at the finer threads of our heritage.

Interestingly enough for a noted historian of the 19th-century American South, Bynum was born and raised mostly in California. Her father, however, was born in Jones County, Miss., a location steeped in history and primarily known for its anti-Confederate rebellion during the Civil War. For Bynum, who gravitated toward history throughout college, the dynamics and repercussions of the uprising were captivating. “Here was a story that countered conventional images of the Civil War and ordinary white Southerners,” she says. After hearing a plethora of different sides to the story, Bynum was convinced that Jones County was begging for a deeper historical analysis…

Read the entire article here.

Understanding the Stressors and Types of Discrimination That Can Affect Multiracial Individuals: Things to Address and Avoid in Psychotherapy Practice

Psychotherapy Bulletin
Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy
Volume 50, Issue 2 (2015)
pages 56-60

Astrea Greig, PsyD

As the multiracial population is vastly growing in the United States (Humes, Jones, & Ramirez, 2011), it is important to know about the unique experiences that affect multiracial people, as these can arise in psychotherapy or during casual interactions in the clinic or office. Multiracial people are racially and culturally diverse and identify with two or more races. Multiracial clients are often young, and multiracial children are the fastest growing demographic group in the U.S. (Saulny, 2011). Moreover, interracial marriages have been at an all-time high recently (Chen, 2010). This increase is likely related to the historic racist laws in the U.S. that made interracial marriage illegal in many states, until federally overruled in 1967 with the Loving v. Virginia case. Yet, despite the fact that multiracial people are now one of the fastest growing populations in the United States, it is still one of the smallest demographic groups, comprising only 2.3% of the American population (Humes, Jones, & Ramirez, 2011). Additionally, though mental health professionals should have adequate multicultural or diversity training, the multiracial population is often not studied as extensively as other racial and ethnic groups…

Read the entire article here.

Race, Genetics, Medicine and the Museum

Museums & Social Issues: A Journal of Reflective Discourse
Volume 11, Issue 1, 2016
Special Issue: Special Issue: Museum, Health & Medicine
pages 53-62
DOI: 10.1080/15596893.2015.1131095

Monique Scott, Director of Museum Studies
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Research Associate, Anthropology Department
American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York

The natural history museum has long been invested in educating the public about what it means to be human, including human identity, human ancestry and human diversity. With the recent scientific advances in human genomic research and the public fervor for individual genetic ancestry testing, the museum is now challenged both to keep pace with current scientific research and wrestle with popular scientific thinking that circulates outside the museum. This article considers several strategies that the American Museum of Natural History Museum has used to intervene in public perceptions of “race”, genetics and human health through critical interactive dialogue—the museum as a space for audiences of various ages to investigate and interrogate the science and politics of human identity that accompany this new genetic frontier.

Read or purchase the article here.

‘A Change of Heart’: Racial Politics, Scientific Metaphor and Coverage of 1968 Interracial Heart Transplants in the African American Press

Social History of Medicine
Published online: 2016-05-26
DOI: 10.1093/shm/hkw052

Maya Overby Koretzky
Johns Hopkins Institute for the History of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

This paper explores the African American response to an interracial heart transplant in 1968 through a close reading of the black newspaper press. This methodological approach provides a window into African American perceptions of physiological difference between the races, or lack thereof, as it pertained to both personal identity and race politics. Coverage of the first interracial heart transplant, which occurred in apartheid South Africa, was multifaceted. Newspapers lauded the transplant as evidence of physiological race equality while simultaneously mobilising the language of differing ‘black’ and ‘white’ hearts to critique racist politics through the metaphor of a ‘change of heart’. While interracial transplant created the opportunity for such political commentary, its material reality—potential exploitation of black bodies for white gain—was increasingly a cause for concern, especially after a contentious heart transplant from a black to a white man in May 1968 in the American South.

Read or purchase the article here.

Inspired By — A Q&A With Actor-Writer-Producer Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni

Goldstar Pulse
2016-05-27

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni is creator and star of One Drop of Love, a solo show co-produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. She’s a spokesperson on the arts and racial identity, a board member of Mixed Roots Stories, and an honoree at next week’s Media Done Responsibly Awards for her commitment to diversity in Hollywood.

Tell us about what you do.

I’m the writer, producer and performer of a one-woman show (One Drop of Love) exploring the intersections of race, class and gender and how these affect our most intimate relationships. I’m an educator and have taught (and learned from) students from all over the world. I’m also an advocate for equity and inclusion at all levels of media content production.

And you haven’t run off to do something else because…

I’m named after a book, Fanshen by William Hinton, about a small village in China that used this word as their motto. ‘Fan Shen’ symbolizes the creation of a society in which everyone contributes and benefits equitably. So you could say my parents gave me a sense of responsibility from birth, and I happily do what I can to live up to my name personally and professionally…

Read the entire interview here.

Casting Diverse Multigenerational Families

ZAN Casting
195 Chrystie Street, #603B
New York, New York 10002
2016-05-25

Leah Mara, Casting Associate (Telephone: 212.533.0502)

ZAN Casting, a casting agency in New York is working on a digital short for Tylenol, and looking for Modern Diverse Families to share their stories. #HowWeFamily.

Overall, we are looking for real 3 generation families, ideally 8-12 members, with a strong Patriarch (Grandfather) figure. The rest of the extended family should be diverse, representing a complete a cross section of todays uniquely blended society in 1 real family tree

Shoot Date: Wedesday, June 8 or Thurday June 6, 2016 (1 Day Shoot Only)
Location: New York City + Surrounding area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania) (Within 1.5 hour range of city)

Compensation: $1,000 (USD) Per Individual (If Chosen)
Location Fee: $2,000 (USD) To be filmed in your home.

Usage: Intended use is 6 weeks digital + social media (buyout will be All rights/all media in perpetuity)

• REAL MODERN FAMILIES — 3 generation family that represents a broad cross section of diversity, with an emphasis on visual differences and the unique characteristic of today’s melting pot i.e. Race, Interracial marriage, LBGT, special needs, military, religion, adoption, etc.. Open to all types!!
• Potential Age Breakdown – Grandparents; Parents (siblings and their respective families); Grandkids.

SUBMISSIONS INSTRUCTIONS: Submit by Tuesday May 31st to: studio@zancasting.com

1. Names, Ages, Location, Contact info (phone+email)
2. Tell us about yourself, your family, interesting characteristics
3. Family Photos (explain who everyone is)
4. Send a video telling us a little about yourself and your family history, interesting relationships and connections

CASTING: Families can submit via email or come to our casting!
Casting Date: Friday 5/27, Saturday 5/28, or Tuesday 5/31
Casting Time: 10am – 5pm EDT
Casting Location: 195 Chrystie Street, 603B, New York, New York 10002
Contact to Schedule: studio@zancasting.com / 212.533.0502

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. America’s boast brazenly embossed on its coins. But in New York a blind man can find his way across the city by his nose, by the odors of food rising from the streets and through open windows. His ears can take him anywhere across the five boroughs. Even when the language spoken is English, he can tell the difference in the accents. He knows he is either uptown or downtown, in African American Harlem or Spanish Harlem, in Caribbean Brooklyn or in East Asian Queens. He knows when he enters the WASP enclave, or the territories carved out by Europeans.

“You think you are the United Nations?” Tony sneered when Anna claimed ancestors from around the globe. “In America, you are black. Don’t go thinking other people see their relatives in you.”

Tony is African American. If other bloods run through his veins, he pretends not to know. His Africanness comes before his Americanness, he said to Anna. And it did not matter when Anna pointed out that except for the two who had been dragged onto slave ships from Africa, he and all his relatives, his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents going back for more than four hundred years, had all been born and raised in America.

Elizabeth Nunez, Anna In-Between, (New York: Akashic Books, 2009), 209.

New Orleans II: the Halloween Ghost Post

The History Tourist
2015-10-31

Susan Kalasunas

My first chance to encounter a ghost at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in New Orleans came not long after check-in.

“Can we see the ballroom?” I asked the receptionist.

“Yes. We don’t have an event tonight, but the doors should be open. It’s right up those stairs.” That would be the grand one with the double staircase that swept up to the second floor.

The doors were unlocked but the only light in the room was from street lights peeking through large, heavily draped windows. We wandered in the dark. There’s a ghost associated with the ballroom: a woman who dances, alone, or who hides behind the curtains. I searched for the woman while Mr. History Tourist searched for the light switches. Mr. HT found the switches first and set the chandeliers alight.

This was once the Orleans Ballroom. Says the Bourbon Orleans website: “In 1817, entrepreneur John David…built the Orleans Ballroom: the oldest, most historic ballroom in New Orleans. When it opened, the ballroom became the setting for…the forever famous Quadroon Balls.”…

Read the entire article here.

Staking Claim: Settler Colonialism and Racialization in Hawai’i

University of Arizona Press
2016-05-28
232 pages
6.00 x 9.00
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8165-0251-6

Judy Rohrer, Director of the Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility (ICSR); Assistant Professor in Diversity and Community Studies
University of Western Kentucky, Bowling Green, Kentucky

Exploring how racialization is employed to further colonialism

In the heart of the Pacific Ocean, Hawai’i exists at a global crosscurrent of indigeneity and race, homeland and diaspora, nation and globalization, sovereignty and imperialism. In order to better understand how settler colonialism works and thus move decolonization efforts forward, Staking Claim analyzes competing claims of identity, belonging, and political status in Hawai’i.

Author Judy Rohrer brings together an analysis of racial formation and colonization in the islands through a study of legal cases, contemporary public discourse (local media and literature), and Hawai’i scholarship. Her analysis exposes how racialization works to obscure—with the ultimate goal of eliminating—native Hawaiian indigeneity, homeland, nation, and sovereignty.

Staking Claim argues that the dual settler colonial processes of racializing native Hawaiians (erasing their indigeneity), and indigenizing non-Hawaiians, enable the staking of non-Hawaiian claims to Hawai’i. It encourages us to think beyond a settler-native binary by analyzing the ways racializations of Hawaiians and various non-Hawaiian settlers and arrivants bolster settler colonial claims, structures, and white supremacist ideologies.

The First Strange Place: The Alchemy of Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii

Free Press an (imprint of Simon and Schuster)
1992
272 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781476727523

Beth Bailey, Professor of History
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

David Farber, Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of History
University of Kansas

Just as World War I introduced Americans to Europe, making an indelible impression on thousands of farmboys who were changed forever “after they saw Paree,” so World War II was the beginning of America’s encounter with the East – an encounter whose effects are still being felt and absorbed. No single place was more symbolic of this initial encounter than Hawaii, the target of the first unforgettable Japanese attack on American forces, and, as the forward base and staging area for all military operations in the Pacific, the “first strange place” for close to a million soldiers, sailors, and marines on their way to the horrors of war.

But as Beth Bailey and David Farber show in this evocative and timely book, Hawaii was also the first strange place on another kind of journey, toward the new American society that began to emerge in the postwar era. Unlike the largely rigid and static social order of prewar America, this was to be a highly mobile and volatile society of mixed racial and cultural influences, one above all in which women and minorities would increasingly demand and receive equal status. With consummate skill and sensitivity, Bailey and Farber show how these unprecedented changes were tested and explored in the highly charged environment of wartime Hawaii.

Most of the hundreds of thousands of men and women whom war brought to Hawaii were expecting a Hollywood image of “paradise.” What they found instead was vastly different: a complex crucible in which radically diverse elements – social, racial, sexual – were mingled and transmuted in the heat and strain of war. Drawing on the rich and largely untapped reservoir of documents, diaries, memoirs, and interviews with men and women who were there, the authors vividly recreate the dense, lush, atmosphere of wartime Hawaii – an atmosphere that combined the familiar and exotic in a mixture that prefigured the special strangeness of American society today.