Mixed Race Studies

Science and miscegenation in the early twentieth century: Edgard Roquette-Pinto’s debates and controversies with US physical anthropology

História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos
Published online ahead of print on 2016-07-18
17 pages
DOI: 10.1590/S0104-59702016005000014

Vanderlei Sebastião de Souza, Professor
Department of History
Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste, Brazil

Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty

The article analyzes Brazilian anthropologist Edgard Roquette-Pinto’s participation in the international debate that involved the field of physical anthropology and discussions on miscegenation in the first decades of the twentieth century. Special focus is on his readings and interpretations of a group of US anthropologists and eugenicists and his controversies with them, including Charles Davenport, Madison Grant, and Franz Boas. The article explores the various ways in which Roquette-Pinto interpreted and incorporated their ideas and how his anthropological interpretations took on new meanings when they moved beyond Brazil’s borders.

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How White Parents of Black and Multiracial Transracially Adopted Children Approach Racial Exposure and Neighborhood Choice

Sociology of Race & Ethnicity
Published online before print 2016-08-02
DOI: 10.1177/2332649216661851

Kathryn A. Sweeney, Associate Professor of Sociology
Purdue University Northwest, Hammond, Indiana

Although past research on racial socialization tends to concentrate on providing cultural knowledge and pride, this paper focuses on exposure to environments as a means of understanding preparation for racial discrimination, specifically in regard to transracial adoption. This article looks at how 19 white adoptive parents of black and multiracial adopted children perceive their neighborhood choice and decisions of where to send their kids to school and whom to befriend in order to understand how they approach racial socialization. Analysis of data from in-depth interviews illustrates how those who adopted transracially both domestically and internationally stressed that they did not want their children to be in environments where they would be the only person of color because they were concerned about their child experiencing racism and feeling isolated. Even so, they tended to live in white neighborhoods and send their children to predominantly white schools. Parents expressed being conflicted by what they saw as opposing measures and perceptions of school quality and racial-ethnic diversity. The parents in this study said that they sought out social support through organizations and friendships to expand their social networks for themselves and their children. Findings are not meant to challenge or support transracial adoption but rather to gain insight into perceptions of racial diversity, neighborhood and school choices, and friendship networks as a way to understand aspects of racial socialization associated with environmental exposure and preparation for racism.

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White KC mom of mixed family on why she constantly checks white privilege

The Kansas City Star
2016-07-24

Aaron Randle, Culture Writer

• Amanda and Kenton Campbell have a mixed daughter and adopted son from Haiti
• “I’m so past the warm and fuzzy point,” the 36-year-old mom says

Amanda Campbell is ready when you are.

Ready to get uncomfortable. Ready to share that article on your Facebook feed about why “Black Lives Matter” is necessary. Ready to explain to you why “All Lives Matter” is not. Ready to check you on your white privilege.

“I’m so past the warm and fuzzy point,” the 36-year-old mom says, exasperated, as she leans back in the sofa in her Brookside living room. Her husband, Kenton Campbell, 33, who is black, lounges his 6-foot-3 frame on a chaise to her right.

Their mixed-race daughter, Jocelyn, 5, with cocoa butter skin and a head full of curls, lies across her lap fiddling with a baby doll. Isaac, 8, their dark-skinned, Haitian-born, adopted son, is in the sunroom around the corner toying with a video game.

“When people are like, ‘I don’t want to see (race), I don’t want to hear about it,’ that doesn’t exist for me,” Amanda says.

“Post-racial America” can try to be as blithely colorblind as it’d like. That isn’t an option in the Campbell household. Race permeates the fabric of their existence.

Amanda recalls the time her aunt, who’s also white, told her “she doesn’t see color.” Amanda began to tell her that was a load of crap. “Well actually, Aunty, being colorblind is …”

That’s when Kenton, feeling his wife about to enter “White Ally” mode, tugged at her arm to reel her back in.

“He was like, ‘Don’t go there!’ ” she says with a laugh. “But it’s like, if I don’t go there …”

The sentiment is understood: If Amanda or any other white person who gets the complexities and struggles of black America doesn’t take the opportunity to educate other whites in casual white-privilege moments, who else will?

“I’m ready to talk about (racism). But overall I would say 90 percent of America is not open to it,” she says. “I’m not a percentage as vocal as I’d like to be, but I know that if you are too much, and some people think that I am, that there’s a wall that comes up. It’s a constant balancing act.”

For the Campbells, everyday life as an interracial couple raising both a mixed and black child requires skillful straddling. On one hand, Amanda gets weary of having to educate others. But then again, as the sole white member of the family, she feels an obligation to operate as an ally and advocate, to call out prejudice when she sees it…

Read the entire article here.

Who Gets To Be ‘Hapa’?

Code Switch: Race and Identity, Remixed
National Public Radio
2016-08-08

Akemi Johnson

Sunset in Waikiki: Tourists sipping mai tais crowded the beachside hotel bar. When the server spotted my friend and me, he seemed to relax. “Ah,” he said, smiling. “Two hapa girls.”

He asked if we were from Hawaii. We weren’t. We both have lived in Honolulu — my friend lives there now — but hail from California. It didn’t matter. In that moment, he recognized our mixed racial backgrounds and used “hapa” like a secret handshake, suggesting we were aligned with him: insiders and not tourists.

Like many multiracial Asian-Americans, I identify as hapa, a Hawaiian word for “part” that has spread beyond the islands to describe anyone who’s part Asian or Pacific Islander. When I first learned the term in college, wearing it felt thrilling in a tempered way, like trying on a beautiful gown I couldn’t afford. Hapa seemed like the identity of lucky mixed-race people far away, people who’d grown up in Hawaii as the norm, without “Chink” taunts, mangled name pronunciations, or questions about what they were…

Read the entire article here.