Mixed Race Studies

Meet Shereen Marisol Meraji, A Latina Journalist Tackling Race & Idendity Through Podcasting

Latina
2016-11-23

Raquel Reichard, Politics & Culture Editor

Hugo Rojo

With Donald Trump, a candidate who ran on racism, xenophobia, sexism, Islamophobia and a disdain for journalists, heading to the White House, reports by and about the communities most impacted by the president-elect’s rhetoric and proposals are ever-important, making Shereen Marisol Meraji a periodista you need to know.

The Cali-based Puerto Rican-Iranian is a journalist reporting on race for NPR’s Code Switch podcast. Each week, Meraji and her team tackle issues of race, ethnicity and identity that are impacting our country as a whole.

The mixed-race mujer, who prides herself on being vocal, opinionated and informed, approaches these topics from her own intersections as a woman, bi-cultural Latina and daughter of a Muslim immigrant father.

Ahead, the Persian-Rican opens up about her work, why she focuses on race and identity, and the need for nuanced and uncomfortable discussions on these topics in the media and at the dinner table…

…Why are issues of race particularly important to you, Shereen the human, rather than Shereen the journalist-podcaster?

For me, the human, I think it’s because of my mixed background. I never felt like I belonged. I realized, Oh my God! Not only is my mixed identity not represented anywhere, but not even my mom’s or dad’s 100 percent identities are represented. I’m not seeing any stories of what I’m interested in, what I do or who I am, and those stories are important. Never having really belonged, being on the margins while observing everything, that’s made me a natural journalist – not quite a part of something, always observing…

Read the entire interview here.

And people bleach in Asia — lightening creams and lotions are as ubiquitous in drugstores in Seoul as eye shadow. They do it in Europe, despite the restrictions there on sales of hydroquinone. You can walk into any number of black beauty salons in London and find bleaching creams and lotions.

But Africa? If you can’t be dark-skinned in Africa, then where can you?

Helene Cooper, “What Is the Color of Beauty?,” The New York Times, November 26, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/fashion/skin-bleaching-south-africa-women.html.

Faculty Spotlight: Onnie Rogers

Northwestern University Institute For Policy Research
November 2016

IPR developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers examines how stereotypes affect youth identity.

IPR developmental psychologist examines how children form their identities

As an undergraduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, and as the only African-American gymnast on her college team, IPR developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers often found herself feeling like an “exception.”

“I remember reading studies in my undergraduate courses and thinking ‘I’m not supposed to be here,’” Rogers said. “My parents didn’t go to college, we’re an African-American family, working class …. All of the data said I really shouldn’t be in college.”

Rogers said she was troubled by this idea of being “special” somehow for making it, sparking questions about identity and self-perception. These questions have informed her research, which focuses on how cultural norms, expectations, and stereotypes affect how youth see themselves, particularly in terms of schooling and education.

Identity Development

The idea of self is central across the world and across the lifespan, with some even arguing that the “quest of life” is searching to figure out who we are, according to Rogers. But “we don’t live inside a little box and just decide independently who we’re going to be,” she pointed out. “Our identities are inherently shaped by the contexts in which we’re embedded, the historical moment, and societal beliefs, expectations, and stereotypes.”

So what do children understand about their identities? Rogers, along with Andrew Meltzoff of the University of Washington, interviewed 222 African-American, white, and mixed-race children at three racially diverse schools in Tacoma, Washington. The researchers asked the children to rate how important racial and gender identities were to them—either “not much,” “a little bit,” or “a lot.”

In the 2016 study published in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, children overall rated gender as a more important identity than race, but African-American and mixed-race children ranked race as more important than white children. Moreover, children who rated race as not important were more likely to define race by saying “everybody is the same.” But children who said race was important to them defined racial identity as a sense of pride and an awareness of group differences.

“In some ways, it suggests that white kids and kids of color are navigating very different racial worlds and they’re thinking about the racialized self in very different terms,” Rogers said…

Read the entire article here.

The Identity Politics of Whiteness

The New York Times Magazine
2016-11-27

Laila Lalami

Three years ago, I read “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to my daughter. She smiled as she heard about Huck’s mischief, his jokes, his dress-up games, but it was his relationship with the runaway slave Jim that intrigued her most. Huck and Jim travel together as Jim seeks his freedom; at times, Huck wrestles with his decision to help. In the end, Tom Sawyer concocts an elaborate scheme for Jim’s release.

When we finished the book, my daughter had a question: Why didn’t Tom just tell Jim the truth — that Miss Watson had already freed him in her will? She is not alone in asking; scholars have long debated this issue. One answer lies in white identity, which needs black identity in order to define itself, and therefore cannot exist without it.

“Identity” is a vexing word. It is racial or sexual or national or religious or all those things at once. Sometimes it is proudly claimed, other times hidden or denied. But the word is almost never applied to whiteness. Racial identity is taken to be exclusive to people of color: When we speak about race, it is in connection with African-Americans or Latinos or Asians or Native People or some other group that has been designated a minority. “White” is seen as the default, the absence of race. In school curriculums, one month is reserved for the study of black history, while the rest of the year is just plain history; people will tell you they are fans of black or Latin music, but few will claim they love white music…

Read the entire article here.