Mixed Race Studies

Race and Social Problems: Interview with Dean Larry E. Davis

The Social Work Podcast
2008-03-24

Jonathan B. Singer, Assistant Professor of Social Work
Temple Univerisity

Interview with
Larry E. Davis, Dean and Donald M. Henderson Professor of Social Work and Director of the Center on Race and Social Problems
University of Pittsburgh
 
[Episode 36] Today’s podcast is on Race and Social Problems. On January 15, 2008, I spoke with Dr. Larry E. Davis, Dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh, the Donald M. Henderson Professor, and Director of the Center on Race and Social Problems. In our conversation, Dean Davis defined racism, the role of race in understanding social problems, and about how issues of race may or may not change as the percentage of whites in the United States continues to decrease discussed. We talked about some of the racial and gender issues in the current election and talked about how race is different from gender as a point of diversity. We also talked about race and social work, and what social workers can do to fight racism. We ended our conversation with a discussion of the Center on Race and Social Problems and what the Center is doing to fight racism.

1. Beginning of the interview and definition of Race and Social Problems: [01:58]
2. “The major definition of race has been color” [02:31]
3. Mulattos and Octaroons [3:30]
4. The New Ingredient in the Identity of Black Biracial Children [4:49]
5. “African Americans are a multi-racial people.” [5:13]
6. “America may have biracial children, but there are no biracial adults.” [5:37]
7. What makes race a social problem? [9:36]
8. How will issues of race change now that Hispanics are the majority minority group? [11:06]
9. There is less than a percentage point difference between the number of African American and Hispanics in the United States according to the 2000 Census [11:59]  (Note: In the 2000 US Census, 75.1% of Americans identified as White. 12.5% identified as Hispanic or Latino. 12.3% identified as Black or African American.)
10. Why should social workers be concerned about race? [15:00]
11. How can race be a more defining issue for America than gender? [18:19]
12. Will people vote with their racial or gender identities in the presidential election? [21:47]
13. Is it detrimental to the Democrats to have two traditionally oppressed groups represented in the front-runners? [24:10]
14. Dean Davis defines and discusses his concept “Psychological Majority” [26:43]
15. What can social workers do to fight racism? [31:25]
16. Should other schools of social work have a center on race and social problems? [36:29]
17. Center on Race and Social Problems lecture series [38:26]

Listen to the podcast here (Due to large file size, right-click and save to your computer).  Running Time: 00:45:17.

Singer, J. B. (Host). (2008, March 24). Race and social problems: Interview with Dean Larry E. Davis [Episode 36]. Social Work Podcast. Podcast retrieved April 17, 2010, from http://socialworkpodcast.com/2008/03/race-and-social-problems-interview-with.html

The Aftermath of “You’re Only Half”: Multiracial Identities in the Literacy Classroom

Language Arts
Volume 83 Number 2 (November 2005)
pages 96-106

Elizabeth Dutro, Assistant professor of Literacy
University of Colorado

Elham Kazemi, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education
University of Washington

Ruth Balf, Fourth/Fifth-Grade Teacher
Seattle Public Schools

Children grapple with the complexities of race and what it means to claim membership in racial categories.

The children in Ruth’s fourth/fifth grade classroom had been engaged for weeks in a literacy project in which they researched and shared an aspect of their cultural background. The children interviewed their parents, consulted books and the Internet, wrote reports, gathered artifacts, created art projects, and, finally, put together a poster presentation to share with peers from other classrooms. The project seemed to be an important curricular move in this highly diverse urban classroom. Ruth wanted to demonstrate that knowledge from home cultures is valued, allow children time to share that knowledge with one another, and make visible the rich array of life experiences represented by children in this classroom.

For the public presentations of their projects, the students stood beside their posters and answered questions as children visiting from other classrooms walked around the room. It seemed to have gone well—an observer would have seen students speaking knowledgeably and comfortably about their work as guests wound their way through the room, pausing to ask questions of individual children. It was only after the visitors left that Ruth discovered that the afternoon had not been a positive celebration for some students. Zack lingered in the classroom after school, looking upset. He shared that two girls from another class had said, “He’s only half. He’s not really from South Africa,” when they viewed his project. He said, “Why would they say that? That makes me mad. Just because I’m not all African.” While they were talking, Stephanie walked over and said that people had said the same thing to her. She said that sometimes people think she’s Indian, but she’s black and white. Ruth asked Zack and Stephanie what they would like to do. She offered to call a class meeting the next day if they wanted to discuss these issues with their classmates. They agreed that they would like to share their experiences. The next morning, Zack, Stephanie, and their classmate Jeff (who identified as Filipino/white) led their peers in a discussion that engaged complex issues of race and identity.

The public presentations of the project resulted in feelings of hurt and frustration for these three biracial students as other children questioned their claims to their own racial identities. However, it was also the public presentations of the projects—specifically the issues of multiracial identity that the presentations raised—that transformed the culture project from a rather straightforward attempt to acknowledge and celebrate diversity into a critical literacy project in which children grappled with the complexities of race and what it means to claim membership in racial categories. In this article, we share these children’s experiences and reflect on what it takes to value multiracial identities and support children as they tackle important issues of race that those identities raise…

…When the children met on the rug the morning after the poster presentations, the biracial children launched a discussion that raised critical and complex issues of race, racial identity, and racial categories.  Excerpts from that debrief discussion represent how the children and Ruth grappled with these issues and illustrate the role that multiracial identities played in shaping the nature of their talk about race. These children’s words and experiences provide the basis for our implications regarding the role that multiraciality might play in engaging issues of race in elementary classrooms…

Read the entire article here.

Faces of the Future: An Exploration of Biracial Identity Development and Racial Identification in Biracial Young Adults

Smith College School for Social Work
Northampton, Massachusetts
2009
119 Pages

Dana L. Benton

A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work.

This research study examines how biracial young adults experience the process of racial identification and racial identity development. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the growing body of knowledge budding around this topic. This study utilized a mixed methods approach to explore the racial demographics and quality of relationships in bi racial young adults social networks across their life span; experiences with ascribed and self declared racial identifications, as well as, thoughts, feelings and attitudes about being biracial. The experiences of N=53 biracial young adults, 18 to 35 years of age, were collected through an anonymous, online survey created by the research. The results of this study suggest that (1) Racial self identification in biracial people can vary across person, time and place (2) Social Factors and Racial Group Membership can be important to biracial peoples racial identity development and racial self identification (3) Inquiry into a biracial persons racial identification can evoke a variety of emotions (4) Biracial people’s attitudes about being biracial can range from negative to positive. This study considers these findings and offers clinical practice as well as research implications for future best practices.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER IV FINDINGS
CHAPTER V DISCUSSION
REFERENCES

APPENDICES
Appendix A: Human Subjects Committee Approval Letter
Appendix B: Informed Consent Form
Appendix C: Recruitment Tool
Appendix D: Referral List
Appendix E: Questionnaire
Appendix F: Figure 1: Age of Respondents
Figure 2: Gender of Respondents
Appendix G: Figure 3: Respondent U.S. Region Reared In
Figure 4: Respondents Country Reared In
Appendix H: Figure 5: Educational Level of Respondents
Figure 6: Income Level of Respondents
Appendix I: Figure 7: Change in Racial Self Identification
Appendix J: Table 1: Racial Composition of Social World
Appendix K: Figure 8: Race of Biological Parents
Figure 9: Quality of Parental Relationship
Appendix L: Figure 10: Quality of Relationships with Extended Family
Figure 11: Familial Acceptance & Participants’ Mixed Race Ancestry
Appendix M: Table 2: Respondents’ Racial Identifications (1)
Table 3: Respondents’ Racial Identifications (2)
Appendix N: Table 4: Respondents’ Racial Identifications (3)
Table 5: Respondents’ Monoracial Identifications
Appendix O: Table 6: Comparison of Racial Self Identifications
Appendix P: Figure 12: Emotional Responses & Racial Inquiries
Figure 13: Emotional Responses & Ascribed Racial Identifications
Appendix Q: Table 7: Grouping of Racial Self Identification Options

Read the entire project here.

Strategies Multiracial College Women Use to Navigate Monoracial Systems

Education and Human Sciences, College of (CEHS) Open Access Theses and Dissertations from the College of Education and Human Sciences
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
May 2009
248 pages

Minisa Michiko Chapman-Huls
University of Nebraska – Lincoln

A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

An exploration of the college experiences of multiracial women uncovered the strategies they used to navigate the monoracial system of predominately white institutions. A purposeful sample of 18 women who were multiracial was chosen. Data was collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Participants’ stories represented multiracial experiences at thirteen different undergraduate institutions. A participant’s precollege experiences, identity and the college’s peer culture impacted how she approached social situations in the highly homogenous and monoracial setting at college. Participants took on the roles of pacifist, non-conformist, and activist to successfully navigate college environments and social scenarios. The findings also support prior study on the identity development of multiracial college students. Childhood experiences shaped the racial identity of participants that was affirmed and challenged, but not changed by college factors and experiences. Significant factors to the identity development of participants at college were academic courses, faculty and peers. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: Introduction
Significance of research
Statement of the Problem
Purpose of the study
Definitions
Limitations and delimitations

CHAPTER 2: Review of Literature
Identity Development of Multiracial Individual
Psychological Studies of Impact of Multiracial Identity
Racial Categorization of Mixed-race Persons
Racial Attitudes towards multiracial Individuals
Experiences of Multiracial College Students
Summary

CHAPTER 3: Methods
Purpose
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
Research Design
Data Collection
Managing and Recording Data
Data Analysis Strategies
Ethical Considerations
Validity
Particiment Vignettes
Findings

CHAPTER 4: Foundations for Success: Development of Strategies to Successfully Naviage Monoracial Systems
Racial Identity and formation
Childhood Experiences
Summary

CHAPTER 5: The College Experience: Test of Strategy
Challenges to identity
Resources for support
Summary

CHAPTER 6: Strategies for Success
Playing the role of Pacifist
Playing the role of NonConformist
Playing the role of Activist
Summary

CHAPTER 7: Thoughts and Suggestions
Implications
Further Research
Conclusion

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDICES
Appendix A: Participant Consent Form
Appendix B: E-Mail Invitation to Participants
Appendix C: Interview Protocol

Read the entire dissertation here.

Opting for White: choice, fluidity and racial identity construction in post civil-rights America

Race & Society
Volume 5, Issue 1 (2002)
Symposium on The Latin Americanization of Race Relations in the United States edited by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Pages 49–64

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Associate Professor of Sociology
Univerisity of Illinois, Chicago

Patricia Arend, Lecturer in Sociology
Babson College, Babson Park, Massachusetts

Historically, racial identity for persons with one Black and one White parent assumed the development of a Black identity in accordance with the one-drop rule. However, empirical research on the multiracial population suggests that there exists wide variation in racial identification. We explore the interpretive power of [Eduardo] Bonilla-Silva’s Latin Americanization model to explain racial identity construction among a sample of 259 mixed-race respondents.We highlight case studies of individuals who have constructed a White identity in order to illustrate how structural changes in race relations have increased the range of racial identities available to multiracial people. While we observe variation in racial identification among our respondents, their “choices” continue to be differentially available due to their physical appearance and social context.

Read the entire article here.

Hapas: Emerging Identity, Emerging Terms and Labels & the Social Construction of Race

Stanford Journal of Asian American Studies
Volume II (October 2009)
20 pages

Adriane E. Gamble

Adriane E. Gamble presents part of her honors thesis in her paper “Hapas: Emerging Identity, Emerging Terms and Labels, and the Social Construction of Race.” Her paper shows how emerging trends in community, terms and labels, and role models are seen in the growing population in the United States. She writes of how this can be observed both in the development of individuals’ identities and communities as well as a new racial category that offers a contemporary example of the social construction of race.

The first time I heard hapa, I went to this club fair [on campus]… I heard this voice, “We’re cool, cause we check the other box!” … I realized, oh my god, there are more people like me.

Originally a Native Hawaiian word, “hapa” is defined as “part” or “mixed,” with no racial or ethnic meaning. The current use of hapa stems from the phrase hapa haole, meaning “half foreigner” or “half White” (Dariotis, 2003). Today, the term is commonly used to describe Asian Pacific Islanders of mixed race heritage.

Conducted in 2004, this research studies how hapa has become a racial identity of its own, distinct from the classically recognized American racial categories of Asian or White. Based on the premise that racial identity is significantly informed by a racial community, and given the historical absence of a hapa community, the question emerges: how does one develop a hapa identity, without a hapa community with which to identify? Trends from the turn of the millennium show the racial landscape has changed, as a community emerged in American society of individuals self-identifying as hapa. Student and community groups have provided communities for hapas, which in turn inform racial identity, leading to an increased population of individuals self-identifying as hapa. The construction of hapa communities and hapa identity as a new racial category offer a contemporary example of the social construction of race…

Read the entire article here.

A Phantom Childhood: Memories of my Ghost Brother by Heinz Insu Fenkl [Book Review]

Korean Quarterly
Spring 1998

Marie Lee

Setting a novel from a child’s point of view can be as risky a venture as, say, writing a novel in dialect. How to wrest an adult meaning from a child’s unformed thoughts? But if the author can pull off such a feat, the rewards are ample, as evidenced by works such as Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Reidar Jönsson’s My Life as a Dog, and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn (which manages to successfully render both a boy’s point of view and his dialect).

Memories of My Ghost Brother by Heinz Insu Fenkl should be added to this list. The eponymous narrator, Heinz/Insu is a young boy growing up as an Amerasian in Korea in the ‘60s and early ‘70s…

Read the entire review here.

The identity development of mixed race individuals in Canada

University of Alberta
Spring 2010
131 pages

Monica Das

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education in Psychological Studies in Education

The purpose of this study was to explore the identity development of mixed race individuals in a Western Canadian context. The case study methodology was used to guide the overall procedure and participant selection. A thematic analysis was used to analyze patterns in the data. Four individuals of mixed race parentage were interviewed and five themes emerged: (a) the influence of family, (b) the influence of childhood experiences, (c) the influence of physical appearance, (d) the influence of racism, and (e) the influence of adult experiences. The detailed explorations of the participants’ experiences add to the Canadian literature on mixed race identity development, which provides several counselling implications and directions for future research.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review
A Sociological Analysis of Race
A Historical Overview of Race Mixing
A Review of the Contemporary Mixed Race Experience
Identity Development
Racial Identity Development
Mixed Race Identity Development Model
Key Presenting Issues and Counselling Implications
Summary and Research Question

CHAPTER THREE
Methodology
Research Paradigm
Case Study Approach
Participants
Procedure
Data Analysis
Trustworthiness: An Evaluation of the Study
The Researcher
Ethical Considerations

CHAPTER FOUR
Findings from the Within-Case Analyses
Ko
Jessica
Alina
Steven

CHAPTER FIVE
Findings from the Cross-Case Analysis
The Influence of Family
The Influence of Childhood Experiences
The Influence of Physical Appearances
The Influence of Racism
The Influence of Adult Experiences

CHAPTER SIX
Discussion
Implications for Counselling and Education
Future Research Directions
Conclusions
References

Appendix A: Recruitment Handout
Appendix B: Information Letter to Participants and Informed Consent Form
Appendix C: Demographics Form
Appendix D: Interview Guide
Appendix E: Pre-Interview Activity Form

…My interest in this research topic stems from my personal experiences as a mixed race individual. My mother is from Czechoslovakia, my father is from India and I was born and raised in Canada. As a child, I was unaware of terms like interracial marriage or mixed race. Once I became aware of my mixed heritage as a young adult, I became curious as to why my racial and cultural identity were so different from either my Bengali or Czech relatives, or from most of the people around me. As I started to ask questions, I found deep commonalities with other mixed race individuals regardless of their particular racial mix. Additionally, I was amazed at the range and depth of opinions I encountered in casual conversations. It seemed that everyone had an opinion about mixed race individuals.

With this diversity in opinions, I was certain that I would find an overwhelming amount of academic data on the mixed race experience. I did find a significant volume of research on American Black-and-White mixed race people and the American history of anti-miscegenation. However, I was surprised at the minute amount of information available on non-Black-and-White mixed race individuals in general and the Canadian perspective in particular. When given the opportunity to conduct my own research as a Master’s student, I decided to explore the topic of non-Black-and-White mixed race individuals in a Canadian context. I hope that this information can be used to increase awareness of the unique issues that mixed race individuals face.

Consequently, the purpose of the present study is to explore the mixed race experience within its complex contemporary framework. The goal is to investigate the factors that influence the development of a mixed race identity. The information gathered from this study will provide a Canadian contribution to theories relating to racial identity development and a post-modern analysis of race as a socially constructed category. Moreover, this study explores the experiences of mixed race individuals that are not of Black and White parentage, which is a topic that is under-represented in the mixed race literature (Mahtani, 2001). A deeper understanding of the factors that influence the mixed race identity will add to the current literature by enhancing our knowledge of the Western Canadian, non-Black-and-White mixed race individual’s lived experience. Additionally, the results of the present study may help counsellors to increase their own awareness of mixed race issues by encouraging them to challenge any qualms they may consciously or unconsciously harbour about mixed race individuals. Considering the increasing mixed race population, it is important that researchers begin to focus on supportive measures to promote healthy mixed race identity development…

Read the entire thesis here.

Boundaries Transgressed: Modernism and miscegenation in Langston Hughes’s “Red-Headed Baby”

Atlantic Studies
Volume 3, Issue 1 (April 2006)
pages 97 – 110
DOI: 10.1080/14788810500525499

Isabel Soto

This essay is an expanded and revised version of a paper read at the 8th International Conference On the Short Story in English, organized by the Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Enstudios Norteamericanos, Alcalá de Henares (Spain), 28–31 October 2004.

This essay argues that while Langston Hughes‘s short story “Red-Headed Baby” (from The Ways of White Folks) may initially seem to depart from the Hughes repertoire (through its dizzying modernist style, for one), it ultimately endorses the author’s signature concerns of race, genre transgression and imaginative appropriation of alterity. I also seek to historicize Hughes’s text, inscribing it within a modernist practice, studies of which have traditionally promoted the Euro-American paradigm of a dehistoricized “modernist construction of authorship through displacement” (Cora Kaplan). Few writers of the first third of the twentieth century have undertaken travel—figurative and literal—as intensely as Hughes has. His work is anchored in representations of displacement and “Red-Headed Baby” is no exception, with its miscegenation motif and sailor protagonist. Hence my reading of Hughes’s short story will also draw on modes of inquiry that promote displacement as central to an understanding of cultural practice. I draw substantially on Paul Gilroy‘s black Atlantic model and formulations of diaspora—not least because his influential work barely mentions Hughes, that most diasporic of modernist writers. I will argue that travel was aesthetically enabling for Hughes, enhancing what elsewhere I have termed his poetics of reciprocity or mutuality. Finally, Duboisian double consciousness also contributes to my discussion, which proposes a dialogic relationship between The Souls of Black Folks and The Ways of White Folks.

Read or purchase the article here.

Memories of My Ghost Brother

Bo-Leaf Books
1997
284 pages
trade paper ISBN: 0-9768086-0-9

Heinz Insu Fenkl, Associate Professor of English
State University of New York, New Paltz

Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” Book Finalist, the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction

A young Amerasian comes of age as he grows up in the Korean city of Inchon and struggles to come to terms with his own identity and with his memories of a lost half-brother, whom his Korean mother sacrificed to marry his American father.