Mixed Race Studies

A troubled experiment’s forgotten lesson in racial integration

Point Reyes Light
Point Reyes Station, California
2012-03-15

Carina Ray, Associate Professor of African and Afro- American Studies
Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

The year 2012 marks the fortieth anniversary of my Puerto Rican mother and Irish-Italian father’s unusual wedding. They met and married in an experimental community called Synanon, where I was born. Readers might remember Synanon as the founding model of the therapeutic community, but they are more likely to recall its tragic retreat into a cultish enclave near Tomales Bay. What few people know, however, is that Synanon committed itself to a program of racial integration throughout the 1960’s and 70’s. While it belongs to a bygone era of social experimentation, its deliberate effort to foster a racially inclusive society was an experiment worth remembering.

Chuck Dederich, a charismatic recovered alcoholic, started Synanon in southern California in 1958 to lift drug users out of addiction and despair. Not long after, Dederich began to envision its mission more broadly. Synanon, he proclaimed, would promote “a lifestyle that makes possible the kind of communication between people that must exist if we are to prevent this planet from turning into uninhabitable ghettos.” In the 60’s and early 70’s it grew rapidly in size and prominence.

Synanon members, who came from every racial, religious and class background imaginable, lived and worked side by side. They also came together in “the game,” a form of no-holds-barred group encounter therapy that was the focal point of Synanon’s rehabilitation regime. At once intimate and confrontational, the game allowed people from all walks of life, and especially whites and blacks, to encounter each other in ways that would have been unimaginable elsewhere…

…As a result, I grew up surrounded by white, black and multi-racial kids. Because everything from toys and clothes to showers and mealtimes were shared, a sense of equality structured my relationships with my peers. Even as a child I was aware that many things weren’t ideal about Synanon and its ever-changing philosophies and dictums, but my early years in a multi-racial community, where mixed marriages and multi-racial identities were normalized, have shaped me for the better in ways I will probably never fully understand…

Read the entire article here.

Call for Papers: Association for Feminist Anthropology Sessions

American Anthropological Association
2012-02-07

Posted by Josyln O.

The Association for Feminist Anthropology welcomes sessions to be considered for inclusion in AFA’s programming for the 111^th AAA Annual Meeting, to be held November 14-18, 2012 in San Francisco. The AAA meeting theme this year is “Borders,” so AFA particularly welcomes panels that take up “borders” from a feminist anthropological perspective. Various approaches to the theme include papers and sessions that might explore:

• Borders/collaborations/intersections between feminist anthropology and other scholarly spaces from within and beyond anthropology: critical race studies, queer studies, and/or women’s studies; linguistics and genetics; political science, geography, environmental, and/or policy studies; migration and immigration studies and/or economics and archaeology and/or ethnography; biology/history/cultural studies; masculinity and/or gender studies; educational psychologies and social work; etc., etc., etc.
• Existing or potential conversations/alliances/engagements between scholarly anthropology and everyday activism
• Geographical, political, and ecological borders and the people who move across and re-define them: histories/archaeologies/economies of trade, trafficking, and/or transnationalism; refugees, resettlements, and asylum seekers; multiple and multiplying citizenships; migration, immigration, and diasporas; etc.
• “Borders” and “borderlands” in terms of identities: liminal; queer; mestizaje; mixed-race; transgender
• The “in between” scholar working across/between/among disciplines; conducting research and participating within communities; “insider anthropology”; Lorde’s concept and Harrison’s theorizing of the “outsider within”

We are especially interested in sessions that take advantage of the meeting site of San Francisco by involving local activists, practitioners, and policy makers, whether they are anthropologists or not. If you have questions about the details of registration for non-anthropologists, please let us know…

For more information, click here.

Situating mixed-race households in neighborhood contexts

University of Georgia
May 2007

Margaret Anne Hudson

Census 2000 counted approximately 1.7 million White/Latino mixed-race/multiethnic households in the US. Unfortunately, most research is limited to similar statistical accounting. Very little research moves beyond frequency counts to describe racial and ethnic identities in White/Latino households or the relationships of White/Latino households to segregated US urban terrain. Thus, this dissertation project is a case-study of the LA geography of White/Mexican households. White/Mexican households are the most numerous White/Latino household-type and, in LA, their population size is equal to that of Black same-race households.

Unlike previous work by geographers, I theoretically examine White/Mexican household locations with regard to racialization theory and feminist and cultural studies notions of difference; not simply race-blind theories about individual-level ethnic assimilation through out-partnerships with Whites. Using geographically-detailed and confidential 1990 census data from one in six LA area households, I link individual and household characteristics with census tracts and use dissimilarity and exposure indices, maps of neighborhood concentration rates, and residential attainment models to measure the segregation, concentration, and neighborhood racial compositions of White/Mexican households relative to: individuals from five non-Latino racial groups, groups of Mexican and other Latino individuals, and White same-race and Mexican co-ethnic households. Dissertation results indicate that neighborhood racial compositions and intra-urban residential geographies of White/Mexican households are in-between those of comparable White same-race and Mexican co-ethnic households. In contrast to White same-race households, White/Mexican households have more Mexican and Other Latino neighbors; relative to Mexican co-ethnic households, White/Mexican households have many more White neighbors. Residential attainment models find that, even after controlling for numerous household-level factors not accounted for in simple residential exposure calculations—i.e., household income and education levels, US or foreign-born nativity, and Spanish language use, etc.—White same-race and Mexican co-ethnic households that are equivalent to White/Mexican households do not share the same racially-defined residential space as White/Mexican households. Complex household-level racial affiliations appear to alter the residential locations of White/Mexican mixed-race households and, unlike predictions from assimilation theory, Mexican partnerships with Whites do not necessarily result in household residential patterns that are exactly like those of White same-race households.

Mixed But Not Divided: Multi-ethnic populations redefine racial lines

City on a Hill Press: A Student-Run Newspaper
University of California, Santa Cruz
2011-10-20

Chelsea Hawkins

When I was six or seven years old, I would spend my Saturday afternoons at the local Korean Baptist Church. A pink textbook opened in front of me, oversized hangul lightly sketched on sheets of paper. I kept my eyes turned downward behind a veil of straight brown hair as I avoided speaking. My face would become red and hot with embarrassment, as the guttural sounds got caught in my throat and I fumbled over words — the syllables swirled around in my mouth, only to be spit out awkwardly, a jumble of sounds always a little off.

Korean school was a short-lived experience — I hated going because even though I wasn’t sure what it was, I knew I was different. I looked different. I was shy and out of place. I hated my limited Korean and I hated feeling like an outsider. I spent more afternoons hiding in the secret places of a little garden than talking to my peers.

I am — like 4.2 million Americans — multiracial. My mother is Native American and white; my father, Korean and white. If my parents had followed the life paths their families had in mind, I would not be here. A product of teen parents, I stumbled through life and grew up with them. And when they came into the picture, my two younger brothers joined our little family.

Among American children, the multiracial population has increased almost 50 percent to 4.2 million people since 2000, according to The New York Times. The 2000 census report was the first time that Americans had the option to select more than one race — and reports flooded in, indicating the number of mixed race people in the United States…

…Mark-Griffin, who is a native of Michigan and former UCSC student, had an experience unique compared to a multiracial Californian: He was one of the only Asian-American students in his school.

While Mark-Griffin said he doesn’t want to portray Michigan or the Midwest as a racist area, he did emphasize that it wasn’t nearly as diverse as California. But as a result of the differences in culture between California and Michigan, Mark-Griffin has seen the way people’s perceptions can change with communities.

“In Michigan, most people identify me as Asian, but here in California, I’m a white guy,” Mark-Griffin said…

Read the entire article here.

Pio Pico: The Last Governor of Mexican California

University of Oklahoma Press
2010
256 pages
5.5″ x 8.5″, Illustrations: 7 B&W Illus.
Hardcover ISBN: 9780806140902
Paperback ISBN: 9780806142371

Carlos Manuel Salomon, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies
California State University, East Bay

The first biography of a politically savvy Californio who straddled three eras

Two-time governor of Alta California and prominent businessman after the U.S. annexation, Pío de Jesus Pico was a politically savvy Californio who thrived in both the Mexican and the American periods. This is the first biography of Pico, whose life vibrantly illustrates the opportunities and risks faced by Mexican Americans in those transitional years.

Carlos Manuel Salomon breathes life into the story of Pico, who—despite his mestizo-black heritage—became one of the wealthiest men in California thanks to real estate holdings and who was the last major Californio political figure with economic clout. Salomon traces Pico’s complicated political rise during the Mexican era, leading a revolt against the governor in 1831 that swept him into that office. During his second governorship in 1845 Pico fought in vain to save California from the invading forces of the United States.

Pico faced complex legal and financial problems under the American regime. Salomon argues that it was Pico’s legal struggles with political rivals and land-hungry swindlers that ultimately resulted in the loss of Pico’s entire fortune. Yet as the most litigious Californio of his time, he consistently demonstrated his refusal to become a victim.

Pico is an important transitional figure whose name still resonates in many Southern California locales. His story offers a new view of California history that anticipates a new perspective on the multicultural fabric of the state.

California’s Hispanic Heritage: A View Into the Spanish Myth

The Journal of San Diego History
San Diego Historical Society Quarterly
Volume 19, Number 1 (Winter 1973)

Manuel Patricio Servin, Professor of Southwestern and Mexican-American History
Arizona State University, Tempe

No aspect of Borderlands’ history has been more distorted than that of the Spanish colonization of the Southwest. Despite the writings of eminent historians on the racially mixed background of the Spanish-speaking pioneers, the myth that the early settlers, and consequently the old families, were preponderantly of Spanish stock persists in many quarters.

Members of old families, whose mixed-blood ancestors early adopted the Spanish ideals of success, proudly extol their Spanish lineage and background. Viewing history through special lenses, the descendants of early settlers, as well as their Anglo-American friends and relatives, seem to focus only on the Spanish conquistadores, explorers, and settlers of the Borderlands. Overlooking their unbleached mestizo, mulatto, and Indian ancestors, these anointed Spanish-speaking pioneers see themselves as the descendants of intrepid Castilian gentlemen.

This act of self-deception appears to afflict almost the entire Borderlands’ area. New Mexico, perhaps because of its long history and galaxy of noble-like conquistadores, more than any other area suffers from this Spanish fever. The names of Don Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, Don Antonio de Espejo, and Don Juan de Oñate dominate the history of the state. Consequently, New Mexico is generally considered Spanish and its Spanish-speaking inhabitants are consequently Hispanos—not Mexicans of mixed Spanish, Indian, and African stock. Texas, with its so-called Spanish founders of San Antonio, also suffers from a similar affliction. The Spanish-speaking rico, the person of status, is consequently the descendant of either the notoriously indolent Canary Islander or of an alleged Spaniard or criollo. California, where earlier American historians over glorified the Spanish period of the province as well as the names of Junípero Serra and Gaspar de Portolá, relishes in its Spanish origins and traditions. Its distinguished families, suffering from an acute case of color blindness, call themselves californios, descendants of supposed Spaniards.

The recognition of the role that colonial Mexicans—that is, the role that the persons of mixed-blood—played in settling the Borderlands and especially California does not reject the essential part that Spaniards performed in the exploration, colonization, and missionization of the Southwest. Spanish peninsulares overwhelmingly were the adelantados, the officials, and the priests who explored, governed, and served settlers. But to claim that the settlers were preponderantly Spaniards—as the Californios assert—must be rejected as historically untenable. These settlers, as the study of California’s settlement shows, were not Spanish, but overwhelmingly mixed-bloods from Indian, Spanish, and also Negro stock…

Read the entire article here.

Census Bureau Reports Final 2010 Census Data for the United States

United States Census Bureau
Census 2010
2011-03-24

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that 2010 Census population totals and demographic characteristics have been released for communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. These data have provided the first look at population counts for small areas and race, Hispanic origin, voting age and housing unit data released from the 2010 Census. With the release of data for all the states, national-level counts of these characteristics are now available.

For each state, the Census Bureau will provide summaries of population totals, as well as data on race, Hispanic origin and voting age for multiple geographies within the state, such as census blocks, tracts, voting districts, cities, counties and school districts.

According to Public Law 94-171, the Census Bureau must provide redistricting data to the 50 states no later than April 1 of the year following the census. As a result, the Census Bureau is delivering the data state-by-state on a flow basis. All states will receive their data by April 1, 2011.

Highlights by Steven F. Riley

• The United States population (for apportionment purposes)  is 308,745,538. This represents a 9.71% increase over 2000.
• The U.S. population including Puerto Rico is 312,471,327.  This represents a 9.55% increase over 2000.
• The number of repondents (excluding Puerto Rico) checking two or more races (TOMR) is 9,009,073 or 2.92% of the population. This represents a 31.98% increase over 2000.
• The number of repondents (including Puerto Rico) checking TOMR is 9,026,389 or 2.89% of the population.  This represents a 29.23% increase over 2000.
• Hawaii has the highest TOMR response rate at 23.57%, followed by Alaska (7.30%), Oklahoma (5.90%) and California (4.87%).
• California has the highest TOMR population at 1,815,384, followed by Texas (679,001), New York (585,849), and Florida (472,577).
• Mississppi has the lowest TOMR response rate at 1.15%, followed by West Virginia (1.46%),  Alabama (1.49%) and Maine (1.58%).
• Vermont has the lowest TOMR population at 10,753, followed by North Dakota (11,853), Wyoming (12,361) and South Dakota (17,283).
• South Carolina has the highest increase in the TOMR response rate at 100.09%, followed by North Carolina (99.69%), Delaware (83.03%) and Georgia (81.71%).
• New Jersey has the lowest increase in the TOMR response rate at 12.42%, followed by California (12.92%), New Mexico (16.11%), and Massachusetts (17.81%).
• Puerto Rico has a 22.83% decrease in the TOMR response rate and New York has a 0.73% decrease in the TOMR response race.  No other states or territories reported decreases.

Tables compiled by Steven F. Riley. Source: United States Census Bureau

Tables compiled by Steven F. Riley.  Source: United States Census Bureau

Between Black and Brown: Blaxican (Black-Mexican) Multiracial Identity in California

Journal of Black Studies
Published online before print on: 2011-02-22
DOI: 10.1177/0021934710376172

Rebecca Romo
University of California, Santa Barbara

This article explores the racial/ethnic identities of multiracial Black-Mexicans or “Blaxicans.” In-depth interviews with 12 Blaxican individuals in California reveal how they negotiate distinct cultural systems to accomplish multiracial identities. I argue that choosing, accomplishing, and asserting a Blaxican identity challenges the dominant monoracial discourse in the United States,in particular among African American and Chicana/o communities. That is, Blaxican respondents are held accountable by African Americans and Chicanas/os/Mexicans to monoracial notions of “authenticity.” The process whereby Blaxicans move between these monoracial spaces to create multiracial identities illustrates crucial aspects of the social construction of race/ethnicity in the United States and the influence of social interactions in shaping how Blaxicans develop their multiracial identities.

Read or purchase the article here.

California’s Multiracial Population

Public Policy Institute of California
California Counts: Population Trends and Profiles
Volume 6, Number 1 (August 2004)
20 pages

Laura E. Hill, Associate Director and Research Fellow
Public Policy Institute of California

Hans P. Johnson, Editor; Director of Research and Thomas C. Sutton Chair in Policy Research
Public Policy Institute of California

Sonya M. Tafoya, Research Associate
Pew Hispanic Center

Summary

Before Census 2000, Americans were asked to choose just one race when identifying themselves and their children. With the advent of the option to choose one or more races in Census 2000, there was a great deal of uncertainty about just how many Americans consider themselves to be multiracial. As with other issues related to racial and ethnic diversity, California is leading the nation—5 percent of the state’s population is identified as being of more than one race, about twice the rate as in the rest of the nation. In this issue of California Counts, we explore this newly identified population. We find that California’s multiracial population is hard to characterize with any basic summary statistics. Overall, people who identify themselves as multiracial are younger, less educated, slightly more likely to be foreign-born, and more likely to be living in poverty than single-race Californians. However, multiracial Californians are of many racial combinations, with very different characteristics according to the particular combination. For example, the median age of individuals identified as both black and white is only 12 years, compared to 36 years for American Indian and white Californians. The poverty rates for individuals identified as Asian and white is less than half that of Hispanics who identify as both white and some other race. For the most part, biracial Asian and whites, American Indian and whites, and black and whites have socioeconomic characteristics intermediate to those of their monoracial counterparts. However, both black and whites and Asian and whites are significantly younger than their monoracial counterparts, suggesting that the characteristics of the multiracial population could change as more and more children are born to parents of different races and potentially retain multiracial identity as they grow into adulthood and have their own children. In the near term, the presence of this new multiracial option presents some challenges for the collection and analysis of demographic data at the state and national levels. We already see evidence that demographic rates calculated using different data sources can lead to implausible results for multiracial populations. Ultimately, the size and significance of the multiracial population of California will depend at least partly on future preferences with respect to identity. The ability to choose more than one race on state forms and future censuses along with increasing rates of intermarriage could lead more Californians to choose a multiracial identity. As the multiracial population grows, it has the power to challenge and even transform our understanding of race in California.

…What is especially notable about California’s multiracial population is how few of the state’s 58 counties have less than 3 percent of their population that is multiracial (recall that the national average was 2.4%). Indeed, only Mono county has a lower proportion of its residents that are multiracial than the national average (2.2%). The six most multiracial cities in the state each have multiracial population shares of 7 percent or higher (Table 4).

More than 10 percent of Southern California’s Glendale population is multiracial, as is over 7 percent of the population in a number of cities in the wider San Francisco Bay Area (Hayward, Fairfield, Pittsburg, South San Francisco, and Antioch). In Glendale, most multiracial residents are SOR  (some other race)+white, with ancestry data indicating many of Armenian descent. Newport Beach, in Southern California, has the lowest percentage of multiracial residents (1.7%).

Because Hispanic SOR+whites are the most common multiracial group statewide, they also tend to dominate the multiracial population in any given locale. When we examine California’s ten largest cities (Table 5), we find that Hispanic SOR+whites are the most common multiracial group in nine of them.

San Francisco, California’s tenth largest city, is the one exception, where Asian+whites are the most common multiracial group. Los Angeles, the largest city in the state, has the greatest number of multiracial individuals of any city statewide, and this is true for each of the five most common biracial groups…

Read the entire report here.

Student director tackles ‘mixed race’ issues

Daily Titan
California State University, Fullerton
2009-05-17

Sean Belk

From hapa to mestizo to mulatto, ‘Half ‘n’ Half’ acts out stories and history of miscegenation. Bright colorful faces peered through shadows of the low-lit set.

The multi-cultural group of student actors then formed a circle, surrounding an infant, and simultaneously shouted, “What would it be like to shake someone’s hand and not know what they are?”

Then, the set went dark.

It was a small 30-minute production, but the subject matter touched on a big topic that some feel has gone under-reported – the aspect of growing up as two races and the discrimination that can go along with it.

The short sketch was part of the Cal State Fullerton Theatre and Dance Department’s Spring 2009 One Act performances, May 8 and 15 in the Arena Theatre, where advanced directing students presented short plays they had been working on throughout the semester for an audience of friends, family and faculty.

“Half ‘n’ Half,” an adaptation from a 1998 compilation of essays written by 17 writers and edited by Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn, was the only play with an original script adapted from a book. The play was partly written and directed by Lissa Supler, a 25-year-old senior theatre directing major.

Half Filipino and half caucasian, Supler wanted to both share her experience on the subject of being a “mixed race” and also educate people about the history of miscegenation, a term once used to describe interracial marriages that were illegal in the United States until a Supreme Court ruling in 1967…

Read the entire article here.