Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

The multiracial population is young and rapidly growing, and may soon account for one-fifth of the U.S. population by the year 2050, and one-third of the country’s population by 2100. Because the multiracial population is overwhelmingly young, the parents choose their children’s racial identification on official documents like the Census form, and also help to shape the way that multiracial youth see and identify themselves. Based on the in-depth interviews, we find that while Asian-White and Latino-White couples recognize and identify their children as multiracial or multiethnic, they feel that their children will soon adopt a White or American identity, regardless of how hard they may try to instill a multiracial or multiethnic culture and identity. Black intermarried couples, however, feel differently. While interracial Black couples also recognize the multiracial backgrounds of their children, they are more likely to identify their children as Black—in part, they claim, because others identify them as such.

The divergent patterns of racial identification among these couples indicate that the assimilative power of intermarriage operates differently for Blacks than it does for Asians or Latinos. The assimilative power of intermarriage operates so strongly for the children of Asian-White and Latino-White couples that most identify and are identified by others as White and/or American. By contrast, the children of Black interracial couples are much more likely to adopt a Black racial identity, suggesting that these couples appear to be traversing a different pathway, and more specifically, incorporating into a racialized, minority status. The interviews illustrate that when marrying across the color line, interracial Black couples are the least likely, least able, and0or least willing to transfer a non-Black identity and status to their children.

Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean, “A Postracial Society or A Diversity Paradox? Race, Immigration, and Multiraciality in the Twenty-First Century,” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, Volume 9, Issue 2, (Fall 2012). 432. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X12000161.

A young Jewish woman, raised as white, learns she’s not

Posted in Articles, Autobiography, Judaism, Media Archive, Passing, Religion, United States on 2015-03-20 01:00Z by Steven

A young Jewish woman, raised as white, learns she’s not

Religion News Service
2015-03-13

Lauren Markoe, National Reporter

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Schwartz‘s seemed like any other Jewish family in Woodstock, N.Y., except for one thing: mom and dad were obviously white, and their daughter Lacey was obviously not.

That racial disconnect would be easier to fathom if Peggy and Robert Schwartz hadn’t had everyone believing their dark-skinned daughter was the biological child of both parents.

It would take “Little White Lie,” the film an adult Lacey made about family secrets and religious identity, to unpack this mystery.

“I grew up in a world of synagogue, Hebrew school, bar mitzvahs,” Schwartz narrates over a home movie montage of Jewish holiday celebrations and her own bat mitzvah.

“So it never occurred to me that I was passing,” she continues. “I wasn’t pretending to be something I wasn’t. I actually grew up believing I was white.”

“Little White Lie,” which has enjoyed success on the film festival circuit and will reach a larger audience when PBS’s Independent Lens airs it on March 23, revolves around a flabbergasting central question: How could this family pretend that she owed her complexion to the genes of dad’s darkest Italian ancestor?…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: Aaron Levy Samuels, Lacey Schwartz, Little White Lie, Peggy Schwartz, Religion News Service, RNS, Robert Schwartz

Comments Off on A young Jewish woman, raised as white, learns she’s not

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Mixed Race Studies

A young Jewish woman, raised as white, learns she’s not

Pages

Categories

Calendar of Posts

Links

Meta