Mixed Race Studies

The myth of the melting pot

Biodemography and Social Biology
Volume 1, Issue 4 (1954)
pages 248-251
DOI: 10.1080/19485565.1954.9987204

David C. Rife
Institute of Genetics
The Ohio State University

Elton F. Paddock
Institute of Genetics
The Ohio State University

Myths are fictional legends, but more often than not they carry elements of truth. Popular beliefs concerning the results of racial mixture may be classed as the myth of the melting pot According to this myth, the mixture of races is analogous to the process of manufacturing alloys. There is actually a great deal of truth in this analogy, although the true nature of alloys is frequently misunderstood.

When molten copper and zinc are thoroughly mixed in the proper proportions, brass will be produced. Brass, bronze, and other alloys are intimate mixtures of two or more pure metals. The ideal alloy is one which combines the desired qualities of two or more metals in what appears to be a homogeneous blend.

The appearance of homogeneity is superficial, however, as the alloy is essentially a physical mixture, not a chemical compound. Brass, for example, is a mixture of particles of pure copper and pure zinc, the size of the particles varying from atoms to tiny crystals. The result of a mixing of two races is analogous to the metallurgical melting pot in that the mixing does not result in the elimination of variability. It differs in that the end product in the human melting pot is a grosser mixture, the variation within mixed populations being more readily visible than in the metallic alloy. Concepts to the effect that either type of melting pot produces a new homogeneous product are purely fictitious.

The myth of the human melting pot is founded on the assumption that the hybridization of different human populations will eventually result in the elimination of biological differences. According to this way of thinking mankind will eventually be characterized by a uniform shade of skin color, hair form, and various other physical characteristics, which now vary from one ethnic group to another. There can be no question but that barriers between human races are rapidly being eliminated, owing to modern transportation, education, and communication. Today it is difficult to find “pure” racial groups. In most parts of the world many cultural barriers to understanding and cooperation are on the way out. But what about genetic variability? Is it tending to become less?

The answer is “no.” Genes, the particles of heredity, do not lose their identities but maintain them over an indefinite number of generations, regardless of what other genes they may be associated with. This principle is the essence of the classical discoveries made by Mendel almost a century ago. Mixture of races neither increases nor decreases the total genetic variability in mankind. It brings about an increase of  individual variability.

Mixtures of Negroes and Whites provide an excellent example of this principle. The first generation offspring are intermediate or mulatto. But if these mulattoes marry other mulattoes of similar origin, their offspring will exhibit subtly varying degrees of pigmentation, ranging from the dark brown of Negroes to the light pigmentation of Whites. The genes have maintained their individuality from one generation to another. The mixed population will have much greater variability with respect to…

Read or purchae the article here.

Genetic Counseling: For children of mixed racial ancestry

Biodemography and Social Biology
Volume 8, Issue 3, 1961
pages 157-163
DOI: 10.1080/19485565.1961.9987478

Sheldon C. Reed, Director
Dight Institute for Human Genetics
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Esther B. Nordlie
Dight Institute for Human Genetics
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

INTRODUCTION

The editors of this journal have been interested in genetic counseling because it is a major practical application of the results of research in human genetics. It is reasonable to assume that genetic counseling may also have some relationship to eugenics, though there is nothing known as to exactly what this relationship may be.

Genetic counseling should be helpful to those who ask for it. The understanding of any problem is the first step toward its solution. Understanding of the problem removes some of the attendant anxiety, even if the solution is unpleasant. There should be less anxiety after genetic counseling than before it has occurred, and the clients indicate in many ways that it is useful to them. The relationship between genetic counseling and eugenics is certainly ambiguous. It is my impression that the relief of anxiety concerning the likelihood of a repetition of an abnormality results in increased reproduction of the parents of the affected children. If this is true, the frequency of any genes responsible for the abnormality would be increased, though slightly, in the population, which would be a dysgenic process. The increased reproduction of the parents of the anomalous children should also increase the frequency of any genes related to the attributes of responsible parenthood which should have positive eugenic benefits. It is not clear to me whether the net result of these opposing tendencies is eugenic or dysgenic. The dysgenic effect is to increase slightly the pool of rare genes for abnormalities which are infrequent, while the slight increase in the supply of genes related to responsible parenthood would be less significant percentage-wise because such genes arc presumed to be more frequent in the population. If genes related to responsible parenthood do not exist, one can only conclude that genetic counseling may well be dysgenic Genetic counseling at present would seem to be liable to the suspicion that it is dysgenic. This effect may be too trivial to warrant consideration. Hopefully, the obvious benefits to the parents who come for counseling outweigh the possible dysgenic costs to society as a whole. The only alternative to genetic counseling is the refusal to impart whatever information research in human genetics has discovered; such a philosophy would be deplorable. Genetic counseling has a function and is here to stay. It is the intention of the editors to present articles by other genetic counselors from time to time. Presumably these articles will cover particular areas of counseling with which they have had extensive experience.

BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Wc have had considerable experience at the Dight Institute in working with adoption agencies in the placement of children of mixed racial ancestry. Mrs. Esther Nordlie (1961) and I have just completed a follow-up of the results of the placement of such children and will summarize the results here, as this is the first study of its kind. It is probable that genetic counselors will be increasingly occupied with this topic as interracial unions are likely to continue in the United States. The casual unions often result in children who become available for adoption. . . .

The problem of placing “pure” Negro, Indian or Mexican children is difficult only because few families of these minority groups request children for adoption. Ordinarily, no attempt would be made to place these babies in Caucasian families as the child or the adoptive parents would probably find social adjustment too difficult. However, children of mixed racial origin may “pass for white” or resemble the Caucasian adoptive parents sufficiently so that placement in a white family is feasible. Such placement is desirable for the child as the socioeconomic environment is assumed to be more favorable there. This would be true only if the racial appearance of the child would permit acceptance in the white community. Many white couples are desperately anxious to adopt children. Some are sufficiently free from racial prejudices to be able to adopt children of mixed racial ancestry, if a reasonable “match” between child and adoptive parents can be made. The critical prediction rests with the geneticist (or anthropologist) who must project the appearance of a small baby ahead to the child of five or six when entering school…

One would suppose that predicting the chances for a child to “pass for white” would be quite simple. Such, however, is not the case. The main difficulty is that these traits, when present in the racial hybrid, may not be apparent in an infant but develop over the years. Hair texture and skin color are the most important traits and at the same time the most difficult to predict. The baby may have no hair; it is well known that babies with considerable Negro ancestry may look quite light at birth and darken considerably during childhood. The geneticist is thus vulnerable to mistakes in his predictions as to the future appearance of the baby. One could take the attitude that unless the geneticist can make his prediction with certainty he should not enter the picture at all. Such reasoning is absurd. The baby is in the custody of the adoption agency and the agency must make some provision for this child.

Read or purchase the article here.

Interracial Marriage and Admixture in Hawaii

Biodemography and Social Biology
Volume 17, Issue 4 (1970)
pages 278-291
DOI: 10.1080/19485565.1970.9987885

Clarence E. Glick, Professor of Sociology
University of Hawaii

Michener’s phrase “the golden men of Hawaii” reflects a popular romantic interest in the blending of ethnic elements that has been going on in Hawaii for almost two centuries. More seriously, if less romantically, scholars have been analyzing interracial marriages and intermixture and attempting to trace their effects on the emergent population of Hawaii (Adams, 1937; Hormann, 1948; Lind, 1967; Cheng and Yamamura, 1957; Taeuber, 1962; Schmitt, 1965). A landmark study, Genetics of Interracial Crosses in Hawaii, published by the geneticist Newton E. Morton and his associates in 1967, has given us a valuable comparison of “mixed” and “unmixed” children bom in Hawaii, through a detailed analysis of nearly 180,000 births registered during the eleven-year period 1948-58.

Part of the focus of the present paper is upon demographic, cultural, and social factors that must have affected genetic changes in Hawaii’s population, even though some of these considerations must be somewhat impressionistic. Moreover, it is necessary to interpret the usual measures of interracial marriage and racial admixture on which studies of genetic changes in Hawaii might be based. Such an interpretation points to an even greater breakdown in traditional mating patterns and subsequent genetic recombinations than the statistical evidence indicates.

CHANGING DEFINITIONS OF “RACIAL” CATEGORIES

Hawaii is fortunate in having census data for a longer period than any other area in the Pacific. Census reports go back to 1847, but there have been many variations in the “racial” categories used as well as in the actual racial make-up of the people designated by certain categories (Schmitt, 1968). These variations reflect changing social definitions of ethnic groups in Hawaii’s population and the changing circumstances under which interracial marriage has taken place. The 1853 census, for example, used the terms “natives” and “half-natives” for groups later called “Hawaiians” and “Part-Hawaiians”. The general term “foreign population” was subdivided to differentiate Portuguese from other Europeans, Americans from Europeans, and Chinese and Filipinos as other categories of foreigners. The term “half-castes” was used from 1866 to 1890. The censuses of 1910, 1920, and 1930 attempted to differentiate between “Caucasian-Hawaiians” and “Asiatic-Hawaiians”; those of…

Read or purchase the article here.

Intermarriage and racial amalgamation in the United States

Biodemography and Social Biology
Volume 14, Issue 2 (1967)
pages 112-120
DOI: 10.1080/19485565.1967.9987710

David M. Heer, Professor Emeritus of Sociology
University of Southern California

Within the last few years tremendous popular interest has been aroused in the subject of Negro-white intermarriage. Fifteen years ago Negro protest leaders claimed they were interested only in jobs and votes and consequently downplayed talk of intermarriage. Moreover, conservative whites were comforted by Gunnar Myrdal’s report that although the ban on intermarriage was for them the most important aspect of the caste system, Negroes considered it the least important of the various discriminations they were forced to suffer. Very recently, however, the attitude on the part of many Negro leaders toward intermarriage has changed. Increasingly, such leaders, particularly the younger ones, are saying, “Why not?”

Earlier, most Negro thinking tended to isolate political and economic discriminations from the social discriminations symbolized, par excellence, by white attitudes toward racial intermarriage. However, in the writer’s opinion, such thinking represented faulty sociological analysis. A more thorough view of the situation reveals that restrictions on racial intermarriage may well be closely linked to the economic discrimination that Negroes in our society must endure. Davis (1949) has listed the main social functions of the family as the reproduction, maintenance, placement, and socialization of the young. Let us focus our attention on the placement function of the family in the contemporary United Stales, i.e. on the consequences which birth into a given family has for the youngsters future social position. Let us first remember that the transfer of wealth in our society is largely accomplished by bequeathal from one family member to another. The possession of wealth in our society not only entitles one to receive regular monetary interest; it is also a source of power, credit, and prestige. Secondly, it must be recognized that although universalism is the predominant criterion for the matching of job applicants to job vacancies in our society, particularism is quite important for many segments of it. In particular, in the building trades, jobs cannot be obtained without admittance to the union’s apprenticeship program and in many instances it is almost impossible to obtain entree into the apprenticeship program unless one is a son or other close relative of a union member. Third, social science research has established that entree to elite positions in our society is most easily obtained by those who grow up from birth in a family having relatively high status.  Birth in a high status family, of course, provides the financial means for obtaining advanced education. In addition, however, it is invaluable for giving one a sense of familiarity with the activities and functioning of high status society. This familiarity not only reduces the fear of interpersonal contacts in such a society but also increases the motivation to become a full participant…

Read or purchase the article here.