Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

Half-caste is a term used to describe people of mixed race or ethnicity. Caste comes from the Latin castus, meaning pure, and the derivative Portuguese and Spanish casta, meaning race. The term originates from the Indian caste system, where a person of ‘lesser’ or half-caste would be deemed to be of a ‘lower class’. While the origins of the term are derogatory, its usage has evolved to give it the more objective meaning described above.

Half caste is a term used in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking parts of the world. An example is a child of black African and white European parentage. The term mulatto (from Spanish “Mulato”) has also been used for this particular mixture. Both terms are considered impolite and potentially offensive in the U.S., as the words have been used pejoratively in the past to ostracize and isolate the offspring of such unions. For example, “children of the plantation” (the children of African-American slaves and their European-American masters in the U.S. Southern states) were not accepted as heirs, and in most cases, the relationship was never acknowledged, and “half-caste” conveyed the deliberate exclusion. The term ‘half caste’ was once commonly used in the U.K. and remains in occasional use today.

Wikipedia

What are you? A CRT perspective on the experiences of mixed race persons in ‘post-racial’ America

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Teaching Resources, United States on 2016-07-11 00:36Z by Steven

What are you? A CRT perspective on the experiences of mixed race persons in ‘post-racial’ America

Race Ethnicity and Education
Volume 18, Issue 1, 2015
pages 1-19
DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2014.911160

Celia Rousseau Anderson, Associate Professor in the Secondary Education Program
Department of Instruction and Curriculum Leadership
University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee

In this article, the author employs Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the experiences of mixed race individuals in the United States. Drawing on historical and contemporary conditions involving persons of mixed race, the author considers how key ideas from CRT can be useful to frame an analysis of the experiences of multiracial persons in the US. To supplement the analysis, the author also includes fictionalized narratives in the tradition of CRT. In conclusion, the author considers how this examination of mixed race persons might inform K-12 education.

Read or purchase the article here.

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Mixed Race Studies

What are you? A CRT perspective on the experiences of mixed race persons in ‘post-racial’ America

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