Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

Today’s census questions misunderstand both Hispanic and white identity

Right now, census data are distorting one of the most transformative population developments of the early 21st century. A sizable and growing number of young people come from families with one white and one minority parent, as more adults form families across racial and ethnic lines. By far the largest group among them have Hispanic and white European ancestry.

But you wouldn’t know that from the 2000 or 2010 Census results. While 2000 was the first to allow Americans to report a multiracial heritage, neither it nor the 2010 Census allowed people to check off both part Hispanic and part something else.

Why? The culprit is that the census examines race and ethnicity with two questions: first, race; and then Hispanic origins. This format was created in accordance with a 1997 Office of Management and Budget memorandum that defined the standards for collecting and classifying ethnic and racial data to which all federal agencies must adhere.

Richard Alba, “There’s a big problem with how the census measures race,” The Washington Post, February 6, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/02/06/theres-a-big-problem-with-how-the-census-measures-race.

Family Secrets: Crossing the Colour Line

Posted in Biography, Books, Canada, History, Monographs, Passing on 2013-03-13 04:23Z by Steven

Family Secrets: Crossing the Colour Line

Dundurn Publishing
February 2003
264 pages
6 x 9 in
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-89621-982-0
eBook (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-55488-161-1
eBook (EPUB) ISBN: 978-1-45971-478-6

Catherine Slaney

Foreword by:

Daniel G. Hill, III (1923-2003)

Catherine Slaney grew into womanhood unaware of her celebrated Black ancestors. An unanticipated meeting was to change her life. Her great-grandfather was Dr. Anderson Abbott, the first Canadian-born Black to graduate from medical school in Toronto in 1861. In Family Secrets Catherine Slaney narrates her journey along the trail of her family tree, back through the era of slavery and the plight of fugitive slaves, the Civil War, the Elgin settlement near Chatham, Ontario, and the Chicago years. Why did some of her family identify with the Black Community while others did not? What role did “passing” play? Personal anecdotes and excerpts from archival Abbott family papers enliven the historical context of this compelling account of a family dealing with an unknown past. A welcome addition to African-Canadian history, this moving and uplifting story demonstrates that understanding one’s identity requires first the embracing of the past.

Why did some of her family identify with the Black Community while others did not? What role did “passing” play? Personal anecdotes and excerpts from archival Abbott family papers enliven the historical context of this compelling account of a family dealing with an unknown past. A welcome addition to African-Canadian history, this moving and uplifting story demonstrates that understanding one’s identity requires first the embracing of the past.

Tags: Anderson Abbott, Anderson R. Abbott, Anderson Ruffin Abbott, Catherine Slaney, Daniel G. Hill, Daniel G. Hill III, Dundurn Publishing

Comments Off on Family Secrets: Crossing the Colour Line

Ushering children away from a “light grey world”: Dr. Daniel Hill III and his pursuit of a respectable Black Canadian community.

Posted in Articles, Canada, Media Archive, Social Science on 2010-06-06 02:59Z by Steven

Ushering children away from a “light grey world”: Dr. Daniel Hill III and his pursuit of a respectable Black Canadian community.

Ontario History
2007-03-22

Daniel R. McNeil, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies
Newcastle University, United Kingdom

This paper is about Dr. Daniel Hill III, the first director of the Ontario Human Rights Agency. Paying particular attention to Dr Hill’s work with the Committee for the Adoption of Coloured Youngsters and the Ontario Black History Society, I argue that he fashioned himself as “Negro race man”, a masculinist term assigned to people who sought to lead a Black community in North America and lay to rest the infantilised and feminized image of the “tragic mulatto” trapped in a “light grey world”.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: Daniel G. Hill, Daniel McNeil, Daniel R. McNeil, Ontario History

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

Family Secrets: Crossing the Colour Line

Ushering children away from a “light grey world”: Dr. Daniel Hill III and his pursuit of a respectable Black Canadian community.

Pages

Categories

Calendar of Posts

Links

Meta