Mixed Race Studies

TV Review: Mixed Race Britain – Mixed Britannia

BioNews
Number 630 (2011-10-24)

Anoushka Shepherd

Mixed Race Britain: Mixed Britannia, BBC2, 6-20 October 2011, Presented by George Alagiah

I am mixed race, and thereby a member the fastest growing ethnic minority in the UK. My British dad met my Sri Lankan mum while travelling in the 1970s. They married and settled in Manchester where I grew up. And although I was definitely alive to the fact that their marriage was a joining of two very different cultures, I had no idea of the deep and contentious history of mixed relationships in this country.

In this three-part documentary, George Alagiah recounts the largely untold story of mixed race Britain and the many love stories that overcame extreme social hardship to create it…

…In summary, all three programmes are packed with interviews and are rich in photographs and footage from the archives. This is a very real and intimate recollection of the history of this country told in the refreshingly honest words of those who were there. All the stories told are different, interesting and moving in their own ways…

Read the entire review here.

Mixed Britannia: Part 3 of 3 (1965-2011)

BBC Two
2011-10-20

George Alagiah, Host

Below is the last episode as four 15-minute videos.

‘Mixed Britannia’ – research by LSBU’s Dr Caballero informs BBC series

London South Bank University
2011-10-05

Research conducted by Dr Chamion Caballero, Senior Research Fellow in London South Bank University’s Families and Social Capital Research Group, has formed the foundations of a BBC2 series starting on Thursday 6 October.

Dr Caballero was an academic consultant for the three-part series ‘Mixed Britannia‘, which is presented by George Alagiah. This is part of a season of BBC programmes which explores what it means to be part of Britain’s mixed-race community.

Dr Caballero is interviewed for the final programme in the series which will air on Thursday 20 October…

…Dr Chamion Caballero says: “Despite there being a long presence of mixed race people and couples in Britain, there is still a tendency to herald their presence as part of a new multicultural phenomenon which has been dubbed the rise of ‘Beige or Brown Britain’. Yet such groups have a long history in Britain…

Read the entire article (and view a family portrait circa, 1916) here.  Find out more about the research here.

Mixed Britannia, BBC Two, review

The Telegraph
2011-10-06

Josephine Moulds

Josephine Moulds reviews the first episode of BBC Two’s documentary Mixed Britannia, presented by George Alagiah.

The first part of an ambitious documentary series, Mixed Britannia, ran last night, continuing BBC Two’s season about mixed-race life in the UK.

Over the course of three programmes, it aims to show the experiences of mixed-race people living in Britain from 1910 to the present day. The problem was it tiptoed so lightly around the subject of race, the first episode at least fell rather flat.

Last night covered 1910-1939, so presenter George Alagiah could shudder at how racist our country once was rather than tackle the thornier issue of the current climate. (That is saved for the last instalment.)…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed Britannia – marrying an alien

BBC Two
2011-10-02

George Alagiah, Host

Nearly 100 years ago, Chinese seaman Stanley Ah Foo arrived in Liverpool to start a new life. He soon fell in love—but laws at the time meant that his English bride, Emily, was only able to marry if she gave up her British nationality and became a so-called alien herself.

In Mixed Britannia—a new three-part series for BBC 2—George Alagiah explores the often untold stories of Britain’s mixed-race communities. He met Stanley and Emily Ah Foo’s daughters, Doreen and Lynne, who told the remarkable story of how their parents met, and the restrictions placed upon them.

The first episode of Mixed Britannia will be broadcast on BBC 2 at 20:00Z (21:00 BST) on Thursday, 2011-10-06.

View the video clip here (00:02:11).

Mixed Race Britain – Mixed Britannia

BBC Press Office: Press Packs
2011-09-05

In this three-part series George Alagiah explores the remarkable and untold story of Britain’s mixed-race community and examines through the decades how mixed race has become one of the country’s fastest growing ethnic groups. Most of all, the films tell a tale of love, of couples coming together to fight prejudice and create a new society.

The first film (1910-1939) [Air Date: 2011-10-06, 20:00Z] discovers the love between merchant seamen and liberated female workers and witnesses the riots in British port cities as returning white soldiers find local girls in relationships with other men. George hears about the eugenics research examining mixed-race children and learns how Britain avoided the race laws and race hatred of fascism that scarred other countries in Europe.

The second film (1940-1965) sees the Second World War creating a miniature baby boom of “brown babies” born to local British women and African American GIs, and tells the tragic story of the British-Chinese children in Liverpool who lost their Chinese seamen fathers. With the post-war mass immigration, mixed couples, once rare and exotic, were becoming more common and society finally witnessed the first interracial kiss on British television.

In the Seventies a new wave of immigration was settling in Britain, the National Front was on the march and mixed-race families faced violence on the street (film three, 1965-2011). George learns about the debates surrounding mixed race adoption and hears about a 21st story love-story as the couple struggle to overcome the cultural prejudice from the community.

Notes from Steven F. Riley.

For some early 20th century background material on the topics covered in Mixed Britannia, see:

• Jacqueline Nassy Brown. Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, 312 pp., ISBN: 978-1-4008-2641-4).
• Mark Christian. “The Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness,” Journal of Historical Sociology, Volume 21, Issue 2-3 (2008): 213-241.
• Lucy Bland. “White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain after the Great War,” Gender & History, Volume 17, Issue 1 (2005): 29-61.
• Rachel M. Fleming.“Human hybrids in various parts of the world,” Eugenics Review, Volume 21, Number 4 (1930): 257-263.
• Carina E. Ray. “‘The White Wife Problem’: Sex, Race and the Contested Politics of Repatriation to Interwar British West Africa,” Gender & History, Volume 21, Number 3 (2009): 628-646.
• Daniel R. McNeil. Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic: Mulatto Devils and Multiracial Messiahs. (London: Routledge, 2009, 204 pp., ISBN: 978-0-415-87226-3).
• Alison Blunt. “Geographies of diaspora and mixed descent: Anglo-Indians in India and Britain,” International Journal of Population Geography (Special Issue: Geographies of Diaspora) Volume 9, Issue 4 (2003): 281-294.
• Sydney F. Collins. “The Social Position of White and “Half-Caste” Women in Colored Groupings in Britain,” American Sociological Review, Volume 16, Number 6 (1951): 796-802.

Mixed Race Season

BBC Press Office
BBC Two Summer & Autumn 2011
Diverse, stimulating and rewarding television on BBC Two
2011-06-22

Mixed-race Britain is put under the spotlight this autumn in a collection of revealing new programmes. With a mix of drama and documentaries, the season provides a window into the varied lives of mixed-race people living in the UK and helps us understand what the increase in mixed-race people means for the way we live in Britain today.

Mixed Britannia

George Alagiah explores the remarkable and untold story of Britain’s mixed-race community in a new three-part series uncovering a tale of illicit love, tragedy and triumph.

With previously unseen material and unheard testimony, charting events from the turn of the 20th century to the present day, George examines the social factors that have influenced the shape of today’s mixed-race Britain. He discovers the love between merchant seamen and liberated female workers; how the British eugenics movement physically examined mixed-race children in the name of science; how pioneering white couples adopted mixed-race babies; and how Britain’s mixed-race population exploded with the arrival of people from all over the globe—making it one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the UK…

…Mixed Race

This documentary explores the historical and contemporary social, sexual and political attitudes to race mixing. From the strict application of “anti-miscegenation” laws in the USA and South Africa to the emergence of Mestizo cultures in the colonies of South America, the programme examines the complex history of interracial relationships around the world…

For more information, click here.

BBC Two explores what it means to be mixed-race in Britain

British Broadcasting Corporaton
2010-03-10

Mixed-Race Britain is put under the spotlight this autumn on BBC Two in a collection of revealing and compelling new programmes.

Britain in 2011 has proportionately the largest mixed population in the Western world, but 100 years ago people of mixed race lived on the fringes of British society, an invisible community unacknowledged by the wider world.

With an exciting mix of drama and documentaries, the programmes provide a window into the varied and surprising lives of mixed-race people in the UK and help us understand what the increasing rise in mixed-race people means for the way we live now in Britain.

…Leading the programming is Shirley Bassey—A Very British Diva (working title), an intimate and revealing drama that tells the extraordinary life story of Dame Shirley Bassey—one of Britain’s national treasures and one of the world’s most enduring and successful divas. But her rise from poverty to international stardom is no ordinary rags-to-riches story…

In a three-part series, journalist and TV presenter George Alagiah leads viewers through the remarkable and untold story of how Britain’s mixed-race community has become part of everyone’s lives today. With previously unseen footage and unheard testimony, Mixed Britannia (working title) uncovers a tale of illicit love, marriage, children, tragedy and triumph.

Charting events from the turn of the 20th century to the present day, George explores the social factors that have influenced the shape of the mixed-race Britain we see today.

He’ll find out about the flourishing love between merchant seamen and liberated female workers during the First World War; how the British eugenics movement physically examined mixed-race children in the name of science; how pioneering white couples—including English aristocrats—adopted mixed-race babies; and how Britain’s mixed-race population exploded with the arrival of people from all over the globe—making them the fastest-growing ethnic group in the UK.

Mixed—Sex, Race And Empire is a one-off documentary exploring the social, sexual, economic and political issues that led to the race mixing of people across the world. From India to West Africa via South America and the USA, this programme reflects upon the stories and consequences of racial mixing across the world…

Read the entire press release here.

Notes from Steven F. Riley.

For some early 20th century background material on the topics covered in Mixed Britannia, see:

• Jacqueline Nassy Brown. Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, 312 pp., ISBN: 978-1-4008-2641-4).
• Mark Christian. “The Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness,” Journal of Historical Sociology, Volume 21, Issue 2-3 (2008): 213-241.
• Lucy Bland. “White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain after the Great War,” Gender & History, Volume 17, Issue 1 (2005): 29-61.
• Rachel M. Fleming.“Human hybrids in various parts of the world,” Eugenics Review, Volume 21, Number 4 (1930): 257-263.
• Carina E. Ray. “‘The White Wife Problem’: Sex, Race and the Contested Politics of Repatriation to Interwar British West Africa,” Gender & History, Volume 21, Number 3 (2009): 628-646.
• Daniel R. McNeil. Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic: Mulatto Devils and Multiracial Messiahs. (London: Routledge, 2009, 204 pp., ISBN: 978-0-415-87226-3).
• Alison Blunt. “Geographies of diaspora and mixed descent: Anglo-Indians in India and Britain,” International Journal of Population Geography (Special Issue: Geographies of Diaspora) Volume 9, Issue 4 (2003): 281-294.
• Sydney F. Collins. “The Social Position of White and “Half-Caste” Women in Colored Groupings in Britain,” American Sociological Review, Volume 16, Number 6 (1951): 796-802.