Mixed Race Studies

Participants Needed for Oral History Research/Dissertation Project: Multiracial Americans in the 1960s and 70s

Marlena Boswell, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
Indiana University, Bloomington

2019-02-01

I am a Ph.D. candidate researching the racial politics of multiracial individuals in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. While the scholarly literature clearly establishes how society has historically viewed and racially identified multiracial Americans, I am seeking to understand how multiracial individuals racially identified themselves and how they related to the various race-based movements of the 60s and 70s. Therefore, I am seeking volunteers to share their stories in this oral history project.

I am seeking multiracial individuals who:

• Were born between 1945 and 1965
• Preferably (but not necessarily) have ties to the U.S. military

Because a portion of my research will focus on the U.S. military presence overseas in the post-World War II years and its role in the growth of the multiracial population, I am seeking (but not limiting participation to) individuals who come from multiracial families that grew out of the U.S. military presence in:

• England
• Germany
• Japan
• Korea

Please note: There is no monetary compensation for participation in this project.

If you are interested, please email me, Marlena Boswell, at mrb4@indiana.edu or brown.marlena@yahoo.com.

Afro-Vietnamese Orphans Tell Their Stories in ‘Indochina: Traces of a Mother’

Black Film Center/Archive
Indiana University, Bloomington
2012-04-25

A new(er) documentary film by Idrissou Mora-Kpai follows the stories of Afro-Vietnamese orphans born of Vietnamese mothers and West African fathers – tirailleurs sénégalais – brought by the French to fight la sale guerre, mostly in today’s Viet Nam. The synopsis:

Through the story of Christophe, a 58-year-old Afro-Vietnamese man, the film reveals the little known history of African colonial soldiers enlisted to fight for the French in Indochina. Christophe was one of seven Afro-Vietnamese orphans adopted by one of those soldiers when he returned to Benin after the war. The film explores the long lasting impact of bringing together two populations who previously had no ties and sheds light on a frequent practice within colonial history, that of using one colonized people to repress the independence claims of another colonized people.

Told in Vietnam and Benin, the film gives space for the grown Afro-Vietnamese orphans to tell their stories, but also to explore the contradictions of the colonial order…

Read the entire article here.

IU Libraries Film Archive a treasure chest of educational, rare films

inside IU Bloomington
Weekly news for faculty and staff from the Indiana University Bloomington campus
2013-03-07

Lynn Schoch, Office of the Vice President for International Affairs

Many of a certain age—particularly those who were in elementary school in the ’50s and ’60s—will remember 16 mm films produced by the U.S. government, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., McGraw-Hill or National Educational Television.

They often provided the only glimpses of other worlds that U.S. school children had the opportunity to see.

By the 1970s, videotape and documentaries with large budgets and prime-time aspirations, like Kenneth Clark’s “Civilisation,” began to replace the older formats.

From about 1940, IU’s Audio-Visual Center (then part of the Extension Division and later, Instructional Support Services) was the depository for U.S. government films. In time, it became the state’s most active lender of educational films to schools, museums, clubs, community centers, and churches in the state.

As the move to videotape made 16 mm films “obsolete,” the center became a repository for what other institutions and organizations no longer wanted.

In 2006 what was then a collection of 34,000 reels formed the core of the IU Libraries Film Archive. IU Libraries has supported the transition from lending library to historical archive with a dedicated film achivist in the Herman B. Wells Library, support for resources to digitize the collections and an off-site storage environment designed to minimize deterioration.

“We have the largest educational film collection in any university library,” said Rachael Stoeltje, film archivist with the IU Libraries Film Archive.

There are films available nowhere else in the world, and rarities such as 30 titles from the 1950s CBS series “You Are There” and the world’s most complete collection of Encyclopedia Britannica films…

…Darlene Sadlier, director of the Portuguese Program and a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, a program within the College of Arts and Sciences, has been using educational films from the collection for many years in her classes in Latin American cinema and culture.

“One film that is helpful in a discussion of the history of race relations in Brazil, for instance, is ‘Brazil: The Vanishing Negro,'” she said. The film is a 30-minute film produced for public television in the 1960s, showing Afro-Brazilian religious ceremonies and the daily lives of Brazil’s black population.

“It was an informative resource when it was first produced, but it was also polemical because it discussed the benefits of racial mixing, or rather whitening, of the Brazilian African population, to the detriment of its heritage,” Sadlier said. “In recent years, Brazil has recognized its African heritage with affirmative action laws and a holiday dedicated to national race consciousness. With this film, we can look back and consider how far the country has moved to acknowledge its long-held myth of ‘racial democracy.’”

Sadlier has published extensively on the histories, languages and cultures of Brazil. Her latest book deals with the Good Neighbor policy adopted by the U.S. government during World War II to cultivate stronger alliances with countries in the Western Hemisphere…

Read the entire article here.

One ‘Speck’ of Imperfection—Invisible blackness and the one-drop rule: An interdisciplinary approach to examining Plessy v. Ferguson and Jane Doe v. State of Louisiana

Indiana University
2008
371 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3315914
ISBN: 9780549675372

Erica Faye Cooper

Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

By 1920 virtually every state legislature had adopted “one-drop” laws. These laws were important because they served as the means for determining racial identity in the United States throughout the 20th century. In the past, scholars focus on either the social or legal history of the one-drop rule. Despite the exhaustive social and legal historical accounts, I argue that the “history” of the one-drop rule is incomplete without a rhetorical history. My findings suggest that a rhetorical history of the one-drop rule is vital because it explores how the doctrine emerged in legal and social discourse. In addition, a rhetorical history also uncovers the persuasive strategies used by rhetors to reinforce racist ideology.

In this dissertation, I found that the one-drop rule occupied a significant role in judicial rhetoric through the persuasive strategies of judicial actors—court justices and lawyers. I revealed that their language choices created a pseudo “racial” reality that was characterized by a rigid black-white racial binary. This “false” reality functioned persuasively to obscure the racial diversity that actually existed in the United States during specific moments in time. Using Critical Race Theory from legal studies and McGee’s notion of the “ideograph” from critical rhetorical theory, I examined the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the Court of Appeals’ holding in Jane Doe v. State of Louisiana (1985). My findings show that such terms as “white,” “black,” and the “one-drop rule” were used by lawyers and court justices in disputes involving racial identity and legal rights beginning in 1896. In both cases, the one-drop ideograph dominated discussions regarding who was “black” or “white.” Based on its ideographic relationship with the one-drop rule, “black” was defined to include mixed and unmixed blacks as well as whites. Within this ideographic analysis, I describe how the notion of invisible blackness was rhetorically constructed from the language used by the court. The one-drop rule continues to influence legislation and social attitudes.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1
  • Introduction to Problem
  • Justifying for Research and Statement of Purpose
  • Research Questions, Methods, and Overview
    • Methods: Case Analysis
    • Preview of Chapters
• Chapter 2
  • Socio-Cultural history
  • Definition of the one-drop rule
    • Rationales for why the one-drop rule emerge
    • The One-Drop Rule Today
    • Summary
  • Legal History
    • Emergence of the Color Line in the law
    • Summary
  • Prior Analyses of the Plessy and Phipps decisions
  • Conclusion
• Chapter 3
  • The Coming
    • Social Context: Racial Identity in Post-Bellum Louisiana
    • Legal Context
    • Introduction to Plessy
    • Summary
  • The ideographs
    • Plessy and Ferguson Briefs
    • Supreme Court Response
  • Rhetorical Implications
• Chapter 4
  • The Coming
    • Socio-Cultural Context
    • Summary of the Socio-Legal Context
    • Who is Suzy Phipps?
  • The ideographs
    • Phipps Briefs
    • The Judicial Responses
    • Summary
  • Rhetorical Implications
• Chapter 5
  • Summary and Findings
  • Implications
  • Conclusions
• Cases and Legislative Acts
• References
• Vitae

INTRODUCTION TO THE INVISIBLITY OF BLACKNESS: THE ONE DROP RULE AS A RHETORICAL CONSTRUCT

In the 1990s, a popular figure, Tiger Woods, attempted to claim an intermediate racial status by embracing his mixed race lineage. Woods, whose mother is Thai and whose father is Native American, African American, Caucasian, and Chinese, publicly refused the label of black. Woods created the term, “Cablinasian” to reflect his Caucasian, Native American, black, and Asian ancestry. Although many supported his attempts to embrace a multi-racial heritage, the doctrine known as the “one-drop-rule” shaped public opinion on the subject of his racial identity. The one-drop rule, also known as the rule of hypo-descent, recognizes a person as “black” if she possesses any trace of African ancestry.

After winning a Master’s Tournament, fellow golfer Fuzzy Zoeller’s responses to Tiger Woods reflected one-drop reasoning and racist thinking. Zoeller stated, “he hoped that Woods would not request that dinner consist of ‘fried chicken and black-eye peas’.” Zoeller assumes that because Woods’s father is partly “black” Woods must also be black. In this one-drop argument, the presence of other “blood lines” is irrelevant. Zoeller’s statement also supported a stereotype of black people, suggesting that all members of a group behavior the same. The stereotype is also racist because of the image of blacks eating fried chicken and/or watermelon supported white supremacist beliefs.3 Despite Woods’ attempt to embrace his ethnic and racially diverse heritage, some people continued to define him as black. In essence, this example illustrates how the doctrine known as the “one-drop rule” shapes contemporary public thought on matters involving race.

Although the one-drop rule has been studied by scholars in various disciplines, none have focused on how the one-drop rule operates rhetorically. Instead, scholars have traced its history or commented on how it influenced the formation of racial identity in the United States. In this dissertation, I offer a different perspective to understanding the significance of the one-drop rule by analyzing how this doctrine operates rhetorically in legal discourse. Through a rhetorical history of the doctrine I show how the one-drop rule becomes legally sanctioned through rhetorical commitments of court justices. I argue that one-drop reasoning serves as a persuasive strategy, used by court justices, operating as rhetors, in 1896 and 1985, to promote a commitment to racism.

Using, McGee’s theory of the ideograph, from Critical Rhetorical Theory, and Critical Race Theory, from legal studies, I reveal how race (Negro, mixed race, and white) is an integral component of legal discourse. Through this analysis I explore the relationship between racial identity, rhetoric, and power in legal discourse. The manner in which race is rhetorically defined in legal discourse highlights the racist nature of traditional legal theory and contributes to a racial hierarchy that is enforced through the law. Taking a critical rhetorical and legal approach, I believe, provides useful information to the on-going discussion of racial identity and the one-drop rule in rhetorical and legal studies…

Purchase the dissertation here.

Pure mixed blood: The multiple identities of Amerasians in South Korea

Indiana University
February 2007
256 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3253643

Sue-Je Lee Gage, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ithaca University

Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of  Anthropology, Indiana University

Political and social currents play a role in how identities are ascribed and claimed by Amerasians in South Korea. Amerasians continue to be racialized as “other” within a set of desirable and undesirable qualities. Attitudes are complicated by the effects of globalization, especially the temporary immigration of US military personnel and guest workers, as well as current fashion and aesthetic trends. Within the context of a diversifying Korea, the very nature of “Amerasian” (American and Asian) and “Kosian” (Korean and South Asian) call into question notions of purity and race within the assumed ethnonation of Korea. How “pure” is pure when it comes to people and identity? In what ways do perceived appearances affect experiences?

Many Amerasians subscribe to a presumed racial hierarchy incorporated and contextualized in the countries of their births from a western perspective on “race” in their own identity ascription and claiming. However, this hierarchy is neither simple nor fixed. It is complicated by perceptions and notions of “race” and what it means to be “human.” Class, gender, generation, English-speaking ability, appearance/beauty, parentage, education, and social support networks and organization affiliations also influence attitudes and perceptions. My research examines the local, global, and historical reasons that contribute to the ways Amerasians are perceived, as well as the ways they perceive themselves, including the on-going racial/ethnic/political dialogue within Korea and between Korea, the United States, and the international community.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Abstract
• List of illustrations and appendixes
• Note to Reader
• CHAPTER 1. Introduction
  • Methodology
  • Theory
  • Overview of the Book
• Part I: The Thick and Thin of Blood
  • CHAPTER 2. Minjok and the History of Korean Nationalism
    • Pre-Modern Context and Early Korean Interactions with the West
    • Nationalist Movements and the Articulation of Identities
    • US-ROK Relation
    • The More Recent Period
    • Conclusion
  • CHAPTER 3. Racing Self and Otherness in South Korea
    • Racing the Korean Self
    • Representations
    • Racing the Other in Korea
    • Globalization
    • Conclusion
  • CHAPTER 4. The “Amerasian Problem”: Blood, Duty, and Race
    • Representations of Amerasian Identity in the United States
    • Transnational Advocacy Networks Prior to the 1980s
    • Amerasian Policy Formation
    • Conclusion
• Part II: The Purity of Mixed Blood
  • CHAPTER 5. Living “Amerasian”
    • The Legacy of a Name: Looking “American,” Feeling “Korean”
    • American Names & Korean Names
    • Marriage & Breeding Out Amerasian Blood
    • Amerasian Entertainers & Celebrities
    • “Our Country” & Patriotism
    • Redefining and Claiming Amerasian Identity
    • Conclusion
  • CHAPTER 6. “We Want What Everybody Else Wants, to Live”
    • Human Rights, International Community & Globalization
    • From “other” to “Other
    • Immigrating to the US – Why and Why not?
    • Conclusion
• Part III: Globalizing Blood – Intersections and Conclusion
  • CHAPTER 7. Conclusion: Pure Mixed Blood
  • CHAPTER 8. Afterward: Feeling the Want of Something More – ashwiwŏ hada
• Epilogue
• Appendix A Glossary
• Appendix B Illustrations
• Bibliography
• Curriculum Vitae

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

• Figure 1.1 US Military Map of Korea. Highlights the major US military installations – Camp Casey in Tongduch’on, Osan Airbase near Pyongt’aek.
• Figure 1.2 Kyonggi Province (Gyeonggi-do) – Includes Tongduch’on to the north of Seoul, Seoul, and Pyongt’aek to the south of Seoul.
• Figure 1.3 Shalom House Building
• Figure 3.1 Korea Special Tourism sign – “This Facility is for Foreigners, Tourists, and US Soldiers Stationed in Korea Only.”
• Figure 3.2 Club Proof of Inspection by the Second Infantry, US Army in Tongduch’on – “Cheer” is handwritten on the label on the right corner.
• Figure 3.3 Korea Special Tourism Association Club. Exchange Bank located on the Right Side of the Club.
• Figure 3.4 Tongduch’on’s Kijich’on
• Figure 3.5 Molly Holt
• Figure 3.6 Director Woo, Sun-duk and Two Women Working in the Clubs
• Figure 3.7 Advertisement for Whitening Lotion for Men
• Figure 4.1 St. Vincent’s Home Sign
• Figure 5.1 I am Korean
• Figure 5.2 I am Korean
• Figure 5.3 We are Korean
• Figure 5.4 We are Korean
• Figure 5.5 I am Korean
• Figure 5.6 We are Korean
• Figure 5.7 I am Korean
• Figure 5.8 We are Korean
• Figure 5.9 We are Korean
• Figure 5.10 Pearl S. Buck Summer Camp 2002, Picture Taken at the Blue House
• Figure 5.11 Mrs. Chung Rodrigues
• Figure 5.12 Mrs. and Mr. Kang
• Figure 6.1 ACA Students
• Figure 6.2 Sports Day
• Figure 6.3 Durihana ACA Logo
• Figure 6.4 Marriage and Visa Center in Itaewon
• Figure 7.1 The Right to Experience Life
• Figure 8.1 Dance Therapy at Sunlit Sisters’ Center
• Figure 8.2 Family and Me in Tongduch’on
• Figure 8.3 Family in Tongduch’on
• Figure 8.4 Family in Anjong-ri
• Figure 8.5 Family and Me in Anjong-ri
• Figure 9.1 Baby Buddhas

APPENDIXES

• Appendix A Glossary
• Appendix B Illustrations
• Appendix C Map of Tongduch’on with Legend of Clubs and Shops

Purchase the dissertation here.

Multiracial Identity Development: Understanding Choice of Racial Identity in Asian-White College Students

Journal of the Indiana University Student Personnel Association
2011
pages 38-45

Ashley Viager
Higher Education and Student Affairs Program
Indiana University

Asian-White individuals will have greater representation in higher education in coming years, and student affairs professionals must learn how these students make meaning of their racial identities in order to best serve the needs of this group. Analyzing Poston’s (1990) and Root’s (2003) theories of multiracial identity development, this paper examines the experiences unique to this population to demonstrate that Asian-White individuals have the ability to choose from multiple racial identity outcomes.

In 2000, the United States government conducted a census in which multiracial individuals could self-identify with more than one racial category. Multiracial individuals are those whose parents are of two or more different and distinct federally recognized racial groups (Chapman-Huls, 2009). Previously, multiracial individuals had not been formally recognized in the United States. Instead, multiracial individuals who had one White parent were primarily classified according to their parent of color (Zack, 2001). This system of racial classification, also known as “hypodescent,” originated in the eighteenth century as a way to “maintain White racial purity and to deny mixed race people access to privilege,” (Renn, 2004, p. 4) and reinforced rigid categories of race. The 2000 census formally challenged these previous notions of essentialist racial categories by recognizing those who blurred the boundaries.

One of the main purposes in the revision of the census was to reflect the growing prevalence of interracial marriage in American society (Perlmann & Waters, 2002). The multiracial population is one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United States (Shih & Sanchez, 2009), and by the year 2050, one in five Americans could self-identify as multiracial (Farley, 2001). Of any racial minority group in the United States, Asians, both native and U.S. born, register one of the highest rates of marriages outside their race, and marriages to Whites are the most prevalent (Lee & Bean, 2004; Qian, 1997). This growing trend means the population of young mixed race Asian Americans, specifically those who claim Asian and White descent, will increase (Min, 2006). As a result, Asian-White individuals will have significantly greater representation in higher education in the coming years. Because the Asian-White student population is growing, student affairs professionals must learn how these students make meaning of their racial identities. While few studies have explored the racial identity formation specific to Asian-White individuals (Khanna, 2004), current research on multiracial identity development can help student affairs professionals understand the Asian-White experience.

Acceptance or rejection from a racial group can significantly impact how a multiracial student chooses to identify. Multiracial identity theories rely on the notion that individuals “must make choices about their racial identification, navigate validation or invalidation around their choice, and resolve their in-between status while traveling pathways shaped by acceptance and/or denial” (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2005). Multiracial students often feel caught between their racial components, unable to fully identify with White students or with monoracial students of color (Renn, 1998). It is important to note, however, that multiracial students experience varying levels of dissonance based on factors that impact the way they identify, and current multiracial identity development models are too general to be applied to any one specific multiracial subpopulation. Asian-White individuals share similar experiences that make their process of racial identity development different from any other multiracial group, thus necessitating a theory that outlines the Asian-White racial identity developmental process. This paper will examine Poston’s (1990) and Root’s (2003) multiracial identity development theories to provide an overview of how various factors influence the racial identity outcomes of multiracial individuals. These theories will then be integrated with current literature regarding the experiences of Asian and Asian- White groups in American society to provide an understanding of the fluidity in racial identity choice for Asian-White individuals…

Read the entire article here.

Black Seminole Involvement and Leadership During the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842

Indiana University
May 2007
228 pages

Anthony E. Dixon

A Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History Indiana University

This thesis examines the involvement, leadership, and impact of the Black Seminoles during the Second Seminole War. In Florida, free Blacks, runaway slaves, and Blacks owned by Seminoles collectively became known as Black Seminoles. Black Seminoles either lived in separate communities near Seminole Indians, or joined them by cohabitating or intermarriage. Throughout this cohabitation, Blacks became an integral part of Seminole life by taking positions as advisers, counselors, and trusted interpreters to the English (who were rapidly advancing plantation society into territorial Florida).

By the advent of the Second Seminole War, Black Seminoles, unlike their Seminole Indian counterparts were not given the opportunity to emigrate westward under the United States government’s Indian Removal Policy. The United States government’s objective became to return as many Black Seminoles, if not all, to slavery. Therefore, it became the Black Seminole’s objective to resist enslavement or re-enslavement (for many) on American plantations.

The Introduction explains the objective and focus of this study. Moreover, it explains the need and importance of this study while examining the historiography of the Second Seminole War in relation to the Black Seminoles. The origins and cultural aspects of the Black Seminoles is the topic of chapter one. By examining the origins and cultural aspects of the Black Seminoles, this study establishes the autonomy of the Black Seminoles from their Indian counterparts. Chapter two focuses on the relationship and alliance between Seminole Blacks and Indians. Research concerning Black Seminole involvement throughout the war allows chapter three to reconstruct the Second Seminole War from the Black Seminole perspective. A biographical approach is utilized in chapter four in order to understand the Black Seminole leadership. This chapter examines the lives of the three most prominent Black Seminole leaders during the war. The overall impact of the Black Seminole involvement in the war is the focus of chapter five. Chapter six summarizes this study and provides the historiography of the Second Seminole War with a perspective that has remained relatively obscure.

It is clear that from the onset of the war, the United States government, military, and state militias grossly underestimated both the determination and the willingness of the Black Seminole to resist at all cost. Throughout the war, both United States’ military and political strategies were constructed and reconstructed to compensate for both the intensity with which the Black Seminoles fought as well as their political savvy during negotiations. This study examines the impact of the Black Seminoles on the Second Seminole War within the context of marronage and subsequently interprets the Second Seminole War itself as a form of slave rebellion.

Table of Contents

• Title Page
• Acknowlegements
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• Table of Illustrations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Origins and Cultural Character of the Black Seminole
• Chapter 2: Seminole and Black Seminole Alliance
• Chapter 3: Black Seminole Early Resistance and Involvement During the Second Seminole War
• Chapter 4: Black Seminole Leadership During the Second Seminole War
• Chapter 5: The Impact of the Black Seminoles on the Second Seminole War
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Table of Illustrations

• Afro-Seminole Creole Language
• Annual Distribution of Runaway Slaves

Read the entire dissertation here.