Mixed Race Studies

Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood

Indiana University Press
2014-08-01
286 pages
31 b&w illus.
6 x 9
Paper ISBN: 978-0-253-01319-4

Keren R. McGinity, Author-Educator
Love & Tradition: intermarriage insights for a Jewish future

When American Jewish men intermarry, goes the common assumption, they and their families are “lost” to the Jewish religion. In this provocative book, Keren R. McGinity shows that it is not necessarily so. She looks at intermarriage and parenthood through the eyes of a post-World War II cohort of Jewish men and discovers what intermarriage has meant to them and their families. She finds that these husbands strive to bring up their children as Jewish without losing their heritage. Marrying Out argues that the “gendered ethnicity” of intermarried Jewish men, growing out of their religious and cultural background, enables them to raise Jewish children. McGinity’s book is a major breakthrough in understanding Jewish men’s experiences as husbands and fathers, how Christian women navigate their roles and identities while married to them, and what needs to change for American Jewry to flourish. Marrying Out is a must read for Jewish men and all the women who love them.

That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia

Indiana University Press
2013
328 pages
12 b&w illustrations
6 x 9
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-253-01043-8

Arica L. Coleman, Assistant Professor of Black American Studies
University of Delaware

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2014

That the Blood Stay Pure traces the history and legacy of the commonwealth of Virginia’s effort to maintain racial purity and its impact on the relations between African Americans and Native Americans. Arica L. Coleman tells the story of Virginia’s racial purity campaign from the perspective of those who were disavowed or expelled from tribal communities due to their affiliation with people of African descent or because their physical attributes linked them to those of African ancestry. Coleman also explores the social consequences of the racial purity ethos for tribal communities that have refused to define Indian identity based on a denial of blackness. This rich interdisciplinary history, which includes contemporary case studies, addresses a neglected aspect of America’s long struggle with race and identity.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Author’s Note
• Introduction
• Part 1: Historicizing Black—Indian Relations in Virginia
  • Prologue: Lingering at the Crossroads: African-Native American History and Kinship Lineage in Armstrong Archer’s A Compendium on Slavery
  • 1. Notes on the State of Virginia: Jeffersonian Thought and the Rise of Racial Purity Ideology in the Eighteenth Century
  • 2. Redefining Race and Identity: The Indian-Negro Confusion and the Changing State of Black-Indian Relations in the Nineteenth Century
  • 3. Race Purity and the Law: The Racial Integrity Act and Policing Black/Indian Identity in the Twentieth Century
  • 4. Denying Blackness: Anthropological Advocacy and the Remaking of the Virginia Indians (The Other Twentieth Century Project)
• Part 2: Black-Indian Relations in the Present State of Virginia
  • 5. Beyond Black and White: Afro-Indian Identity in the case of Loving V. Virginia
  • 6. The Racial Integrity Fight: Confrontations of Race and Identity In Charles City County, Virginia
  • 7. Nottoway Indians, Afro-Indian Identity, and the Contemporary Dilemma of State Recognition
• Epilogue: Afro-Indian Peoples of Virginia: The Indelible Thread of Black and Red
• Appendix: Racial Integrity Act Text
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index

Multiple Identities: Migrants, Ethnicity, and Membership

Indiana University Press
2013-03-22
344 pages
3 b&w illus
6 x 9
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-253-00804-6
Paper ISBN: 978-0-253-00807-7
eBook ISBN: 978-0-253-00811-4

Edited by:

Paul Spickard, Professor of History
University of California, Santa Barbara

In recent years, Europeans have engaged in sharp debates about migrants and minority groups as social problems. The discussions usually neglect who these people are, how they live their lives, and how they identify themselves. Multiple Identities describes how migrants and minorities of all age groups experience their lives and manage complex, often multiple, identities, which alter with time and changing circumstances. The contributors consider minorities who have received a lot of attention, such as Turkish Germans, and some who have received little, such as Kashubians and Tartars in Poland and Chinese in Switzerland. They also examine international adoption and cross-cultural relationships and discuss some models for multicultural success.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Part 1. Orientations
  • 1. Many Multiplicities: Identity in an Age of Movement \ Paul Spickard, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • 2. Ethnic Identities and Transnational Subjectivities \ Anna Rastas, University of Tampere
• Part 2. The Complexities of Identities
  • 3. Between Difference and Assimilation: Young Women with South and Southeast Asian Family Background Living in Finland \ Saara Pellander, University of Helsinki
  • 4. Doing Belonging: Young Women of Middle Eastern Backgrounds in Sweden \ Serine Gunnarsson, Uppsala University
  • 5. To Be or Not to Be a Minority Group? Identity Dilemmas of Kashubians and Polish Tatars \ Katarzyna Warmińska, Cracow University of Economics
  • 6. “When You Look Chinese, You Have to Speak Chinese”: Highly Skilled Chinese Migrants in Switzerland and the Promotion of a Shared Language \ Marylène Lieber and Florence Lévy, Neuchatel University
• Part 3. Family Matters
  • 7. Intercountry Adoption: Color-b(l)inding the Issues \ Saija Westerlund-Cook
  • 8. The Children of Immigrants in Italy: A New Generation of Italians? \ Enzo Colombo and Paola Rebughini, University of Milan
  • 9. Possible Love: New Cross-cultural Couples in Italy \ Gaia Peruzzi, Sapienza University of Rome
• Part 4. Modes of Multicultural Success?
  • 10. Divided Identities: Listening to and Interpreting the Stories of Polish Immigrants in West Germany \ Mira Foster, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • 11. The Politics of Multiple Identities in Kazakhstan: Current Issues and New Challenges \ Karina Mukazhanova, Karaganda State University and University of Oregon
  • 12. Chinese Americans, Turkish Germans: Parallels in Two Racial Systems \ Paul Spickard, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index

The Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa

Indiana University Press
2013-03-18
296 pages
9 b&w illustrations, 5 maps
6 x 9
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-253-00674-5
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-253-00673-8
eBook (PDF) ISBN: 978-0-253-00705-6

Hilary Jones, Assistant Professor of History
University of Maryland, College Park

The Métis of Senegal is a history of politics and society among an influential group of mixed-race people who settled in coastal Africa under French colonialism. Hilary Jones describes how the métis carved out a niche as middleman traders for European merchants. As the colonial presence spread, the métis entered into politics and began to assert their position as local elites and power brokers against French rule. Many of the descendants of these traders continue to wield influence in contemporary Senegal. Jones’s nuanced portrait of métis ascendency examines the influence of family connections, marriage negotiations, and inheritance laws from both male and female perspectives.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Urban Life, Politics, and French Colonialism
• 1. Signares, Habitants, and Grumets in the Making of Saint Louis
• 2. Métis Society and Transformations in the Colonial Economy (1820-1870)
• 3. Religion, Marriage, and Material Culture
• 4. Education, Association, and an Independent Press
• 5. From Outpost to Empire
• 6. Electoral Politics and the Métis (1870-1890)
• 7. Urban Politics and the Limits of Republicanism (1890-1920)
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Family Histories
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism

Indiana University Press
2007-05-22
320 pages
22 b&w photos
6.125 x 9.25
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-253-21927-5; Cloth ISBN: 978-0-253-34902-6

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz exposes and challenges the common assumptions about whom and what Jews are, by presenting in their own voices, Jews of color from the Iberian Peninsula, Asia, Africa, and India. Drawing from her earlier work on Jews and whiteness, Kaye/Kantrowitz delves into the largely uncharted territory of Jews of color and argues that Jews are an increasingly multiracial people—a fact that, if acknowledged and embraced, could foster cross-race solidarity to help combat racism. This engaging and eye-opening book examines the historical and contemporary views on Jews and whiteness as well as the complexities of African/Jewish relations, the racial mix and disparate voices of the Jewish community, contemporary Jewish anti-racist and multicultural models, and the diasporic state of Jewish life in the United States.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• A Note on Language
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Are Jews White?
  • What’s White
  • The People of Contradictions
  • Apartheid/American Style
  • Jews: Race or Religion?
  • Christian Centricity
• 2. Black/Jewish Imaginary and Real
  • Real 1: The Black/Jewish Tangle
  • Real 2: Am I Possible?
  • Imaginary 1: Exodus
  • Imaginary 2: Media Coverage
  • Imaginary 3: Media Hype
  • Real 3: Solidarity
  • Real 4: Nationalism and Feminism
• 3. Who Is This Stranger?
  • The Cultures of Jews
  • Mizrahim
  • Sephardim
  • Post-Colonial Jews
  • Feminist Ritual
  • Ashkenazim
  • De-Ashkenization
  • U.S. Jews
• 4. Praying with Our Legs
  • Fighting Slumlords, Building Coalitions: Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (Chicago)
  • Confronting Power in the Jewish Community: Jews United for Justice (St. Louis)
  • Trying to Change Congregational Life: Jewish Community Action (Minneapolis)
  • Bringing Our Bodies to the Picket Line: Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (New York)
  • The Place to Go for a Progressive Jewish Voice
• 5. Judaism Is the Color of This Room
  • The Temple of My Familiar: Ayecha (National)
  • Crossing Many Borders: Ivri-NASAWI/Levantine Center (International)
  • A Mixed Multitude: Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation (Chicago)
  • Respect and Knowledge: Beta Israel of North America (International)
  • Hospitality Is the First Principle: Congregation Naharat Shalom (Albuquerque)
  • Jews Were All People of Color: Center for Afro-Jewish Studies (Philadelphia)
  • I Promised Them It Wasn’t Going to Happen Again: Central Reform Synagogue (St. Louis)
  • Jews of Color Speak Out
  • Transformation in Partnership
• 6. Toward a New Diasporism
  • If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem
  • If I Forget Thee O Doikayt, O Haviva Ottomania
  • Home
  • Diasporism and the Holocaust
  • Israel and Diasporism
  • Anti-Semitism and Diasporism
  • A Jewish Tradition: Radical Justice-Seeking
  • To Change the Way Racism Is Fought: Shifting the Center
  • Diasporism and the Colors of Jews
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Nation of Cowards: Black Activism in Barack Obama’s Post-Racial America

Indiana University Press
2012-08-14
176 pages
6 x 9
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-253-00628-8

David H. Ikard, Associate Professor of English
Florida State University

Martell Lee Teasley, Professor of Social Work
University of Texas, San Antonio

In a speech from which Nation of Cowards derives its title, Attorney General Eric Holder argued forcefully that Americans today need to talk more—not less—about racism. This appeal for candid talk about race exposes the paradox of Barack Obama’s historic rise to the US presidency and the ever-increasing social and economic instability of African American communities. David H. Ikard and Martell Lee Teasley maintain that such a conversation can take place only with passionate and organized pressure from black Americans, and that neither Obama nor any political figure is likely to be in the forefront of addressing issues of racial inequality and injustice. The authors caution blacks not to slip into an accommodating and self-defeating “post-racial” political posture, settling for the symbolic capital of a black president instead of demanding structural change. They urge the black community to challenge the social terms on which it copes with oppression, including acts of self-imposed victimization.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Is America a Nation of Cowards or Has Attorney General Eric Holder Lost His Mind?
• 1. The Teaching Moment that Never Was: Henry Louis Gates, Barack Obama, and the Post-Racial Dilemma
• 2. “I Know What’s in His Heart”: Enlightened Exceptionalism and the Problem with Using Barack Obama as the Racial Litmus Test for Black Progress and Achievement
• 3. The Audacity of Reverend Wright: Speaking Truth to Power in the 21st Century
• 4. Setting the Record Straight: Why Barack Obama and America Cannot Afford to Ignore a Black Agenda
• 5. Pull Yourself Up by Your Bootstraps: Barack Obama, the Black Poor, and the Problems of Racial Common Sense
• Index

Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society

Indiana University Press
2012-08-16
336 pages
6 x 9
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-253-00629-5

john a. powell, Professor of Law; Director Haas Diversity Research Center
University of California, Berkeley

Foreword by:

David R. Roediger, Kendrick Babcock Professor of History and African American Studies
University of Illinois

Renowned social justice advocate john a. powell persuasively argues that we have not achieved a post-racial society and that there is much work to do to redeem the American promise of inclusive democracy. Culled from a decade of writing about social justice and spirituality, these meditations on race, identity, and social policy provide an outline for laying claim to our shared humanity and a way toward healing ourselves and securing our future. Racing to Justice challenges us to replace attitudes and institutions that promote and perpetuate social suffering with those that foster relationships and a way of being that transcends disconnection and separation.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Moving Beyond the Isolated Self
• I. Race and Racialization
  • 1. Post-Racialism or Targeted Universalism?
  • 2. The Colorblind Multiracial Dilemma: Racial Categories Reconsidered
  • 3. The Racing of American Society: Race Functioning as a Verb Before Signifying as a Noun
• II. White Privilege
  • 4. Whites Will Be Whites: The Failure to Interrogate Racial Privilege
  • 5. White Innocence and the Courts: Jurisprudential Devices that Obscure Privilege
• III. The Racialized Self
  • 6. Dreaming of a Self Beyond Whiteness and Isolation
  • 7. The Multiple Self: Implications for Law and Social Justice
• IV. Engagement
  • 8. Lessons from Suffering: How Social Justice Informs Spirituality
• Afterword
• References
• Index

Colonial Blackness: A History of Afro-Mexico

Indiana University Press
2009
248 pages
6.125 x 9.25
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-253-22331-9

Herman L. Bennett, Professor of Latin American History
City Univerisity of New York

Asking readers to imagine a history of Mexico narrated through the experiences of Africans and their descendants, this book offers a radical reconfiguration of Latin American history. Using ecclesiastical and inquisitorial records, Herman L. Bennett frames the history of Mexico around the private lives and liberty that Catholicism engendered among enslaved Africans and free blacks, who became majority populations soon after the Spanish conquest. The resulting history of 17th-century Mexico brings forth tantalizing personal and family dramas, body politics, and stories of lost virtue and sullen honor. By focusing on these phenomena among peoples of African descent, rather than the conventional history of Mexico with the narrative of slavery to freedom figured in, Colonial Blackness presents the colonial drama in all its untidy detail.

“Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity: Precolonial Senegambia, Sixteenth-Nineteenth Centuries

Indiana University Press
2002-11-14
224 pages
32 b&w photos, 2 maps, 1 index
6.125 x 9.25
ISBN: 978-0-253-21552-9

Peter Mark, Professor of Art History
Wesleyan University

In this detailed history of domestic architecture in West Africa, Peter Mark shows how building styles are closely associated with social status and ethnic identity. Mark documents the ways in which local architecture was transformed by long-distance trade and complex social and cultural interactions between local Africans, African traders from the interior, and the Portuguese explorers and traders who settled in the Senegambia region. What came to be known as “Portuguese” style symbolized the wealth and power of Luso-Africans, who identified themselves as “Portuguese” so they could be distinguished from their African neighbors. They were traders, spoke Creole, and practiced Christianity. But what did this mean? Drawing from travelers’ accounts, maps, engravings, paintings, and photographs, Mark argues that both the style of “Portuguese” houses and the identity of those who lived in them were extremely fluid. “Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity sheds light on the dynamic relationship between identity formation, social change, and material culture in West Africa.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• ONE: The Evolution of “Portuguese” Identity: Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast from the 16th to the Early 19th-Century
• TWO: Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Architecture in the Gambia-Geba Region and the Articulation of Luso-African Ethnicity
• THREE: Reconstructing West African Architectural History: Images of Seventeenth-Century “Portuguese” Style Houses in Brazil
• FOUR: “The People There Are Beginning to Take on English Manners”: Mixed Manners in Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth-Century Gambia
• FIVE: Senegambia from the Mid-Eighteenth Century to the Mid-Nineteenth Century
• SIX: Casamance Architecture from 1850 to the Establishment of Colonial Administration
• Conclusions and Observations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Racial Imperatives: Discipline, Performativity, & Struggles against Subjection

Indiana University Press
2011-12-23
236 pages
Paper 6 x 9
ISBN: 978-0-253-22336-4

Nadine Ehlers, Professor
Department of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Nadine Ehlers examines the constructions of blackness and whiteness cultivated in the U.S. imaginary and asks, how do individuals become racial subjects? She analyses anti-miscegenation law, statutory definitions of race, and the rhetoric surrounding the phenomenon of racial passing to provide critical accounts of racial categorization and norms, the policing of racial behavior, and the regulation of racial bodies as they are underpinned by demarcations of sexuality, gender, and class. Ehlers places the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler’s account of performativity, and theories of race into conversation to show how race is a form of discipline, that race is performative, and that all racial identity can be seen as performative racial passing. She tests these claims through an excavation of the 1925 “racial fraud” case of Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and concludes by considering the possibilities for racial agency, extending Foucault’s later work on ethics and “technologies of the self” to explore the potential for racial transformation.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• 1. Racial Disciplinarity
• 2. Racial Knowledges: Securing the Body in Law
• 3. Passing through Racial Performatives
• 4. Domesticating Liminality: Somatic Defiance in Rhinelander v. Rhinelander
• 5. Passing Phantasms: Rhinelander and Ontological Insecurity
• 6. Imagining Racial Agency
• 7. Practicing Problematization: Resignifying Race
• Bibliography
• Index