Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

It is probably doing a disservice to ourselves as Americans to oversimplify issues that cannot, by their very nature, be simple. I have shared examples of passing in America that demonstrate that this behavior is neither new nor unusual. Yes, the image of Rachel Dolezal has meaning. She is consciously constructing blackness with, I believe, integrity and good intentions. If images produce an impact, I believe that the center of all this spectacle around a young academic is the two white parents, estranged from their grown daughter, who publicly “outed” her.

Judy Phagan, “Passing in the Age of Rachel Dolezal, or Is Everyone Catfishing?,” Response: The Digital Journal of Popular Culture Scholarship, (November 2016). https://responsejournal.net/issue/article/passing-age-rachel-dolezal-or-everyone-catfishing.

Political Attitudes and Ideologies of Multiracial Americans: The Implications of Mixed Race in the United States

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2012-12-30 01:05Z by Steven

Political Attitudes and Ideologies of Multiracial Americans: The Implications of Mixed Race in the United States

Political Research Quarterly
Volume 61, Number 2 (2008)
pp. 253-267
DOI: 10.1177/1065912907313209

Natalie Masuoka, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Tufts University

A contemporary rise in multiracial self-identification provokes a number of questions about the significance that this racial identity may hold for American politics. This research focuses on the political attitudes of multiracial Americans to determine how multiracial identities may influence individual public opinion. I offer a test of three competing theoretical models of multiracial political attitude formation: Classic Assimilation, Minority Trumping, and New Identity Formation. This research finds that, generally, multiracial individuals who self-identify as such develop political opinions that parallel with their minority counterparts.

Read or purchase the article here.

Patrolling Borders: Hybrids, Hierarchies and the Challenge of Mestizaje

Posted in Articles, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United States on 2010-01-23 19:32Z by Steven

Patrolling Borders: Hybrids, Hierarchies and the Challenge of Mestizaje

Political Research Quarterly
Vol. 57, No. 4
pages 597-607
(2004)
DOI: 10.1177/106591290405700408

Cristina Beltran, Associate Professor of Political Science
Haverford College

“Hybridity” has become a popular concept among scholars of critical race theory and identity, particularly those studying Chicano identity. Some scholars claim that hybridity—premised on multiplicity and fluidity—represents a new approach to subjectivity, challenging the idea of a stable and unified subject. In “Patrolling Borders,” I argue that scholars are mistaken in their belief that “hybrid” or “bordered” identities are inherently transgressive or antiessentialist. By constructing a genealogy of Chicano hybridity (i.e., mestizaje) I show how Chicano nationalists produced a politicized subjectivity during the Chicano Movement that emerged as the basis for recent notions of hybridity put forward by writers like Gloria Anzaldúa. By tracing the historical construction of mestizaje, I show how hybridity continues to be a discursive practice capable of comfortably coexisting with dreams of privileged knowledge, order, and wholeness.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: Chicano Studies, Cristina Beltran, Gloria Anzaldúa, hybridity, Political Research Quarterly

Political Attitudes and Ideologies of Multiracial Americans: The Implications of Mixed Race in the United States

Patrolling Borders: Hybrids, Hierarchies and the Challenge of Mestizaje

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