Mixed Race Studies

The New Face of America: How the Emerging Multiracial, Multiethnic Majority is Changing the United States

Praeger Publishers
May 2013
195 pages
6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-313-38569-8
eBook ISBN: 978-0-313-38570-4

Eric J. Bailey, Professor of Anthropology and Public Health
East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina

This unique and important book investigates what it means to be multiracial and/or multiethnic in the United States, examining the issues involved from personal, societal, and cultural perspectives.

The number of Americans who identify themselves as belonging to more than one race has gone up 33 percent since 2000. But what does it mean to identify oneself as multiracial? How does it impact such basics as race relations, health care, and politics? Equally important, what does this burgeoning population mean for U.S. businesses and institutions?

More and more, the idea of America as a melting pot is becoming a reality. Written from the perspective of multiracial citizens, The New Face of America: How the Emerging Multiracial, Multiethnic Majority is Changing the United States brings to light the values, beliefs, opinions, and patterns among these populations. It assesses group identity and social recognition by others, and it communicates how multiracial individuals experience America’s reaction to their increasing numbers.

Comprehensive and far-reaching, this thoughtful compendium covers the cultural history of multiracials in America. It looks at multiracial families today, at rural and urban multiracial populations, and at multiracial physical features, health disparities, bone and marrow transplant issues, adoption matters, as well as multiracial issues in other countries. Multiracial entertainers, athletes, and politicians are considered, as well. Among the book’s most important topics is multiracial health and health care disparity. Finally, the book makes clear how America’s current majority institutions, organizations, and corporations must change their relationship with multiracial and multiethnic populations if they wish to remain viable and competitive.

Blue Veins and Kinky Hair: Naming and Color Consciousness in African America

Praeger Publishers
2003-06-30
160 pages
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-89789-558-3
eBook ISBN: 978-0-313-05864-6

Obiagele Lake

The author explores how Africans in America internalized the negative images created of them by the European world, and how internalized racism has worked to fracture African American unity and thereby dilute inchoate efforts toward liberation. In the late 1960s, change began with the “Black Is Beautiful” slogan and new a consciousness, which went hand in hand with Black Power and pan-African movements. The author argues that for any people to succeed, they must first embrace their own identity, including physical characteristics. Naming, skin color, and hair have been topical issues in the African American community since the 18th century. These three areas are key to a sense of identity and self, and they were forcefully changed when Africans were taken out of Africa as slaves.

The author discusses how group and personal names, including racial epithets, have had far-reaching and deep-seated effects on African American self perception. Most of her attention, however, is focused on issues of physical appearance which reflect a greater or lesser degree of racial blending. She tells us about exclusive African American organizations such as The Blue Vein Society, in which membership was extended to African Americans whose skin color and hair texture tended toward those of European Americans, although wealthy dark-skinned people were also eligible. Much of the book details the lengths to which African American women have gone to lighten their complexions and straighten their hair. These endeavors started many years ago, and still continue, although today there is also a large number of women who are adamantly going natural. Her historical look at the cultural background to African American issues of hair and skin is the first monograph of its kind.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Renaming African People
• Mulattoes and Color Consciousness in the United States
• Hair and Color Consciousness in African America
• Hair and Skin Color in Africa and the Africa and the African Diaspora
• The Delinking of African Hair
• Appendix A: Mixed Race Names
• Appendix B: Percentage Selecting Traits Across Race Labels
• Appendix C: Names Used by African Americans in U.S. History
• Appendix D: African American Orginizations Bearing the term “African”
• Appendix E: Original Version of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”
• Appendix F: Rendition of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”
• Appendix G: “Yellow Rose of Texas” Marching Song
• Appendix H: Brown Fellowship Society Members, 1790-1869
• Appendix I: Brown Fellowship Society Slave Owners
• Appendix J: Facts About Hairdressing Innovations
• References Cited
• Index

From Black to Biracial: Transforming Racial Identity Among Americans

Praeger Publishers an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group
1998
160 pages
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Paperback ISBN: 0-275-96744-1; ISBN-13: 978-0-275-96744-4

Kathleen Odell Korgen, Professor of Sociology
William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey

Is a person with both a white and African American parent black?  Thirty years ago in American society the answer would have been yes. Today, the answer most likely depends on whom you ask. According to the U.S. Census, a person with both a black and a white parent is, in fact, black. However, most young persons who fit this description describe themselves as biracial, both black and white. Most young Americans, whatever their racial background, agree.  Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 signaled the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement, a transformation has occurred in the racial self-definition of Americans with both an African American and a white parent. This book describes the transformation and explains why it has occurred and how it has come about. Through extensive research and dozens of interviews, Korgen describes how the transformation has its roots in the historical and cultural transitions in U.S. society since the Civil Rights era. A ground breaking book, From Black to Biracial will help all Americans understand the societal implications of the increasingly multiracial nature of our population. From affirmative action to the present controversy over the U.S. Census 2000, the repercussions of the transformation in racial identity related here affect all race-based aspects of our society. Students and faculty in sociology and multicultural studies, business leaders, and general readers alike will benefit from reading this work.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Transformation of Racial Identity
• Biracial Americans: White, Black, Both, Neither
• Black by Definition or The Best of Both Worlds?
• The Transformation: From Black to Biracial
• Turning Points: Biracial College Students and Dating
• Marginality and the Biracial American
• Identities and Transformation
• Public Policy Implications
• Appendix: Notes on Methodology
• Bibliography
• Index

Claiming Place: Biracial Young Adults of the Post-Civil Rights Era

Praeger
2000-11-30
208 pages
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-89789-760-0
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-313-06507-1

Marion Kilson, Dean of the Graduate School
Salem State College, Massachusetts

Born in the 1960s, the middle-class Biracial Americans of this study are part of a transitional cohort between the hidden biracial generations of the past and the visible blended generations of the future. As individuals, they have variously dealt with their ambiguous status in American society; as a generation, they share common existential realities in relation to White culture.

During the last decade of the 20th century public awareness of mixed race Americans increased significantly, in no small part because there has been a substantial increase in interracial marriages and offspring since 1960. This study, based on ethnographic interviews, provides an historical overview of the study of Biracial Americans in the social sciences, a sociological profile of project participants, sociocultural discussions of family and race as well as racial identity choices, and examinations of racial realities in adult lives and of recurrent systemic and personal life themes. The textual part of the book demonstrates the diversity of perception and experience regarding race and identity of these biracial young adults. The Epilogue not only reviews major findings pertaining to this transitional generation of Biracial Americans but discusses biraciality and the deconstruction of race in contemporary American society. An extensive bibliography of popular and scholarly sources concludes the book.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Biracial American Experience in Post-Civil Rights Era
Biracial Americans
Biracial Americans and Their Families
Biracial American Identity Choices
Racial Realities in Adult Biracial American Lives
Biracial American Life Themes
Biracial American Voices
Development of Racial Identities
Childhood Memories of Race
Family Relationships Remembered
Assessments of Biracial American Experiences
Epilogue
Bibliography

Light, Bright, and Damned Near White: Biracial and Triracial Culture in America

Praeger Publishers an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group
2009-03-20
168 pages
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Hardcover ISBN: 0-275-98954-2; ISBN-13: 978-0-275-98954-5

Stephanie Rose Bird

The election of America’s first biracial president brings the question dramatically to the fore. What does it mean to be biracial or tri-racial in the United States today? Anthropologist Stephanie Bird takes us into a world where people are struggling to be heard, recognized, and celebrated for the racial diversity one would think is the epitome of America’s melting pot persona. But being biracial or tri-racial brings unique challenges – challenges including prejudice, racism and, from within racial groups, colorism. Yet America is now experiencing a multiracial baby boom, with at least three states logging more multiracial baby births than any other race aside from Caucasians.  As the Columbia Journalism Review reported, American demographics are no longer black and white. In truth, they are a blended, difficult-to-define shade of brown.

Bird shows us the history of biracial and tri-racial people in the United States, and in European families and events. She presents the personal traumas and victories of those who struggle for recognition and acceptance in light of their racial backgrounds, including celebrities such as golf expert Tiger Woods, who eventually quit trying to describe himself as Cablanasin, a mix including Asian and African American.  Bird examines current events, including the National Mixed Race Student Conference, and the push to dub this Generation MIX.  And she examines how American demographics, government, and society are changing overall as a result.  This work includes a guide to tracing your own racial roots.
 
Table of Contents:

Chapter I: Premixed Pre-measured: Populace of the New World.
Chapter II: Too Light to be Black, Too Dark to be White: who is passing for what?
Chapter III Tan Territory: eparating Fact, Fiction and Fantasy.
Chapter IV: Some of Americas Best Known Biracials and Triracials Across History.
Chapter V: Bricolage: Constructed Identities of Les Gens de Couleur Libre and Cane River Negroes
Chapter VI: From Italian explorers to Sicilian Contandini and Biracial Royals: the Mixed Race Experience as Illustrated by the Italian Diaspora.
Chapter VIII: When Things Really Go Wrong: Australia’s Black/White Debacle.
Chapter IX: Profiles of Triumph and Courage.
Chapter X: Current events: In Government, On Campus, the Internet and in the News.
Chapter XI: Tool Box for Change/Conclusions

About the Author:
Stephanie Rose Bird is an independent scholar and anthropologist. She is herself tri-racial, and has been interviewed on the topic by media including ABC, National Public Radio, and the Public Broadcast System.

Relative/Outsider: The Art and Politics of Identity Among Mixed Heritage Students

Praeger Publishers
2001-05-30
200 pages
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-56750-551-1
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-56750-550-4
e-Book ISBN: 978-0-313-07598-8
DOI: 10.1336/1567505511

Kendra R. Wallace, Assistant Professor of Education
University of Maryland, Baltimore

The author explores the ethnic and racial identity formation among high school and college students of racially mixed heritage. The portraits in this book provide a thorough examination of the dynamic ethnic and racial lives of a multifaceted and growing segment of students. Unlike most recent projects on mixed heritage people which are narrow in scope and focus on one set of backgrounds (e.g., black and white or black and Japanese), the subjects in this study represent a vast array of heritages, including those of dual minority ancestry.

The students’ stories speak volumes about the uneven nature of racial and ethnic experience within and across traditional communities in contemporary U.S. society. Unlike studies analyzing broad intergroup processes, this work begins by examining the cultural dynamics of the home, contributing valuable insights into the otherwise invisible lives of mixed heritage families. Processes of enculturation and discourse acquisition are considered in the development of ethnic identity. The book also helps to frame how changes within the U.S. racial ecology lead many recently mixed heritage individuals to see themselves as occupying (un)common ground. Finally, this work offers recommendations for educators concerned with creating school contexts that are critically supportive of human diversity.
 
Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Surveying the U.S. Racial Ecology
Out of the Borderlands: Interethnic/Interracial Families
Lessons of Community: Origins of and Approaches to Ethnic Identity
Constructing Race
On Being Mixed: Issues and Interpretations
Conclusions and Educational Implications
Appendix A: Race-Ethnicity Survey
Appendix B: Recruitment Flyer
Appendix C: Expressive Autobioraphical Interview Probes
References
Index