Mixed Race Studies

Red and Yellow, Black and Brown: Decentering Whiteness in Mixed Race Studies

Rutgers University Press
278 pages
2017-06-26
12 photographs, 4 tables
152.4 x 228.6cm
Paper ISBN: 978-0-8135-8730-1
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-8731-8

Edited by:

Joanne L. Rondilla, Program lecturer in Asian Pacific American Studies
School of Social Transformation
Arizona State University, Tempe

Rudy P. Guevarra, Jr., Associate Professor of Asian American Studies
Arizona State University

Paul Spickard, Professor of History; Professor of Asian American Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara

Red and Yellow, Black and Brown gathers together life stories and analysis by twelve contributors who express and seek to understand the often very different dynamics that exist for mixed race people who are not part white. The chapters focus on the social, psychological, and political situations of mixed race people who have links to two or more peoples of color— Chinese and Mexican, Asian and Black, Native American and African American, South Asian and Filipino, Black and Latino/a and so on. Red and Yellow, Black and Brown addresses questions surrounding the meanings and communication of racial identities in dual or multiple minority situations and the editors highlight the theoretical implications of this fresh approach to racial studies.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Introduction: About Mixed Race, Not About Whiteness / Paul Spickard, Rudy P. Guevarra Jr., Joanne L. Rondilla
• Part I. Identity Journeys
  • Chapter 2. Rising Sun, Rising Soul: On Mixed Race Asian Identity That Includes Blackness / Velina Hasu Houston
  • Chapter 3. Blackapina / Janet C. Mendoza Stickmon
• Part II. Multiple Minority Marriage and Parenting
  • Chapter 4. Intermarriage and the Making of a Multicultural Society in the Baja California Borderlands / Verónica Castillo-Muñoz
  • Chapter 5. Cross-Racial Minority Intermarriage: Mutual Marginalization and Critique / Jessica Vasquez-Tokos
  • Chapter 6. Parental Racial Socialization: A Glimpse into the Racial Socialization Process as It Occurs in a Dual-Minority Multiracial Family / Cristina M. Ortiz
• Part III. Mixed Identity and Monoracial Belonging
  • Chapter 7. Being Mixed Race in the Makah Nation: Redeeming the Existence of African-Native Americans / Ingrid Dineen-Wimberly
  • Chapter 8. “You’re Not Black or Mexican Enough!” Policing Racial/Ethnic Authenticity among Blaxicans in the US / Rebecca Romo
• Part IV. Asian Connections
  • Chapter 9 Bumbay in the Bay: The Struggle for Indipino Identity in San Francisco / Maharaj Raju Desai
  • Chapter 10. Hyper-visibility and Invisibility of Female Haafu Models in Japanese Beauty Culture / Kaori Mori Want
  • Chapter 11. Checking “Other” Twice: Transnational Dual Minorities / Lily Anne Y. Welty Tamai
• Part V. Reflections
  • Chapter 12. Neanderthal-Human Hybridity and the Frontier of Critical Mixed Race Studies / Terence Keel
  • Chapter 13. Epilogue: Expanding the Terrain of Mixed Race Studies: What We Learn from the Study of NonWhite Multiracials / Nitasha Tamar Sharma
• Bibliography
• Notes on Contributors
• Index

Between Black and Brown: Blaxican (Black-Mexican) Multiracial Identity in California

Journal of Black Studies
Published online before print on: 2011-02-22
DOI: 10.1177/0021934710376172

Rebecca Romo
University of California, Santa Barbara

This article explores the racial/ethnic identities of multiracial Black-Mexicans or “Blaxicans.” In-depth interviews with 12 Blaxican individuals in California reveal how they negotiate distinct cultural systems to accomplish multiracial identities. I argue that choosing, accomplishing, and asserting a Blaxican identity challenges the dominant monoracial discourse in the United States,in particular among African American and Chicana/o communities. That is, Blaxican respondents are held accountable by African Americans and Chicanas/os/Mexicans to monoracial notions of “authenticity.” The process whereby Blaxicans move between these monoracial spaces to create multiracial identities illustrates crucial aspects of the social construction of race/ethnicity in the United States and the influence of social interactions in shaping how Blaxicans develop their multiracial identities.

Read or purchase the article here.

Blaxican Identity: An Exploratory Study of Blacks/Chicanas/os in California

National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Annual Conference
35th Annual Conference
2008-04-01
11 pages

Rebecca Romo
University of California, Santa Barbara

This paper explores the life experiences of Blaxicans, or multiracial individuals who are the products of unions that are composed of one biological (or birth) parent who is identified and designated as Mexicana/o or Chicana/o, and one parent who is identified and designated as African American or Black. Most research on racial intermarriage and multiracial offspring in the United States has concentrated on European American unions with African Americans or other people of color and their descendants. Research on “dual-minority unions” and their offspring is scant (Wallace 2001). The examination of how identity formation operates among multiracial offspring whose biological parents are non-white is limited and informs the basis of this investigation of Blaxican identity. In this introduction, I discuss the literature related to Blaxican identity, including: Black identity, Chicana/o identity, and dual-minority multiracial identity. The goal of this paper is to investigate how mixed-race Black and Chicana/o individuals racially identify and to examine the processes that influenced their decision of racial self-identification.

Read the entire paper here.

Colorblind parents could handicap their biracial kids

The Grio
2010-09-16

Jennifer H. Cunningham

When he was still a toddler, Rebecca Romo’s son, Emilio asked her why his skin was darker than hers.

The now 8-year-old Emilio, who is of Mexican and African-American heritage, also went through a stage where he hated his hair, telling his mother that he wished it was straight and blonde instead of curly and brown.

Romo realized that Emilio had been exposed to — and possibly internalized — what many perceive to be a normal standard of appearance. It was a standard that didn’t look like him.

“I had to reinforce a positive image that curly hair was beautiful,” said Romo, Mexican-American sociology doctoral student at University of California, Santa Barbara. “I would have to constantly tell him that. I realized that I had to start with him very young in fostering a positive self-image.”…

…Non-African-American mothers with biracial children can struggle not only with issues like hair and skin tone, but also with intangible matters, like fostering a sense of African-American identity or heritage in their children. And that can be especially difficult for single, non-African-American mothers.

“To me, honesty and being straightforward is really critical,” said G. Reginald Daniel, Ph.D, professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “When a child raises a question, it needs to be addressed immediately.”

Daniel said it is key that parents address their children’s questions about race, racial differences and racism in an empathetic manner, but also in a way that the child can understand. They may believe that by not addressing the child’s query that they are shielding the child or sharing their pain. But in reality, ignoring their concerns can do the exact opposite…

Read the entire article here.