Mixed Race Studies

Bettez to discuss experiences of mixed race women

The Southern Illinoisan
2011-10-28

Christi Mathis, Staff Writer
University Communications at SIU Carbondale

CARBONDALE – Silvia C. Bettez will present “But Don’t Call Me White: Mixed Race Women Exposing Nuances of Privilege and Oppression Politics” on Tuesday, Nov. 1, at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
 
The guest lecture in Wham Building, Room 219, is set for 3:30 to 5 p.m. and everyone is welcome to attend. Bettez is an assistant professor of cultural foundations of education in the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s School of Education.
 
The basis of her presentation is her recently released book of the same title. Bettez extensively interviewed 16 women of mixed race, all having one white parent and one parent of color. She considers the women “secret agent insiders to cultural whiteness,” with the experiences and ability to offer unique insights and perspectives that they see in light of their lives as mixed race individuals. Bettez will discuss “the hidden dynamics of oppression and privilege along the lines of race, class, gender and sexuality.”…

Read the entire article here.

But Don’t Call Me White: Mixed Race Women Exposing Nuances of Privilege and Oppression Politics

Sense Publishers
September 2011
258 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-94-6091-692-2
Paperback ISBN 978-94-6091-691-5

Silvia Cristina Bettez, Assistant Professor of Cultural Foundations
School of Education
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Highlighting the words and experiences of 16 mixed race women (who have one white parent and one parent who is a person of color), Silvia Bettez exposes hidden nuances of privilege and oppression related to multiple positionalites associated with race, class, gender and sexuality. These women are “secret agent insiders” to cultural Whiteness who provide unique insights and perspectives that emerge through their mixed race lenses.  Much of what the participants share is never revealed in mixed—White/of color—company.  Although critical of racial power politics and hierarchies, these women were invested in cross-cultural connections and revealed key insights that can aid all in understanding how to better communicate across lines of cultural difference.

This book is an invaluable resource for a wide range of activists, scholars and general readers, including sociologists, sociologists of education, feminists, anti-oppression/social justice scholars, critical multicultural educators, and qualitative researchers who are interested in mixed race issues, cross cultural communication, social justice work, or who simply wish to minimize racial conflict and other forms of oppression.

Mixed-race women’s experiences cannot be separated from the history of race and gender politics and contemporary racial debates. The history of hybridity is one in which bodies of mixed-race people have been observed, theorized about, and used as evidence in racial power debates, but their individual experiences are often disregarded. Women of mixed heritage, mixed white and “of color,” are caught in these politically charged, race-based controversies. Given general heteronormative assumptions, as women, and thus as people who can potentially bear offspring and who are expected to assume primary responsibility for raising children in a patriarchal culture, mixed-race women occupy a particularly charged social position. No matter what path a mixed-race woman chooses, she can be perceived as a traitor to both whites and people of color—a traitor to either side of her family, a traitor to equity, a traitor to cultural preservation, and a traitor to cultural purity.

Silvia Cristina Bettez. “Mixed-Race Women and Epistemologies of Belonging,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 2010, Volume 31, Number 1, pages 142-165.

Mixed-Race Women and Epistemologies of Belonging

Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies
Volume 31, Number 1, 2010
Pages 142-165
E-ISSN: 1536-0334
Print ISSN: 0160-9009
DOI: 10.5250/fronjwomestud.31.1.142

Silvia Cristina Bettez, Associate Professor
Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

How is it that people know when they belong and to what they belong? This question, about the epistemology of belonging, carries a particular complexity for mixed-race women. How is it that mixed-race women create a sense of identification with others? What are the unities and disjunctures? What can we understand about epistemologies of belonging through examining how mixed-race women create belonging? Through qualitative work based on the life stories of women of mixed heritage, in this paper I examine how the navigation of hybridity, as it is experienced in the lives of six “hybrid” mixed-race women, illuminates the complexities of identity construction and epistemologies of belonging. I use the term epistemology to signify the nature of knowledge, how we come to know things, in this case knowledge, or knowing, related to belonging. Belonging in human relations is connected to identity, both self-identification and identification with others…

Read or purchase the article here.

Secret Agent Insiders to Whiteness: Mixed Race Women Negotiating Structure and Agency

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2007
325 pages

Silvia Cristina Bettez, Assistant Professor
Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education.

In this dissertation, I explore the life stories of sixteen adult mixed race women who have one white parent and one parent who is a person of color. I examine how these women navigate their hybridity, what we can learn from their stories in our efforts to communicate across lines of racial difference, and what experiences the participants share that cross racial and ethnic lines. Data sources include multiple individual and group interviews with predominately middle-class, educated women living in San Francisco/Oakland [California], Albuquerque [New Mexico], and Boston [Massachusetts]. I coded the interview transcripts for themes and patterns and situated my analyses in relation to discourses of postcolonial hybridity, multiraciality, and social justice.

In relation to navigating hybridity, the women’s experiences reveal an interplay between personal agency, claimed through fluid identities, and limitations to social mobility and acceptance created by social, cultural, and institutional structures. When asked or compelled to choose, all participants chose to align themselves with people of color. I identify several factors that contribute to their ability to communicate across lines of racial difference including physical ambiguity, learning about multiple world views early in life, keen observation, and active listening. Several shared experiences emerged that crossed racial lines. The women in my study largely rejected their white identities, experienced their identities in fluid ways despite this rejection, claimed the right to self-identify racially/ethnically, and sought community with other mixed race people. One of the most significant findings is the degree to which many of the participants’ stories were dedicated to discussions of cultural whiteness, which they viewed as inextricably linked to racism and white supremacy.

This work adds to the small but growing field of mixed race studies and provides information on improving education for social justice. These narratives serve as embodied experiences of hybridity, challenging the disembodied postcolonial hybridity theories prevalent in the literature that disregard the actual lived experiences of “hybrid”/mixed race people. The stories and analysis also reveal ways in which racism and white privilege are enacted on social and institutional levels, and raise questions about theories of diversity built on racial binaries.

Read the entire dissertation here.