Mixed Race Studies

American Mestizos, The Philippines, and the Malleability of Race: 1898-1961

University of Missouri Press
2017-04-28
208 pages
6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0826221223

Nicholas Trajano Molnar, Assistant Professor of History
Community College of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
also Digital Humanities Officer, Immigration and Ethnic History Society

The American mestizos, a group that emerged in the Philippines after it was colonized by the United States, became a serious social concern for expatriate Americans and Filipino nationalists far disproportionate to their actual size, confounding observers who debated where they fit into the racial schema of the island nation.

Across the Pacific, these same mestizos were racialized in a way that characterized them as a asset to the United States, opening up the possibility of their assimilation to American society during a period characterized by immigration restriction and fears of miscegenation. Drawing upon Philippine and American archives, Nicholas Trajano Molnar documents the imposed and self-ascribed racializations of the American mestizos, demonstrating that the boundaries of their racial identity shifted across time and space with no single identity coalescing.

From Edward Brooke to Barack Obama African American Political Success, 1966-2008

University of Missouri Press
2012
272 pages
6.125 x 9.25
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8262-1977-0

Dennis Nordin

In 2008, American history was forever changed with the election of Barack Obama, the United States’ first African American president. However, Obama was far from the first African American to run for a public office or to face the complexities of race in a political campaign. For over a century, offices ranging from city mayor to state senator have been filled by African Americans, making race a factor in many elections. In From Edward Brooke to Barack Obama, Dennis S. Nordin navigates the history of biracial elections by examining the experiences of a variety of African American politicians from across the country, revealing how voters, both black and white, respond to the issue of race in an election.

The idea to compare the African American political experience across several levels of office first occurred to Nordin as he was researching Arthur W. Mitchell’s 1934 congressional campaign. The question of white voter support was of particular significance, as was whether the continuation of that support depended upon his avoiding minority issues in office. To begin answering these questions and others, Nordin compares the experiences of eleven African American politicians. Taken from across the country to ensure a wide sample and accurate depiction of the subject, the case studies examined include Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles; David Dinkins, mayor of New York; Freeman Bosley Jr., mayor of St. Louis; Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts; Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois; Governor L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia; and Representative J. C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma, among others. As Nordin analyzes these individuals and their contribution to the whole, he concludes that biracial elections in the United States have yet to progress beyond race.

From Edward Brooke to Barack Obama investigates the implications of race in politics, a highly relevant topic in today’s American society. It offers readers a chronological overview of the progress made over the last several decades as well as shows where there is room for growth in the political arena. By taking a pertinent topic for the era and placing it in the context of history, Nordin successfully chronicles the roles of race and race relations in American politics.

University of Missouri Press to Shut Down in July

Riverfront Times
St. Louis, Missouri
2012-05-25

Aimee Levitt

The Post-Dispatch was not the only publishing institution in Missouri to have a bad week. Yesterday morning, Tim Wolfe, the president of the University of Missouri system, announced plans to shut down the University of Missouri Press.

 The news came as a complete surprise to the ten-member staff, editor in chief Clair Wilcox told the Columbia Daily Tribune.

It was true the press, which was partially funded by a $400,000 annual subsidy from the university system, had continued to operate with a deficit even after seven employees had been laid off three years ago, but who expects a university press to be a major money-making operation?

The purpose of the U of M Press, founded in 1958, was to showcase scholarly work about Missouri and its people which would be ignored by more commercial publishers. The current catalog, likely to be the press’s last, features a memoir by a Bootheel farmer, a study of old-time Missouri fiddlers, histories of the Missouri State Penitentiary and a Civil War draft resistance movement and biographies of Satchel Paige and the folklorist Mary Alicia Owen (the last with the tantalizing title Voodoo Priests, Noble Savages and Ozark Gypsies)…

Read the enetire article here.

To Be Suddenly White: Literary Realism and Racial Passing

University of Missouri Press
2006
296 pages
6 1/8 x 9 1/4
ISBN: 978-0-8262-1619-9

Steven J. Belluscio, Associate Professor of English
Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York

To Be Suddenly White explores the troubled relationship between literary passing and literary realism, the dominant aesthetic motivation behind the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century ethnic texts considered in this study. Steven J. Belluscio uses the passing narrative to provide insight into how the representation of ethnic and racial subjectivity served, in part, to counter dominant narratives of difference.

To Be Suddenly White offers new readings of traditional passing narratives from the African American literary tradition, such as James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, Nella Larsen’s Passing, and George Schuyler’s Black No More. It is also the first full-length work to consider a number of Jewish American and Italian American prose texts, such as Mary Antin’s The Promised Land, Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, and Guido d’Agostino’s Olives on the Apple Tree, as racial passing narratives in their own right. Belluscio also demonstrates the contradictions that result from the passing narrative’s exploration of racial subjectivity, racial difference, and race itself.

When they are seen in comparison, ideological differences begin to emerge between African American passing narratives and “white ethnic” (Jewish American and Italian American) passing narratives. According to Belluscio, the former are more likely to engage in a direct critique of ideas of race, while the latter have a tendency to become more simplistic acculturation narratives in which a character moves from a position of ethnic difference to one of full American identity.

The desire “to be suddenly white” serves as a continual point of reference for Belluscio, enabling him to analyze how writers, even when overtly aware of the problematic nature of race (especially African American writers), are also aware of the conditions it creates, the transformations it provokes, and the consequences of both. By examining the content and context of these works, Belluscio elucidates their engagement with discourses of racial and ethnic differences, assimilation, passing, and identity, an approach that has profound implications for the understanding of American literary history.

Manuel Zapata Olivella and the “Darkening” of Latin American Literature

University of Missouri Press
2005
168 pages
6 x 9
index, bibliography
ISBN 978-0-8262-1578-9

Antonio D. Tillis, Associate Professor of African and African American Studies
Dartmouth University

Manuel Zapata Olivella and the “Darkening” of Latin American Literature is an examination of the fictional work of one of Latin America’s most prolific, yet overlooked, writers. Born in Colombia to parents of mixed ancestry, Zapata Olivella [English translation by Google here] uses his novels to explore the plight of the downtrodden in his nation and by extension the experience of blacks in other parts of the Americas. Author Antonio D. Tillis offers a critical examination of Zapata Olivella’s major works of fiction from the 1940s to the present, including Tierra mojada (1947); Pasión vagabunda (1949); He visto la noche (1953); La Calle 10 (1960); En Chimá nace un santo (1963); Las claves mágicas de América (1989); and Hemingway, el cazador de la muerte (1993).

Tillis focuses on the development of the “black aesthetic” in Zapata Olivella’s stories, in which the circumstances of the people of African heritage are centered in the narrative discourse. Tillis also traces Zapata Olivella’s novelistic effort to incorporate the Africa-descended subject into the literature of Latin America. A critical look at the placement of Afro–Latin American protagonists reveals the sociopolitical and historical challenges of citizenship and community. In addition, this study explores tenets of postcolonial and postmodern thought such as place, displacement, marginalization, historiographic metafiction, and chronological disjuncture in relation to Zapata Olivella’s fiction. Tillis concludes that the novelistic trajectory of this Afro-Colombian writer is one that brings into literary history an often overlooked subject: the disenfranchised citizen of African ancestry.

 By expanding and updating the current scholarship on Zapata Olivella, Tillis leads us to new contexts for and interpretations of this author’s work. This analysis will be welcomed by readers who are just beginning to discover the writings of Zapata Olivella, and its new approach to those writings will be appreciated by scholars who are already familiar with his works.

Damn Near White: An African American Family’s Rise from Slavery to Bittersweet Success

University of Missouri Press
October 2010
192 pages
15 illustrations, bibliography index
ISBN-10: 0826218997
ISBN-13: 978-0826218995

Carolyn Marie Wilkins, Professor
Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts

Carolyn Wilkins grew up defending her racial identity. Because of her light complexion and wavy hair, she spent years struggling to convince others that she was black. Her family’s prominence set Carolyn’s experiences even further apart from those of the average African American. Her father and uncle were well-known lawyers who had graduated from Harvard Law School. Another uncle had been a child prodigy and protégé of Albert Einstein. And her grandfather [J. Ernest Wilkins] had been America’s first black assistant secretary of labor.

Carolyn’s parents insisted she follow the color-conscious rituals of Chicago’s elite black bourgeoisie—experiences Carolyn recalls as some of the most miserable of her entire life. Only in the company of her mischievous Aunt Marjory, a woman who refused to let the conventions of “proper” black society limit her, does Carolyn feel a true connection to her family’s African American heritage.

When Aunt Marjory passes away, Carolyn inherits ten bulging scrapbooks filled with family history and memories. What she finds in these photo albums inspires her to discover the truth about her ancestors—a quest that will eventually involve years of research, thousands of miles of travel, and much soul-searching.

Carolyn learns that her great-grandfather John Bird Wilkins was born into slavery and went on to become a teacher, inventor, newspaperman, renegade Baptist minister, and a bigamist who abandoned five children. And when she discovers that her grandfather J. Ernest Wilkins may have been forced to resign from his labor department post by members of the Eisenhower administration, Carolyn must confront the bittersweet fruits of her family’s generations-long quest for status and approval.

Damn Near White is an insider’s portrait of an unusual American family. Readers will be drawn into Carolyn’s journey as she struggles to redefine herself in light of the long-buried secrets she uncovers. Tackling issues of class, color, and caste, Wilkins reflects on the changes of African American life in U.S. history through her dedicated search to discover her family’s powerful story.

The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis

University of Missouri Press
1999 (originaly written in 1858)
ISBN 978-0-8262-1236-8
136 pages
6 x 9
Bibliography, Index, Illustrations

Cyprian Clamorgan

Edited with an Introduction by

Julie Winch, Professor of History
University of Massachusetts, Boston

In 1858, Cyprian Clamorgan wrote a brief but immensely readable book entitled The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis. The grandson of a white voyageur and a mulatto woman, he was himself a member of the “colored aristocracy.” In a setting where the vast majority of African Americans were slaves, and where those who were free generally lived in abject poverty, Clamorgan’s “aristocrats” were exceptional people. Wealthy, educated, and articulate, these men and women occupied a “middle ground.” Their material advantages removed them from the mass of African Americans, but their race barred them from membership in white society.

The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis is both a serious analysis of the social and legal disabilities under which African Americans of all classes labored and a settling of old scores. Somewhat malicious, Clamorgan enjoyed pointing out the foibles of his friends and enemies, but his book had a serious message as well. “He endeavored to convince white Americans that race was not an absolute, that the black community was not a monolith, that class, education, and especially wealth, should count for something.”

Despite its fascinating insights into antebellum St. Louis, Clamorgan’s book has been virtually ignored since its initial publication. Using deeds, church records, court cases, and other primary sources, Winch reacquaints readers with this important book and establishes its place in the context of African American history. This annotated edition of The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis includes an introductory essay on African Americans in St. Louis before the Civil War, as well as an account of the lives of the author and the members of his remarkable family—a family that was truly at the heart of the city’s “colored aristocracy” for four generations.

A witty and perceptive commentary on race and class, The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis is a remarkable story about a largely forgotten segment of nineteenth-century society. Scholars and general readers alike will appreciate Clamorgan’s insights into one of antebellum America’s most important communities.

Blind Boone: Missouri’s Ragtime Pioneer

University of Missouri Press
1998
136 pages
6 x 9.
Biblio. Index. 25 illus.
ISBN: 0-8262-1198-4

Jack A. Batterson

Often overlooked by ragtime historians, John William “Blind” Boone had a remarkably successful and influential music career that endured for almost fifty years. Blind Boone: Missouri’s Ragtime Pioneer provides the first full account of the Missouri-born musician’s amazing story of overcoming the odds.

Boone’s background and his approach to music contributed to his ability to bridge gaps–gaps between blacks and whites and gaps between popular and classical music. Boone’s thousands of performances from 1879 to 1927 brought blacks and whites into the same concert halls as he played a mixture of popular and classical tunes.  A pioneer of ragtime music, Boone was the first performer to give the musical style legitimacy by bringing it to the concert stage.

The mulatto child of a former slave and a Union soldier, Boone was born in Miami, Missouri, in 1864 amid the chaos of the Civil War.  At six months he was diagnosed with “brain fever.” Doctors, believing they were performing a lifesaving procedure, removed Boone’s eyes and sewed his eyelids shut.

Despite blindness and poverty, Boone was a fun-loving, cheerful child.  Growing up in Warrensburg, Missouri, he played freely with both black and white children, undaunted by racial differences or his own disabilities. He exhibited a keen ear and musical promise early in life; at only five years of age he recruited older boys and formed a band.

Recognizing Boone’s talent, the town’s prominent citizens sent him to the St. Louis School for the Blind. There he excelled at music and amazed his instructors. However, Boone became increasingly unhappy with the school’s treatment of him and he frequently ran away to the tenderloin district of the city, where he first experienced ragtime. As a result of his forays, he was expelled after only two and a half years.

After some harrowing experiences, Boone met John Lange Jr., a benevolent black contractor and philanthropist in Columbia, Missouri. Boone and Lange began a lifelong friendship, which developed from their partnership in the Blind Boone Concert Company.  Although the two experienced hardships and racism, fires and train wrecks, Lange’s guidance and Boone’s talent secured 8,650 concerts in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Blind Boone: Missouri’s Ragtime Pioneer offers an engaging and readable account of the personal and professional life of Blind Boone. This book will appeal to the general reader as well as anyone interested in African American studies or music history.

Injun Joe’s Ghost: The Indian Mixed-Blood in American Writing

University of Missouri Press
2004
ISBN 978-0-8262-1530-7
288 pages
6 x 9

Harry J. Brown, Assistant Professor of English
DePauw University

What does it mean to be a “mixed-blood,” and how has our understanding of this term changed over the last two centuries? What processes have shaped American thinking on racial blending?  Why has the figure of the mixed-blood, thought too offensive for polite conversation in the nineteenth century, become a major representative of twentieth-century native consciousness?

In Injun Joe’s Ghost, Harry J. Brown addresses these questions within the interrelated contexts of anthropology, U.S. Indian policy, and popular fiction by white and mixed-blood writers, mapping the evolution of “hybridity” from a biological to a cultural category. Brown traces the processes that once mandated the mixed-blood’s exile as a grotesque or criminal outcast and that have recently brought about his ascendance as a cultural hero in contemporary Native American writing.

Because the myth of the demise of the Indian and the ascendance of the Anglo-Saxon is traditionally tied to America’s national idea, nationalist literature depicts Indian-white hybrids in images of degeneracy, atavism, madness, and even criminality. A competing tradition of popular writing, however, often created by mixed-blood writers themselves, contests these images of the outcast half-breed by envisioning “hybrid vigor,” both biologically and linguistically, as a model for a culturally heterogeneous nation.

Injun Joe’s Ghost focuses on a significant figure in American history and culture that has, until now, remained on the periphery of academic discourse. Brown offers an in-depth discussion of many texts, including dime novels and Depression- era magazine fiction, that have been almost entirely neglected by scholars. This volume also covers texts such as the historical romances of the 1820s and the novels of the twentieth-century “Native American Renaissance” from a fresh perspective. Investigating a broad range of genres and subject over two hundred year of American writing, Injun Joe’s Ghost will be useful to students and professionals in the fields of American literature, popular culture, and native studies.