Mixed Race Studies

APA Leaders 2016: Meet Avalon Igawa!

USC APASA (University of Southern California Asian Pacific American Student Assembly)
2016-03-10

Hi again! Hope everyone’s doing well with only one day left to get through before spring break! Anyways, as our headline says, our third APA Leader is Avalon Igawa! Avalon’s heavily involved in the APA community being the President of SCAPE and a CIRCLE coordinator. It’s hard to find someone with her passion and energetic personality! Read more about Avalon in our interview below:

Name: Avalon Igawa Major: Political Economy (Minor: Digital Studies) Year: Junior

What does being APA mean to you? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this question, and I realize that while it used to be really hard for me, it isn’t so much anymore. And I think that’s because I finally accepted that I don’t need a concrete answer and nobody else does either. It’s a beautiful identity because we can define it for ourselves and let it represent what we want. Wow, that sounded really cheesy, but I feel like it’s true! It took me a long time to accept that I could identify as Asian Pacific American and that I wasn’t erasing my mixed identity. I can be APA and I can be Irish American and I can be mixed. Because for me, being APA means that I can relate to the stories of other APAs and recognize the diversity of all the deep complex histories and narratives that have shaped so many of our experiences. Being APA represents hxstory and struggle, but most of all it represents community. And that’s what I love about it so much…

Read the entire interview here.

Seeking Multiracial Americans or Brazilian Residing in the United States for Research Study

Ariane Y. Kreidl, Student ETS Academic Advisor; USC TRiO; Educational Talent Search
Business Administration 19’
USC Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California

My name is Ariane Kreidl and I am research scholar at the University of Southern California (USC). I am seeking participants for a research study about race. This research aims to understand racial norms through a comparative analysis of biracial/multiracial Americans and Brazilians individuals living in the United States.

Eligibility criteria. Participants must be one of the following:

• Biracial/multiracial Americans (i.e., individuals who have mixed ancestry of two-or-more races)
• Brazilians living in the United States for at least three (3) years.

There are two (2) ways to participate:

1. Online Survey (Qualtrics)^a: Closed-ended questions related to the research topic. The estimated response time is approximately 20 minutes. Participants will have the opportunity to enter a drawing to win a $50 Amazon/Visa Gift Card.
2. Interview in-person or via Skype^b: Open-ended questions related to the research topic. Interview will last between 30-75 minutes. Participants will have the opportunity to enter a drawing to win a $100 Amazon/Visa Gift Card! (This interview block is limited to only 20 participants).

Participation is completely anonymous.

Thank you for considering this research invitation.

^aIf you are interested, please click on the link for the survey: Qualitrics.Survey.Akreidl.
^bIf you are interested, please click on the following link to select a date and time: Research.Interview.Appt.Slots.

Reflections on the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference (CMRS) 2017

Multiracial Media: Voice of the Multiracial Community
2017-03-22

Thomas Lopez, President
Multiracial Americans of Southern California (MASC)

Back in February 2015 I met with Duncan Williams, Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Sonia Smith-Kang and Shannon Haugh over Vietnamese fusion food in Atwater Village to kick-off the site planning meeting for the Critical Mixed Race Studies 2016 conference to be held at the University of Southern California (USC). It occurred to me then that fusion food gets its name from the people eating it as much as what is on the menu. As the President of Multiracial Americans of Southern California, I knew my involvement would be more oversight than direct action since seeing to the management of MASC keeps me busy enough. Still, I sat-in in part because I needed to know in what direction we were moving and also in-part for the good eats.

Thomas Lopez with Maria P. P. Root

We quickly realized this conference would be unlike any of the ones before. For starters, one of the first things we did was review dates in the Fall to hold the conference to maintain the biannual schedule set by the initial organizers. It soon occurred to us that many dates were unavailable due to USC’s football schedule. For those that don’t know, you don’t want to be anywhere near USC on a game day, unless you’re going to the game. As we started striking out dates due to conflicts we eventually settled on a shift of the conference to the Spring and thus was born the new Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference of 2017…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed Race Conference reflects on identity

The Daily Trojan
Los Angeles, California
2017-02-26

Erum Jaffrey

Julia Erickson | Daily Trojan Roundtable · Panelists spoke with Maria Root (second from left) to discuss her 25 years of experience in multiracial studies at the fourth annual Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference. The event was hosted by the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture.

When Rudy Guevarra Jr. filled out identification forms in elementary school, he remembers never checking the provided boxes for race. Instead, he drew his own box, and wrote “Mexican-Filipino,” unable to choose one parent’s culture over the other.

Guevarra delivered the keynote address for the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference on Sunday, a speech titled “Borderlands of Multiplicity: Reflections on Intimacies and Fluidity in Critical Mixed Race Studies”. The three-day conference held at USC featured a series of workshops, lectures, panels, movie-screenings and concerts on the topic of “Trans,” coinciding with the Hapa Japan Festival. It was hosted by USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture.

An associate professor of Asian Pacific American studies at Arizona State University, Guevarra spoke about his mixed race heritage as a “Mexipino,” or Mexican-Filipino, growing up in the borderland city of San Diego and how that influenced his doctoral research in borderlands, labor history and multiethnic identities…

…The conference fell on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision that declared anti-interracial marriage laws unconstitutional.

“It’s not just celebrating who we are, but also reflecting on how our multiplicity can enhance the greater good of the communities we work in,” said Chandra Crudup, co-coordinator of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference…

Read the entire article here.

The fourth Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference celebrates the 50th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia

Critical Mixed Race Studies Association
2016-12-08

Laura Kina
Telephone: 773-325-4048; E-Mail: cmrsmixedrace@gmail.com

LOS ANGELES, CA – The fourth Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, “Explorations in Trans (gender, gressions, migrations, racial) Fifty Years After Loving v. Virginia,” will bring together academics, activists, and artists from across the US and abroad to explore the latest developments in critical mixed race studies. The Conference will be held at The University of Southern California from February 24-26, 2017 at the USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center, 3607 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089 and is hosted by the Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture.

The conference will include over 50 panels, roundtables, and caucus sessions organized by the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association as well as feature film screenings and live performances organized by the non-profit Mixed Roots Stories. The conference is pleased to run concurrently with the Hapa Japan Festival February 22- 26, 2017.

The year 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, which declared interracial marriage legal. With a focus on the root word “Trans” this conference explores interracial encounters such as transpacific Asian migration, transnational migration from Latin America, transracial adoption, transracial/ethnic identity, the intersections of trans (gendered) and mixed race identity, and mixed race transgressions of race, citizenship, and nation…

Read the entire press release here. View the program guide here.

2017 Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference Call for Papers

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
2017-02-24 through 2017-02-26

Explorations in Trans (gender, gressions, migrations, racial) Fifty Years After Loving v. Virginia

Deadline: 2016-04-30
Notification: 2016-07-31
Presenters at the conference must be members. Registration/membership will be available in 2016. Details below.
Subject Fields: We welcome submissions from scholars from all fields, cultural workers, and activists.

The next major Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference will be held February 24-26, 2017, at University of Southern California and will be hosted by the Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture. The conference will include film screenings and a live performance showcase produced by Mixed Roots Stories.

Download the CMRS 2017 Call For Papers [PDF]

The year 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, which declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. As a commemoration to Loving’s golden anniversary coupled with the geographic location of California, this conference provides an excellent site to examine critical mixed race issues. With a focus on the root word “Trans” this conference aims to explore interracial encounters relating, but not limited to, transpacific Asian migration, transnational migration from Latin America, transracial adoption, transracial/ethnic identity, interracial marriage from a transregional perspective, the intersections of trans (gendered) and mixed race identity, and mixed race transgressions of race, citizenship, and nation.

The intersections of transmigration/national/regionalism with respect to miscegenation are clear in light of varying marriage proscriptions across geographical regions within the continental United States. California enacted its anti-miscegenation law in 1850, forbidding whites (this category included Mexicans) from marrying blacks, Filipinos, and Asians. Twelve states additionally prohibited intermarriage with Asians, nine prohibited intermarriage with Filipinos, and some prohibited intermarriage with American Indians. Intermarriage with “Hindus” was prohibited in Arizona. Oregon prohibited whites from marrying Native Hawaiians or Kanakas; and Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law forbade intermarriage with anyone of non-Caucasian strain. During Reconstruction, rampant fears of hypersexualized Chinese men marrying white women underscored the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Even following World War II soldiers faced dilemmas as Congress enacted restrictions regarding non-citizen wives entering the U.S that affected the mixed race children of these interracial unions whose occupancy within an interstitial racial space remains a confusing and complex reality in 21st century America. It was not until 1948 that anti-miscegenation laws were abolished in California.

As this conference commemorates the 50th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia with a focus on “Trans” issues relating to interracial encounters, participants from all fields are invited to present new insights, which will contribute to a broader and deeper understanding in Critical Mixed Race Studies…

For more information, click here. Additional Questions? Contact us at: cmrsmixedrace@gmail.com.

“Born With It” – Screening and Discussion with filmmaker Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr.

University of Southern California
East Asian Studies Center
University Park Campus
Leavey Auditorium (LVL) 17
Tuesday, 2016-03-29, 16:15-17:45 PDT (Local Time)

Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr., Filmaker

“Born With It” follows the story of a 9-year-old Ghanaian-Japanese boy, Keisuke. Keisuke begins at a new school in rural Japan and contends with discovering his own identity as well as earning the acceptance of his classmates. The film highlights the experience of mixed race individuals and their families in Japan.

For more information, click here. View the flyer here.

“Many people portray the history of race in the United States as the rise of the “one drop of blood” rule. We have made too much of this. It was not the one-drop rule that kept the edifice of Jim Crow so strong. Racism could work through many different rules about ancestry, and it did. It could work even with a great deal of racial mixture. Just because more people are marrying across color lines today doesn’t mean race or racism are things of the past.”—Ariela J. Gross

Gilien Silsby, “Renowned Legal Historian Discusses Race in America,” Gould School of Law News (University of Southern California), October 29, 2015. http://gould.usc.edu/press/article.cfm?newsid=4236.

Renowned Legal Historian Discusses Race in America

Gould School of Law News
University of Southern California
2015-10-29

Gilien Silsby, Director of Media Relations

13th Amendment Ratified 150 Years Ago

A monumental moment in the history of the United States will be celebrated in December when the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery at the close of the Civil War, turns 150 years old. But despite the passage of time, the U.S. continues to struggle with racial inequality. USC Gould School of Law professor Ariela J. Gross has spent years unearthing the legal history of race, which she details in her book, What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America (Harvard University Press, 2008).

In her book, Gross recounts stories of racial identity trials in American courts, from the early republic well into the 20th century. The racial identity trials – court cases that determined a person’s “race” as well as their rights and privileges – help explain the history of race and racism in America.

“The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, followed by two amendments guaranteeing equal protection of the laws and the right to vote to all American citizens, were far-reaching and revolutionary changes to the Constitution,” said Gross. “Yet in some ways the Reconstruction of the United States is still, as Eric Foner called it, an ‘unfinished revolution.’ We have yet to fulfill the promise of the Reconstruction Amendments that we will eliminate the badges of slavery and treat all citizens fairly and equally before the law.”

It’s been 150 years since the 13th Amendment was ratified. Has society moved beyond the concept of race and racist ideology?

AG: Today, race and racism are still with us. If it were true that racism in the past was based only on a now-discredited biological understanding of race – on blood – it would have been relatively easy to eradicate racism with colorblind policies. But despite the hard-won victories of 20th century civil rights struggles – and even the milestone of an African American presidential candidate – racism has survived, in part because its bases are shifting and mobile. For so long as many still believe that differing life chances do and should correlate with one’s performance of identity, one’s ability to achieve citizenship through “blood,” or one’s cultural practices, racism will persist.

What is race, anyway?

AG: We tend to believe race is a fact of nature, a property of blood, that we know it when we see it. But race is a powerful ideology that came into being and changed forms at particular historical moments as the product of social, economic and psychological conditions. Fundamental to race is a hierarchy of power, and this story is about determining racial identity for particular purposes: enslaving some people to free others; taking land from some to give to others; robbing people of their dignity to give others a sense of supremacy…

Read the entire interview here.

In Memoriam: María Elena Martínez-López, 47

University of Southern California
News
2014-11-20

Susan Bell, Senior Writer
(213) 740-7894

María Elena Martínez-López, associate professor of history and American studies and ethnicity at USC Dornsife and a leading scholar of colonial Latin America has died. She was 47.

Martínez-López died at home in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and close friends on Nov. 16 after being diagnosed with cancer in late May.

“Professor Martínez-López was a brilliant scholar of Spanish American and colonial Mexican history,” said William Deverell, professor and chair of history, and director of the USC-Huntington Institute on California and the West at USC Dornsife. “Her historical insights on race, conquest and religion garnered richly deserved awards and praise, and her dedication to scholarship and her students was exemplary. We will miss her terribly.”

Martínez-López joined USC Dornsife in 2001. Her work focused on colonial Mexico, the cultural connections between Spain and the Americas, and more generally the formation of the Iberian Atlantic world. She taught courses on Latin American history, slavery in the Atlantic world, early modern religion and race, and gender and sexuality in Spanish America…

…While at USC Dornsife, she published a number of articles on space, religion, gender and race in New Spain. Her groundbreaking book Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico (Stanford University Press, 2008) reinterpreted the historical foundations of race. It received the American Historical Association’s 2009 James A. Rawley Prize in Atlantic History and the American Historical Association’s Conference on Latin American History’s prize for the best book on Mexican history.

Most recently she was working on the relationship of Spanish colonial law and indigenous “genealogical histories” in central Mexico as well as on science and theories of race and sex in the 18th century Spanish Atlantic world.

She had been conducting extensive research in Mexican, Spanish and U.S. archives for her new book titled The Enlightened Creole Science of Race and Sex: Naturalizing the Body in the Eighteenth-Century Spanish Atlantic World.This was intended to be an extension of her first book about ideas of blood purity and race in the early-modern Spanish Atlantic world, examining how religion provided the epistemological foundations for racial discourses in Spain and colonial Mexico…

Read the entire article here.