Mixed Race Studies

An American Puzzle: Fitting Race in a Box

The New York Times
2023-10-16

K.K. Rebecca Lai and Jennifer Medina

Census categories for race and ethnicity have shaped how the nation sees itself. Here’s how they have changed over the last 230 years.

Since 1790, the decennial census has played a crucial role in creating and reshaping the ever-changing views of racial and ethnic identity in the United States.

Over the centuries, the census has evolved from one that specified broad categories — primarily “free white” people and “slaves” — to one that attempts to encapsulate the country’s increasingly complex demographics. The latest adaptation proposed by the Biden administration in January seeks to allow even more race and ethnicity options for people to describe themselves than the 2020 census did.

If approved, the proposed overhaul would most likely be adopted across all surveys in the country about health, education and the economy. Here’s what the next census could look like…

Read the entire article here.

White Dads and Biracial Black Kids: Concerns and Challenges

Chinyere Osuji, PhD, Author, Professor, Speaker
2023-06-08

Chinyere Osuji, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Rutgers University, Camden

There are some stories that live in your head rent-free years after hearing them.

For my first book Boundaries of Love: Interracial Marriage and the Meaning of Love (2019, NYU Press), I conducted over 100 interviews in Brazil and the United [States] with people in interracial marriages or longterm cohabiting marital unions. There was a smorgasborg of themes that emerged in this cross-national comparison, so only the biggest or most striking ones made it into the book. Yet there are some stories that still gnaw at me.

Around 2010, I interviewed a Black woman, Felice, who married a White man, named Bob. I came to their quiet suburban home and they were kind enough to let me interview them separately AND together! When I spoke to Felice, she said that right before she met Bob, she had dated a different White man before him. His name was– let’s call him Aaron. They were native Angelinos, had grown up together, and had many friends in common. (Note for the haters: she had also dated Black men, she didn’t discriminate.) However, Bob rushed in out of nowhere, winning her heart and sealing the deal…

Read the entire article here.

The Cumulative Effects of Colorism: Race, Wealth, and Skin Tone

Social Forces
Published online: 2023-03-13
DOI: 10.1093/sf/soad038

Alexander Adames, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Sociology
University of Pennslyvania

Researchers have long documented a persistent Black–White gap in wealth. These studies, however, often treat race as a discrete category, eluding its socially constructed nature. As a result, these studies assume that the “effect of race” is consistent across all individuals racialized as Black. Studies that make this assumption potentially obscure heterogeneity in the size of the Black–White wealth gap. Research on skin color stratification suggests that it is possible that the Black–White wealth gap varies by the extent to which a racial subgroup is deemed to fit the broader racial umbrella. In turn, I adopt a more complex operationalization of race that is based on both racial and skin tone appraisals. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I find that the Black–White wealth gap does vary by the Black skin tone subgroup. Generally, the Black–White gap in assets is smallest when focusing on lighter-skin Black people and largest when focusing on darker-skin Black people. These differences are not only the result of initial disadvantage but also cumulative disadvantage in the rate of wealth accumulation. Lastly, the findings suggest that the Black–White wealth gaps grow at a faster rate than the skin tone wealth gaps. I found that differences were robust to adjustments for parental socioeconomic status, childhood background, and interviewer characteristics. I conclude by discussing the theoretical implications for our understanding of the mechanisms undergirding Black–White disparities in wealth attainment.

Read or purchase the article here.

Invitation to Contribute to The Routledge International Handbook of Interracial Relationships and Mental Health

2023-01-10

We, Shivon Raghunandan, Roy Moodley and Kelley Kenney are writing to you as editors of The Routledge International Handbook of Interracial Relationships and Mental Health, to be published by Routledge as part of their International Handbook series. We are inviting colleagues globally who have an academic, teaching, research, and publication interest in this topic to contribute to this text. More specifically, we are seeking authors for the following chapters.

Chapter 2: Interracial Mixing: A Threat to White Supremacy and Colonial Structures
Chapter 5: Historical Retrospectives of Interracial Relationships: Mixed-Race Movement and Impact
Chapter 11: Interracial Relationships in Latin Communities
Chapter 16: Intercultural/Mixed Race Relationships (and marriages) in the Caribbean
Chapter 30: Gender in Intercultural Relationships
Chapter 32: Interracial Relationships and Religion
Chapter 33: Interracial Relationships and Socio-Economic Status
Chapter 34: Interracial Relationships and Disability
Chapter 35: Interracial Relationships Across the Lifespan

Please allow us to offer a brief synopsis of the book. The Routledge International Handbook of Interracial Relationships and Mental Health will present critical theoretical, empirical, and psychological accounts of interracial and intercultural intimacies. This book is in response to the iniquitous underrepresentation of intercultural couples in psychology theory, research and practice and will challenge the pervasive Eurocentric discourse that currently guides the field of mental health. The book will offer current, scholarly, practical, equitable, global and intercultural responsive philosophies, theories, clinical frameworks and practices to clinicians, educators and students in the field of mental health and well-being, sociology and other related disciplines. Moreover, this handbook will explore how the social, cultural and geo-political histories and philosophies of intercultural relationships evolved.

The book will examine the evolution of these partnerships within the context of coloniality, heteropatriarchy, white supremacy and endogamy and explore how these discourses shaped the lived experiences and psychological well-being of intercultural couples globally. It will also provide a comprehensive analysis of intercultural relationships inclusive of diverse cross-racial pairings, global and international perspectives, intersectional identities, and transnational unions; and, indeed, offer critical perspectives on the mental health and well-being of intercultural couples, inclusive of multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-faith, multi-sexual, multi-racial, multi-gendered, multi-abled couples, and their intersections.

To meet the deadline of a June 2024 submission to Routledge, first draft chapters will be submitted to the editors by August 2023. Editors will provide feedback by the end of October 2023 and final chapters will be submitted to the editors by the end of March 2024.

We are happy to provide further details if you are interested in contributing to this text.
If you are interested, please contact Shivon Raghunandan at shivon.raghunandan@humber.ca

With Best Wishes,

Shivon Raghunandan, Ed.D., Humber College, Canada
Roy Moodley, Ph.D., University of Toronto, Canada
Kelley Kenney, Ed.D., DeSales University, United States

Seeking Participants for High School Senior Project on Experiences of Mixed-Race Individuals

Valasone O’Neal, GSWLA Student
Tallwood High School, Virginia Beach, Virginia

2023-01-25

My name is Valasone O’Neal and I am a senior in the Global Studies and World Language Academy at Tallwood High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

As a requirement for graduation, I have to complete a senior project consisting of a research paper and action. For this project, I intend to collect the experiences of mixed-race people in order to highlight societal treatment and attitudes towards multiracial people in America. I want to conduct a series of interviews and create a short film that will be shown to Virginia Beach City Public Schools administration and students. If you or someone you know is interested, over the age of eighteen, not associated with Virginia Beach Public Schools, and identify as mixed-race, please contact me as at your earliest convenience at madelynevaloneal@gmail.com.

Thank you for your consideration of my request.

Multiracial: The Kaleidoscope of Mixedness

Polity
2022-12-27
232 pages
152 x 229 mm / 6 x 9 in
Hardback ISBN: 9781509534654
Paperback ISBN: 9781509534661
ebook ISBN: 9781509534678

Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl, Associate Professor of Sociology
Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York

The year 2000 was the first time the US Census permitted respondents to choose more than one race. Although the US has long recognized that a “mixed-race” population exists, the contemporary “multiracial population” presents different questions and implications for today’s diverse society.

This book is the first overview to bring a systematic critical race lens to the scholarship on mixedness. Avoiding the common pitfall of conflating “mixed” with “multiracial,” the book reveals how identity forms and fluctuates such that people with mixed heritage may identify as mixed, monoracial, and/or multiracial throughout their lives. It analyzes the dynamic and various manifestations of mixedness, including at the global level, to reveal its complex impact on both the structural and individual levels. Multiracial critically examines topics such as family dynamics and racial socialization, multiraciality in media and popular culture, and intersections of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation.

Integrating diverse theories, qualitative research, and national-level data, this accessible and engaging book is essential for students of race and those looking to understand the new field of multiraciality.

Table of Contents

• Detailed Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• CHAPTER 1: MULTIRACIAL AMERICA
• CHAPTER 2: DEFINING MIXED-RACE & MULTIRACIAL
• CHAPTER 3: RACE AND FAMILY
• CHAPTER 4: INTERSECTIONAL IDENTITIES & GLOBAL MIXEDNESS
• CHAPTER 5: MULTIRACIALISM IN THE MEDIA
• CHAPTER 6: NEW, SHIFTING, OR REBOUNDING BOUNDARIES
• References
• Notes
• Index

Mexico’s new racial reckoning: A movement protests colorism and white privilege

The Los Angeles Times
2022-10-20

Kate Linthicum, Staff Writer

MEXICO CITY — A few months ago, several employees of an upscale Mexico City steakhouse came forward with a damning allegation: The restaurant had a policy of segregation in which the best tables were reserved for the customers with the lightest skin.

The notion of whiter Mexicans getting preferential treatment was not surprising in a country where darker-skinned people have long earned less money, received less schooling and been all but invisible in the media. But the ensuing public outrage was.

Within days, activists mounted a boycott and the city launched an investigation into the restaurant, Sonora Grill Prime, which denied the accusations. Multiple public figures highlighted the scandal as evidence of pervasive bigotry. “Racism is real,” Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, using a word long regarded as taboo. “We have to accept that it exists and fight it.”.

For the vast stretch of Mexico’s modern history, many denied that racism existed here at all.

They embraced the nation’s foundational myth that its people are mestizos, a single blended race of indigenous and Spanish blood, insisting that there could be no prejudice if all Mexicans were the same.

But a growing social movement is challenging that thinking, thrusting discussions of discrimination based on skin color to the fore…

Read the entire article here.

Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality

Beacon Press
2022-08-23
208 pages
5.5 x 8.5 Inches
Hardcover ISBN: ISBN: 978-080702013-5

Tanya Katerí Hernández, Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law
Fordham University School of Law, New York, New York

The first comprehensive book about anti-Black bias in the Latino community that unpacks the misconception that Latinos are “exempt” from racism due to their ethnicity and multicultural background.

Racial Innocence will challenge what you thought about racism and bias, and demonstrate that it’s possible for a historically marginalized group to experience discrimination and also be discriminatory. Racism is deeply complex, and law professor and comparative race relations expert Tanya Katerí Hernández exposes “the Latino racial innocence cloak” that often veils Latino complicity in racism. As Latinos are the second largest ethnic group in the US, this revelation is critical to dismantling systemic racism. Based on interviews, discrimination case files, and civil rights law, Hernández reveals Latino anti-Black bias in the workplace, the housing market, schools, places of recreation, criminal justice, and in Latino families.

By focusing on racism perpetrated by communities outside those of White non-Latino people, Racial Innocence brings to light the many Afro-Latino and African American victims of anti-Blackness at the hands of other people of color. Through exploring the interwoven fabric of discrimination and examining the cause of these issues, we can begin to move toward a more egalitarian society.

Mixed Race in Nordic Europe

Journal of Critical Mix Race Studies
Volume 1, Issue 2 (2022)
287 pages

Cover Image: Stein Egil Liland

Numerous scholarly works have been published on the topic of multiraciality and mixed-race experiences in the United States and Great Britain. There has historically been limited research on Nordic Europe. These analyses seek to help further research on Nordic Europe in terms of critical mixed race studies.

Read the entire issue here.

Do Conceptualisations of ‘Mixed Race’, ‘Interracial Unions’, and Race’s ‘Centrality to Understandings of Racism’ Challenge the UK’s Official Categorisation by Ethnic Group?

Peter J. Aspinall, Emeritus Reader in Population Health
Centre for Health Services Studies
University of Kent, Canterbury

Genealogy
Volume 6, Issue 2 (2022-06-13)
pages 52-74
DOI: 10.3390/genealogy6020052

A focus on ‘mixed race’ and mixedness in Britain has revived a debate around the central question of whether the decennial census and other official data collections should be capturing ‘race’ rather than ethnic group and producing ‘racial’ outputs. The British practice may seem out of step by some commentators, given that ‘mixed race’ is the term of choice amongst those it describes, and given scholarly interest in interracial unions. Moreover, the resurgence of interest in ‘race’ and racisms in the context of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement and concern over the down-playing in a UK Government-commissioned report of the role of structural racism has enlivened the debate. However, this paper argues against a shift to ‘race’ in official data collection and for continued use of the conceptually preferable ‘ethnic group’ in the census question title, the section label ‘mixed/multiple ethnic groups’, and the ongoing provision of data on unions at the pan-ethnic and granular levels. A measure of socially constructed ‘race’ is already available in all but name in the pan-ethnic section labels (White, Asian, Black, Mixed, and Other) and the tick boxes under the ‘mixed/multiple’ heading. Ethnic group has been the conceptual basis of the question since the field trials for the 1991 Census, and its position has been strengthened by the increasing granularity of the categorisation (19 categories in the 2021 England and Wales Census) and by substantial distributed free-text provision that underpins the question’s context of self-identification. The wider understanding of ‘race’ identifications invokes ascription, imposition, and social categorisation rather than self-identification and subscription. There is also evidence of the unacceptability of ‘race’ in the context of the census amongst the wider society.

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