Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Standing on Both Feet: Voices of Older Mixed-Race Americans [Interview]

    Standing on Both Feet: Voices of Older Mixed-Race Americans [Interview]

    KING-TV 5, Seattle Washington
    2013-06-11

    Margaret Larsen, Host
    New Day Northwest

    June 12 marks the 46th Anniversary of a landmark ruling by the United States Supreme Court which overturned a ban on interracial marriage that had been place on many states. But even before the ruling, couples of different races were getting married, some going great lengths to hide their differences to do so.

    Sociologist Cathy Tashiro interviewed a number of people who either broke the law or found some other way to be with the ones they love.

    The result is a new book, Standing on Both Feet: Voices of Older Mixed-Race Americans.

    Cathy joined Margaret to talk about the inspiration behind the book and her own upbringing as the child of a mixed race couple. She also shared some of the experiences shared by the men and women she interviewed for the book…

    Read the entire article and watch the video here.

  • Is Interracial Marriage Still Scandalous?

    Is Interracial Marriage Still Scandalous?

    Room For Debate
    The New York Times
    2013-06-13

    Kevin Noble Maillard, Professor of Law
    Syracuse University

    Gary B. Nash, Professor Emeritus of History
    University of California, Los Angeles

    Heidi W. Durrow, Author and Co-Founder
    Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival

    Diane Farr, Actress and Writer

    Rose Cuison Villazor, Professor of Law
    University of California, Davis

    This month marks almost 50 years since the Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia, which made interracial marriage legal nationwide. Marriages between people of different races have climbed since, to a high of 8.4 percent in 2010.

    Does this mean that we have achieved a colorblind society, or just that the hate has moved to YouTube? In an age when white people are becoming a minority, is interracial marriage still scandalous?

    Kevin Noble Maillard, a professor of law at Syracuse University, suggested this discussion.

    Read the entire discussion here.

  • Interview with Louisa Adjoa Parker

    Interview with Louisa Adjoa Parker

    The writer is a lonely hunter
    2012-01-10

    Gail Aldwin

    Louisa is a writer, poet and Arts Project Co-ordinator who has lived in the West Country since she was 13. Her first poetry collection, Salt-sweat and Tears was published by Cinnamon Press to critical acclaim in 2007. She has also written a book and exhibition about the history of African and Caribbean people in Dorset over the past 400 years, both entitled Dorset’s Hidden Histories. Louisa has recently worked on a project using images and stories to celebrate multi-ethnic Dorset. Funded by Arts Council England and Dorset County Council, the exhibition and book is called All Different, All Dorset was launched in September 2011. Louisa is passionate about equality and the Arts, and hopes to inspire people from a range of backgrounds to become interested in writing.  

    Let’s start with your writing journey

    I wrote a few adventure stories when I was about six, which my mum said were like Enid Blyton books and I still have a poem written at that time. When I was a teenager I kept a diary for three years and wrote about everything that happened to me. As an adult, I turned to letter writing to try to sort out problems with relationships. In 2002, I went to Exeter University to complete the degree I’d started with the Open University, and I began writing poetry alongside the essays and coursework. I was encouraged by Selima Hill and I had a poem published in a magazine. Getting published was exciting and encouraged me to write more. I realised I had a lot to say about being dual heritage and growing up in white communities. My Dad is Ghanaian and came to England in the late 60s for education and he met and married my mum and had three children with her. We lived in Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, and then when my Dad left we moved to Devon. Growing up knowing only the white side of my family was weird. No one wanted to talk about my background. Writing helped me to explore unresolved issues around my identity. It helped me come to terms with some of the things that had happened, racism and domestic violence…

    Read the entire interview here.

  • Looking back at lives of black GIs in Dorset

    Looking back at lives of black GIs in Dorset

    Dorset Echo
    Weymouth, Dorset, England
    2013-06-12

    James Tourgout

    A NEW exhibition is highlighting the stories of black soldiers in Dorset during World War Two.

    It explores the lives of African American servicemen who headed to Dorset to train for D-Day and is showing at Weymouth library until June 14.

    It comes in the week following the 69th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France.

    The exhibition—entitled 1944 We Were Here: African American GIs in Dorset—was successfully launched last May at Walford Mill Crafts in Wimborne. Louisa Adjoa Parker, a Dorchester writer and poet of British and Ghanaian heritage, carried out the research into this part of local history, which has been little explored so far…

    Louisa specialises in local black history and has written several books and exhibitions exploring the presence of black and minority ethnic people in Dorset. Louisa said: “This local history has not been explored in great detail until recently, and is arguably an important part of Dorset’s heritage.

    “It was important to gather the stories now, as the GIs’ children and the local people who remember the GIs are getting older. “The African Americans’ presence here left behind a lasting legacy—cultural influences, memories and stories that have been passed down in families and become part of local folklore, and a number of their children as a result of relation-ships with local women.”

    Read the entire article here…

  • War Baby/Love Child: An Interview with Richard Lou

    War Baby/Love Child: An Interview with Richard Lou

    Visual Memphis
    2013-06-12

    According to the project’s website, War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art “investigates constructions of mixed heritage Asian American identity in the United States. As an increasingly ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation is coming of age, this multi-platform project (book, traveling art exhibition, website and blog) examines how, or even if, mixed heritage Asian Americans address hybrid identities in their artwork, as well as how perspectives from critical mixed race studies illuminate intersections of racialization, war and imperialism, gender and sexuality, and citizenship and nationality.”

    The exhibition features work across diverse mediums by 19 emerging, mid-career and established artists who reflect a breadth of mixed heritage ethno-racial and geographic diversity: Mequitta Ahuja, Albert Chong, Serene Ford, Kip Fulbeck, Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Jane Jim Kaisen, Lori Kay, Li-lan, Richard Lou, Samia Mirza, Chris Naka, Laural Nakadate, Gina Osterloh, Adrienne Pao, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Amanda Ross-Ho, Jenifer Wofford and Debra Yepa-Pappan.

    The exhibition is on display right now through June at the DePaul University Art Museum in Chicago. It will travel to the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in August and will remain there through January 19, 2014. If your travels don’t take you to either of these places, you may purchase the book on Amazon that includes a series of critical essays, interviews and images of artwork associated with the exhibition. For updates on upcoming events, see the War Baby/Love Child Facebook page.

    Richard Lou, Art Department chair at the University of Memphis, is kind enough to share some of his knowledge of and experiences with War Baby/Love Child here…

    Read the entire interview here.

  • Panel Discussion: “Mixed Race Asian American Art and Identity”

    Panel Discussion: “Mixed Race Asian American Art and Identity”

    DePaul University Art Museum
    935 W. Fullerton
    Chicago, Illinois 60614
    Phone: 773-325-7506
    Wednesday, 2013-05-29, 18:00 CDT (Local Time)

    War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art


    Debra Yepa-Pappan, “Live Long and Prosper (Spock was a Half-Breed),” digital print.

    Laura Kina, Vincent DePaul Associate Professor of Art, Media and Design
    DePaul University

    Camilla Fojas, Vincent DePaul Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies
    DePaul University

    Debra Yepa-Pappan, Jemez Pueblo and Korean Artist
    Chicago, Illinois

    This event is cosponsored by the Japanese American Service Committee, DePaul’s Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity President’s Diversity Series, and Latin American and Latino Studies.

    For more information, click here.  Watch the video of the presentation here.

  • Black Indians, Pompey Fixico w/ historian & author Dr. Katz

    Black Indians, Pompey Fixico w/ historian & author Dr. Katz

    The Gist of Freedom
    BlogTalk Radio
    2013-05-16

    Leslie Gist, Host

    Join The Gist of Freedom as we welcome Pompey Fixico and William L. Katz.  Pompey Fixico ancestors fought US slave-catchers and military units for 42 years in Florida.

    Mr. Katz and Mr.Fixico will discuss the three Seminole wars, their goals courage and achievements as seen through his ancestors.

    The legacy of  Wild Cat and John Horse will also be discussed as it relates to how they brilliantly led the Seminoles!

    Mr. Katz’s book Black Indians has three chapters on this unknown American story. Their current leader, William Dub Warrior, has said:

    “Black Indians is not only one of the  most  thoroughly researched and accurate book on  the subject, it is he best written account I have  come across.”

    William “Dub” Warrior, Chief of the John Horse Band, Texas and Old Mexico Seminoles

    Listen to the episode here. Download the episode here.

  • More Americans consider themselves multiracial

    More Americans consider themselves multiracial

    The Los Angeles Times
    2013-06-12

    Emily Alpert

    The number of mixed or multiracial people in the United States jumped 6.6% between 2010 and 2012, according to the Census Bureau. Their ranks will only continue to grow, experts say.

    The number of Americans who consider themselves multiracial has grown faster than any other racial group nationwide, new Census Bureau data reveal, a sign of slow but momentous shifts in the way that Americans think about race.

    Mixed or multiracial people are still just a small slice of the American public, but their numbers jumped 6.6% between 2010 and 2012 — four times as fast as the national population, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Experts say their ranks will only continue to swell.

    …Mingling of races “has been with us forever in this country, and it has been erased and denied,” said G. Reginald Daniel, professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara. Today, “that has begun to unravel. That is what you’re seeing with these figures.”…

    …For African Americans, in particular, the “one drop rule” that historically defined blackness is relaxing. Sixteen years ago, when golfer Tiger Woods dubbed himself “Cablinasian” — Caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian — critics said Woods was denying his black heritage, said New York University associate professor of sociology Ann Morning…

    …”For mixed Latinos there’s no answer,” said Thomas Lopez, director of Latinas and Latinos of Mixed Ancestry, a project of the nonprofit Multiracial Americans of Southern California. When the Census Bureau ran an experiment three years ago giving people a chance to claim Hispanic along with at least one other race, 6.8% did so…

    …”Americans are becoming more nuanced in their understanding of race,” said Carolyn Liebler, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. “But I don’t think race is becoming less important in our society.”

    Read the entire article here.

  • Navigating Multiple Identities: Race, Gender, Culture, Nationality, and Roles ed. by Ruthellen Josselson and Michele Harway (review)

    Navigating Multiple Identities: Race, Gender, Culture, Nationality, and Roles ed. by Ruthellen Josselson and Michele Harway (review)

    The Review of Higher Education
    Volume 36, Number 4, Summer 2013
    pages 565-566
    DOI: 10.1353/rhe.2013.0038

    Sarah Rodriguez

    In their edited book, Navigating Multiple Identities: Race, Gender, Culture, Nationality, and Roles, Ruthellen Josselson and Michele Harway explore the ways in which individuals navigate across their multiple identities and achieve personal integration in the context of our increasingly complex, globalized world. Josselson, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Fielding Graduate University, along with her co-editor Michele Harway, Faculty Research Specialist in the School of Psychology at Fielding Graduate University, bring to the table extensive experience in examining human development in the areas of research and practice, particularly regarding issues of gender development and the intersection of multiple identities.

    The book is intended to examine how individuals balance changes in their personal and social location, while integrating and balancing various aspects of their personal and social selves. Approaching their topic from a psychological standpoint, the authors are particularly interested in the personal psychological processes in which individuals engage in order to shift from or transition between multiple identity intersections. Although Josselson and Harway’s explicit interest is in the personal processes of identity navigation, the various authors recognize the significant impact of the social world on internal dialogues and subsequent development across multiple identities. The authors are transparent regarding their positionality on identity as a fluid, socially constructed idea that reflects the social and historical context of our world. These constructs, which were salient across all chapters of the book, serve as a way to connect the wide spectrum of explorations of development that unfold within this text.

    To explore the navigation of multiple identities, this book centers on individuals who are navigating across five identity structures: (a) racial minority status and majority status, particularly as it relates to life in the United States; (b) cultures with different values of collectivism versus individualism (or other culturally related values), with examinations of both internal and external conflict; (c) gender identities, including the masculine, feminine, and transgender experiences; (d) roles, particularly as they are related to socially constructed ideas of gender; and (e) cultural expectations versus individual definitions and how those two are often pitted against each other throughout one’s identity development.

    The 13 chapters of the book are organized into three loose thematic sections. The first section, consisting of Chapters 2 and 3, considers development both theoretically and phenomenologically in order to address the ways in which current theory can be utilized to understand the navigation of multiple identities. The second section of the book, Chapters 4-8, illuminates the identity navigation process through examples of several groups within the United States, particularly focusing on issues related to masculine and feminine experiences and the multiple identities of women and transgender individuals as well as the duality experienced in Japanese American identity development. Given the background of the authors in issues of gender development, I was not surprised by the heavy influence of gender that can be seen in these chapters and elsewhere within the book.

    Chapters 4 and 7, particularly, are important given the growing interest in examining the intersectional nature of masculine and transgender experiences. Section 3, Chapters 9-13, considers a series of cross-cultural populations, including areas relating to Black identity, mixed identity in the context of long-term committed relationships, intersectionality of immigrant males, discourse analysis of multiple identities, and transnational development.

    Overall, the text is written from a predominantly psychological approach and is intended as an introduction to multiple identities—€”perfect for graduate students studying identity development in a variety of fields. It has the potential to be used in such fields as psychology, social work, gender studies, and higher education. The authors write in an inviting, easily accessible style, and the editors have organized the material lucidly. Although it is an edited book, it remains true to the theme throughout, even though the theme of navigating multiple identities is very loose and often lends itself to diffused exploration. I appreciated the diverse nature of identities presented in this book, which included race, gender, culture, nationality, and roles. This text provided…

  • Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography

    Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography

    University of Washington Press
    2001
    282 pages
    6” x 9”
    Paperback ISBN: 9780295980799

    Kip Fulbeck, Professor of Performative Studies, Video
    University of California, Santa Barbara

    Award-winning videomaker, performance artist, and pop-culture provocateur Kip Fulbeck has captivated audiences worldwide with his mixture of high comedy and personal narrative. In Paper Bullets, his first novel, Fulbeck taps into his Cantonese, English, Irish, and Welsh heritage, weaving a fictional autobiography from 27 closely linked stories, essays, and confessions. By turns sensitive and forceful, passionate and callous, Fulbeck confronts the politics of race, sex, and Asian American masculinity head-on without apology, constantly questioning where Hapas fit in a country that ignores multiracial identity.

    Raised in southern California by a Chinese-born mother and a Caucasian father, Fulbeck pushes the conventions of literary form as he simultaneously draws from, recreates, and fabricates his own life history. His range of experiences – from college professor to youth outreach volunteer, blues player to surfer and lifeguard—informs his witty and humane writing. Like himself, his protagonist is a young man shaped by the conflicting mores, stigmas, desires, and codes of male conduct in America. He searches for and mismanages love and independence, continually experimenting with sex along the way. Sometimes hilarious, always heartfelt, surfing the trivia of pop culture and sound bits, his inner voice shifts continually among the real, the perceived, and the imagined.

    Kip Fulbeck is an ocean lifeguard, guitar junkie, dubbed kung fu grandmaster, Lakers fanatic, and associate professor of art studio and Asian American studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.