Category: Articles

  • Why Are We Hung Up on Our Mixed Roots? The Root 2012-03-06 Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D., Editor At-Large The latest controversy in Beyoncé Knowles news may be her breast-feeding Blue Ivy in public, but I’m still shaking my head about the recent fuss over her True Match commercial for L’Oréal, which highlights the singer’s mixed-race…

  • A Mixed Bag: Examining the College Experience of Multi-Racial Students INSIGHT Into Diversity April/May 2012 (2012-03-29) Andrea Williams, Contributing Writer To most American youth, college is the requisite rite of passage into adulthood, an experience marked as much by self-exploration and discovery as biology lectures and late night cram sessions.   From managing the excitement…

  • Can Drake Save the Bar Mitzvah? The Jewish Week Blog: Well Versed 2012-04-12 Eric Herschthal When Drake’s new video, “HYFR,” dropped [was released] over the weekend—in which the Jewish, biracial hip-hop superstar raps at a bar mitzvah—I was thrilled. Initially. For years, pop culture references to the Jewish rite of passage have been stuck in…

  • Obama and the Elusive Idea of Race The Root 2011-04-26 Mary C. Curtis Scientists increasingly conclude that ethnicity cannot be defined scientifically, but that hasn’t stopped the racists, the Birthers and the confused from casting their insecurities onto the president. It’s not surprising to get involved in a heated discussion about race when you’re strolling…

  • Rutgers Student, a German ‘Brown Baby,’ Helps Others Search for their Identities and Creates Community Focus: News for and about Rutgers faculty, students, and staff Rutgers University 2012-05-01 Carrie Stetler She grew up in Willingboro, New Jersey, as Wanda Lynn Haymon, the only child of an African-American mother and father who made her feel special…

  • Not Another Remix: How Obama Became the First Hip-Hop President Journal of Popular Music Studies Volume 22, Issue 4, December 2010 pages 389–415 DOI: 10.1111/j.1533-1598.2010.01252.x Travis L. Gosa, Assistant Professor of Social Science at Cornell University Cornell University January 20, 2009 marked the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the first African-American president of the United…

  • ‘Visible & Invisible’ Exhibition to Explore History of Hapa JA Experience The Rafu Shimpo: Los Angeles Japanese Daily News 2013-03-31 The Japanese American National Museum, in collaboration with the USC Hapa Japan Database Project, will present its next exhibition, “Visible & Invisible: A Hapa Japanese American History,” from Sunday, April 7, through Sunday, Aug. 25.…

  • Poverty at a Racial Crossroads: Poverty Among Multiracial Children of Single Mothers Journal of Marriage and Family Volume 75, Issue 2, April 2013 pages 486-502 DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12012 Jenifer L. Bratter, Associate Professor of Sociology Rice University Sarah Damaske, Assistant Professor of Labor Studies & Employment Relations Pennsylvania State University Although multiracial youth represent a growing…

  • Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America [Patricia Cleary Review] William and Mary Quarterly Third Series, Volume 69, Number 3, July 2012 pages 665-667 DOI: 10.5309/willmaryquar.69.3.0665 Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America. By Gwenn A. Miller. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010. 242 pages. Patricia Cleary, Professor of History California…

  • AALR Mixed Race Initiative Akemi Johnson 2013-03-24 Akemi Johnson Historian Lily Anne Yumi Welty and I just finished writing our collaborative piece for The Asian American Literary Review’s special issue on mixed race, coming out this fall. Lily and I shared a summer of research (and karaoke, kaiten sushi, officers’ clubs, and sweltering traffic jams)…