Mixed Race Studies

Upfront (With Guests Mark Christian and Anna Rothery)

Upfront
BBC Radio: Merseyside
2012-06-02

Phina Oruche, Host

Guests

Mark Christian, Professor & Chair of African & African American Studies
Lehman College, City University of New York

Anna Rothery, Councillor
Liverpool City Council, Princes Park Ward

Host Phina Oruche discusses the current state of the African diaspora in the United States and Britain with Dr. Mark Christian and Liverpool Councilor Anna Rothery. Dr. Christian is author of the book Multiracial Identity: An International Perspective, the chapter “Mixing Up the Game: Social and Historical Contours of Black Mixed Heritage Players in British Football” in the anthology Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues, and article “The Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness.”

Download the interview here (00:18:27/15.0 MB).

Lecturer Hettie V. Williams to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #257: Hettie V. Williams
When: Wednesday, 2012-05-23, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Hettie V. Williams, Lecturer of African American History
Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey

Hettie Williams’ research and teaching interests include: recent American history; the 1960s; the history of African Americans; race; identity; studies in the African Diaspora; and gender. She has taught survey courses in U.S. history, world history, western civilization, and upper division courses on the history of African Americans. She has published various entries and essays for several volumes and a text on the American civil rights movement titled We Shall Overcome to We Shall Overrun: The Collapse of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Revolt (1962-1968). Currently, she teaches as a lecturer of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. She has recently completed an edited volume titled Color Struck: Essays on Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective and is currently working on an edited volume titled, Race and the Obama Phenomenon: toward a More Perfect Union? (University of Mississippi Press) with the renown race scholar G. Reginald Daniel.

Mixed heritage voices – Multiple identities, varied experiences, diverse views

British Association for Adoption & Fostering
Woburn House Conference Centre
20 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9HQ
2012-11-29, 10:00-16:00Z

One in ten people in the UK define themselves as mixed heritage, and it seems that young people think it is ‘cool’ to be ‘mixed’. But what meaning do young people and their families give to their mixed heritage identities and how do these identities develop in mixed adoptive and foster care families?

The profiles of children in ‘Be My Parent’ (BAAF’s family finding service) and the Adoption Register demonstrate the multiple and complex ethnicities of children waiting for placements and this brings challenges to practitioners making decisions for mixed heritage children in the public care system. There are also challenges for adoptive parents and foster carers who need to value and promote the child’s heritage and help them achieve a positive identity, alongside an ability to cope with racism to make their way in the world.

This conference will bring together mixed heritage young people, families and researchers to share their experiences and perspectives on identity, and will look at the implications of these issues for practice.

Aims

• to understand the experiences of mixed heritage children, young people and their families
• to identify how adoptive parents and foster carers might help their mixed heritage child develop their identities
• to explore how practitioners can make better decisions for mixed heritage children in the public care system

Chair & Speakers

• Professor Ann Phoenix, Co-Director, Thomas Coram, Research Unit (Invited)
• Dr. Suki Ali, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics
• Dr. Vicki Harman, Lecturer, Centre for Criminology & Sociology, University of Royal Holloway
• Dr. Daniel McNeil, Lecturer in Media & Cultural Studies, University of Newcastle
• Dr. Fiona Peters, Consultant Perspectives from Adoptive Parents & Foster Carers, Sheffield City Council

Who should attend

Children’s services social workers and managers, family placement practitioners, independent reviewing officers, decision-makers, panel members, health and education professionals, youth services, CAFCASS children’s guardians, social work students, adopted adults, adoptive parents and foster carers.

For more information, click here.

Professor Mary Beltrán to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #255 Professor Mary Beltrán
When: Wednesday, 2012-05-09, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Mary C. Beltrán, Associate Professor of Media Studies
University of Texas, Austin

Mary Beltrán an Assistant Professor of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin, is of Mexican and German, English, and Scotch Irish heritage. Her research is focused on the production and narration of race, ethnicity, gender and class in U.S. television, film, and celebrity culture, with an emphasis on Latina/o and mixed race representation. She is the co-editor (with Camilla Fojas) of Mixed Race Hollywood (NYU Press 2008), an anthology of scholarship on mixed-race representation in film, television, and new media. She also is the author of Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom (University of Illinois Press, 2009), which explores the construction and marketing of Latina and Latino stars in the U.S. in relation to the evolving status of Mexican Americans and other Latinos since the 1920s. Mary is a former journalist and social worker; her experiences working in San Francisco with Latina and African American teens and interest in the complexities of popular culture and its impact on young people of color spurred her to pursue a career that would allow her to combine her various interests and conduct research at the intersections of race, class, and gender and entertainment media studies. Since becoming a faculty member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now the University of Texas, Beltrán has taught a variety of classes on race and entertainment meida, including first-ever courses at both universities on Mixed Race and U.S. Media Culture. Aside from her books, she has published on such topics as mixed-race actors and characters in U.S. media culture, racial representation in millennial television, ethnic media activism targeting the television networks, and the racial politics of beauty and body ideals as reinforced in Hollywood media productions. She has been conducting research for a new book, Post-Race Pop: Interrogating Racelessness in Millennial Media Culture. Post-Race Pop explores the emphasis on racial ambiguity and utopic presentations of racial and ethnic diversity in contemporary television and other millennial media culture, particularly in light of the imperatives of the media industries to appeal to an increasingly diverse audience and popular political rhetoric that has utilized notions of post-racial America to widely divergent ends.

Selected Bibliography:

• Mixed Race Hollywood, New York University Press, 2008.
• “Everywhere and Nowhere: Mediated Mixed Race and Mixed Race Critical Studies,” Keynote address video at the 2010 Critical Mixed Race Conference (Requires Apple’s iTunes application).
• “The New Hollywood Racelessness: Only the Fast, Furious, (and Multiracial) Will Survive,” 2005.

Marcia Dawkins, Author of “Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing” on Mixed Race Radio

Mixed Race Radio
Blogtalkradio
2012-05-02, 16:00Z (12:00 EDT)

Tiffany Rae Reid, Host

Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Visiting Scholar
Brown University

Marcia Dawkins’ book, Clearly Invisible and the Color of Cultural Identity (Baylor University Press, 2012), is the first to connect racial passing and classical rhetoric to issues of disability, gender-neutral parenting, human trafficking, hacktivism, identity theft, racial privacy, media typecasting and violent extremism.

By applying fresh eyes to landmark historical cases and benchmark popular culture moments in the history of passing Dawkins also rethinks the representational character and civic purpose of multiracial identities. In the process she provides powerful insights called “passwords” that help readers tackle the tough questions of who we are and how we can relate to one another and the world.

For more information, click here.

Brian Bantum Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode 254: Brian Bantum
When: Wednesday, 2012-05-02, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Brian Bantum, Associate Professor of Theology
Seattle Pacific University

Brian Bantum is Assistant Professor of Theology at Seattle Pacific University and author of Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity.

Listen to the episode here.

Redeeming Mulatto: Race, Culture, and Ethnic Plurality from Quest Church on Vimeo.

Professor Andrew Jolivétte to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: 252-Professor Andrew Jolivétte
When: Wednesday, 2012-04-11, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Andrew Jolivétte, Associate Professor of American Indian Studies
Center for Health Disparities Research and Training
San Fransisco State University

Dr. Jolivétte is a mixed-race studies specialist with a particular interest in Comparative Race Relations, the Urban Indian Experience, People of Color and Popular Culture, Critical Mixed Race Studies and Social Justice, Creole studies, Black-Indians, and mixed-race health disparities. He has been an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of San Francisco and a Researcher with the University of California, San Francisco on issues of racial violence among African American and Latino/a youth in the Bay Area.

Dr. Jolivétte is the edtitor and contributor to the recent anthology tittled, Obama and the Biracial Factor, which is the first book to explore the significance of mixed-race identity as a key factor in the election of President Obama and examines the sociological and political relationship between race, power, and public policy in the United States with an emphasis on public discourse and ethnic representation in his election.

Selected Bibliography:

• Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority (editor), 2012.
• Cultural Representation in Native America, 2006
• Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed-Race Native American Identity, 2006

Listen to the interview here.

A Heritage Celebration: Event recognizes both Hispanic and Native American roots with symposium and several performances

San Marcos Daily Record
San Marcos, Texas

2011-08-12

San Marcos — San Marcos will experience a unique, two-in-one heritage celebration in a combination of two nationally recognized heritage months — Hispanic and Native American — on Saturday, Oct. 1 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos, 211 Lee Street.

A Sunday Matinee will also take place at 3 p.m. the next day at the Texas Music Theater.

“We’re bringing attention to the fact that most Hispanics in Texas have Native American ancestors and can celebrate two national heritage months,” says Dr. Mario Garza, chair of the Indigenous Cultures Institute that is producing this event. “Most Hispanics can legitimately embrace a Native American identity because they still retain much of their indigenous culture like customs, foods and even their Native language.”…

…“Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez will be one of the speakers in our Indigenous-Hispanics Symposium,” said Dr. Lydia French, managing editor of Nakum, the Institute’s online journal. “Dr. Rodriguez is one of the major figures in the historic struggle against the Arizona legislature’s anti immigrant law SB 1070 and ban on ethnic studies programs.”…

…Dr. Nicole M. Guidotti-Hernández and Margaret E. Cantú-Sánchez will be joining Dr. Rodriguez as presenters on the “Education: The Indigenity Challenge” panel.  Dr. Guidotti- Hernández teaches Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona and her published articles include “Reading Violence, Making Chicana Subjectivities” and “Dora the Explorer, Constructing ‘Latinidades’ and the Politics of Global Citizenship.”

Cantú-Sánchez is pursuing her doctorate degree in English at the University of Texas at San Antonio and is developing her “mestizaje” theory, which proposes that a balance of cultural and institutional philosophies of human knowledge ensures a better grasp of one’s identity…

Read the entire article here.

Association for Asian American Studies 2012 Annual Conference

Capitol Hilton Hotel
1001 16th Street, NW
Washington, D.C.
2012-04-11 through 2012-04-14

Selected Sessions from Tentative Schedule

Thursday, April 12: 13:15-14:45 (South American A) Exposing Truths: Re-Centering Filipina/o American Subjectivities
Chair: Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, San Francisco State University

“Passing It On: Mixed Filipina/o American PEP Teachers Facilitating Growth in Students and Self”
Teresa Hodges, San Francisco State University

Friday, April 13: 15:00 – 16:30 EDT  (Statler B) Multiracial Asian/Americans: War and the Mixed Race Experience
Chair: Sue-Je Gage, Ithaca College

“Different Kinds of Occupation: Mixed Race People in Occupied Post-War Japan and Okinawa”
Lily Anne Yumi Welty, University of California, Santa Barbara

“When Half is Whole”
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Stanford University

“Kiku and Isamu: Japanese Representations of Biracial Children in Post-war Japan”
Zelideth M. Rivas, Grinnell College

“Politics and Policing of Difference: Asian America and ‘Amerasians’”
Sue-Je Gage, Ithaca College

 
Friday, April 13: 15:00-16:30 EDT (California) Performing History, Expanding Race: Afro-Asian and Arab-Asian Hip Hop, Film and Spoken Word
Chair: Vanita Reddy, Texas A&M
Discussant: Junaid Rana, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“Afro-Asian Diasporic Intimacies: Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala and Shailja Patel’s Migritude”
Vanita Reddy, Texas A&M

“Performing the Political: Kundiman’s 9/11 Poetry Project”
Anantha Sudhakar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“Afro-Asian Aesthetics in Early Hip Hop Culture and Performance: Martin Wong’s Graffiti and Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon”
Shante Paradigm Smalls, Davidson College

Saturday, April 14: 14:45-16:15 EDT (Statler B) Theorizing Asian Americans: Race, Ethnicity, and Nation
Chair: Lisa Mar, University of Maryland

“Genetic Citizens: Multiracial Asian Americans and the Limits of Nation”
LeiLani Nishime, University of Washington

For more information, click here.

So… What are You, Anyway

2012 Conference on Multiracial Identity: Exploring Our Roots
Hosted by Harvard Half-Asian People’s Association
Harvard University
2012-04-06 through 2012-04-07

Welcome to the fourth annual conference on multiracial identity and politics, hosted by the Harvard College Half-Asian People’s Association on April 6 – April 7, 2012.

Join us this year in exploring what it means to be mixed race. This year we are happy to announce Diane Farr as our keynote speaker. Diane Farr last brought her unique sense of humor to Showtime’s CALIFORNICATION as Jill Robinson. Having just finished three years as Agent Megan Reeves on CBS’s NUMB3RS, Farr was thrilled to put her gun down and don a sundress for a comedy. Prior to NUMB3RS, Farr starred on RESCUE ME, as well as THE JOB, THE DREW CAREY SHOW and ROSWELL. Her advice as the sole female on the MTV hit, LOVELINE, is what made her whiskey-soaked voice so recognizable. After 200 episodes of this cult phenomenon, Farr published her first book.

The Girl Code, a comic look at single women in the 21st century has since been sold to seven countries in five languages. Farr’s latest book, Kissing Outside The Lines, hilariously chronicles her path to an interracial marriage. Part of a two book series, Kissing will be followed up next year with Shades of America – which discusses raising biracial children. Diane writes for most American magazines and recently took over Dave Barry’s internationally syndicated column for Herald Tribune Newspapers, writing a comedic comment on pop culture.

We are also happy to welcome Associated Press journalist Jesse Washington and former Harvard Hapa president James Fish as speakers and Sue Lambe, Katie Low, and as discussion leaders…

For more information, click here.