Mixed Race Studies

Natural Ambiguities? Perceptions of Multiracial Individuals by Monoracial Perceivers

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Jacqueline Chen
University of California, Santa Barbara

David Hamilton, Professor of Psychology
University of Californi, Santa Barbara

Understanding Multiracial person perception is becoming increasingly important in today’s diverse society. The present research investigates the nature of the racial categorization of Multiracials. We hypothesize that, due to the legacy of the Black-White dichotomy and the automaticity of monoracial categorization, perceivers will make more errors in categorizing Multiracials and that categorization as “Multiracial” will take longer than monoracial categorizations such as “Black” or “White.” Using a novel categorization task, we find support for these hypotheses in two studies. In addition, in Study 2, we demonstrate that cognitive load detrimentally affects Multiracial, but not monoracial, categorizations. Importantly, in both studies, perceivers are able to categorize Multiracials at a rate significantly above chance, suggesting that monoracial perceivers can perceive multiracialism relatively quickly and accurately. Implications and future directions are discussed.

The motivational dynamics of social memory: Identification with a mixed-race group replaces own-race bias with own-group bias

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Jay Van Bavel
New York University

Rachel O’Connor
The Ohio State University

William Cunningham
The Ohio State University

Dozens of studies have documented own-race bias – superior recognition memory for own-race faces compared to other-race faces. According to the perceptual expertise model, people are more likely to interact with members of their own race and therefore become more expert at distinguishing the physiognomy of own-race faces. According to the social cognitive model, own-race bias occurs because people perceive in-group members as individuals and out-group members according to their social category membership. We contrasted these two models and examined the effects of motivational salience, goal strength and situational affordances on social memory. Participants were randomly assigned to a mixed-race minimal group or a control condition in which participants merely learned about two mixed-race groups. Consistent with the social cognitive model, participants assigned to a mixed-race group had less own-race bias than participants in the control condition. Instead, participants assigned to a mixed-race group had own-group bias – superior recognition memory for in-group faces compared to out-group faces. Follow-up experiments showed that own-group bias was moderated by the strength of participants’ commitment to their minimal group and situational affordances. Specifically, participants who reported the strongest identification with their mixed-race minimal group had the largest own-group memory bias. However, own-group bias was attenuated among participants who were assigned to a role that directed their attention toward out-group members: they showed equal recognition memory for in-group and out-group faces. These experiments provide evidence that the motivational aspects of our social identities help organize social memory and can override the robust effects of race.

Specialist mixed-race training event

Mix-d: Professionals,

The Multiple Heritage Project is proud to present two specialist mixed-race training events for Black History Month 2009, in Manchester and London.

Are you a professional working with young people?
Want to really understand the complex issues around ‘mixed-race’?

If the answer is yes, then come and join us:

• Manchester: (on 2009-10-06 from 09:00Z to 12:00Z) – Lancashire Cricket Club
• London: (on 2009-10-21 from 09:00Z to 11:30Z) – North London Business Park

Who Should Attend?
Professionals working with young people, whether in education, criminal justice service, looking after care, youth work and foster care.

Aims of the day:

• Learn more about our work with young people across the country.
• What young people have to say on the subject.
• Six things to understand when developing positive racial literacy.
• Input from three leading specialists.
• Do’s and don’ts for developing student voice.
• Creating an action plan for your organisation.
• The ‘latest’ street terminology.
• Useful books and resources.
• Free DVD from our 1st National Youth Conference.

Key Speakers:
Bradley Lincoln, Dr. Chamion Caballero, Denise Williams

For more details visit: www.multipleheritage.co.uk

Lecture by Professor Jennifer DeVere Brody

Theater Dance & Performance Studies
University of California at Berkeley
Durham Studio Theater (Dwinelle Hall)
Thursday, 2010-02-18 16:00 PST (Local Time)

Sponsor: Department of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies

Jennifer DeVere Brody is a Professor of African and African American Studies at Duke University where she teaches cultural and performance studies, gender and sexuality as well as film and literary studies. She is the author of Impossible Purities: Blackness, Femininity and Victorian Culture (Duke University Press, 1998) and Punctuation: Art, Politics and Play (Duke University Press, 2008). Her work has been supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Ford Foundation, a grant from the British Society for Theatre Research and was recognized by the Monette/Horwitz Trust for Independent Research to combat homophobia. Her research on race, visual culture and African American Literature has appeared in journals such as Genders, Signs, Callaloo, Theatre Journal, Text and Performance Quarterly and numerous edited volumes. Before joining the faculty at Duke, Professor Brody was the Weinberg College Board of Visitors Research and Teaching Professor at Northwestern University. She was also the President of the Women and Theatre Program, a division of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She serves on several boards and works with MLA, ASA, and ATHE.

Attendance restrictions: Free admission. Seating is limited. No advance reservations available.
Event Contact: tdps@berkeley.edu, 510-642-8268

5 Shades of Pink: A Coerced Identity

In cooperation with The Graduate Association of Rhetoric and Performance Studies.
A Graduate Thesis Performance Exploring Biracial Identity in the 19th Century.

Monroe Lecture Center Theater
California Avenue, South Campus
Hofstra University
2009-03-19 19:30 (Local Time)

by Melissa J. Edwards
Hofstra University

This performance explores the influences of the 1859 play The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault, miscegenation laws, and the U.S. Census on biracial identity.  All these factors are used in the analysis of the racial identity of [“Pinky”] Sally Maria Diggs, a 9-year-old girl whose freedom was purchased by the congregation [for $900 USD on 1860-02-05] of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, through the efforts of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and his associates.  The performance is intended to educate and present the theories of social impact on racial identity while providing historical fact and content.

“Freedom Ring” by Eastman Johnson, from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1934-03-21, p. 1
Courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library

Miscegenating the Discourse: Mixed Race Asian American Art and Literature

Jessica Hagedorn In Conversation with Wei Ming and Laura Kina
As part of The President’s Signature Series 2009-2010

2009-10-22 at 18:00 CDT (Local Time)
DePaul University Art Museum
2350 N Kenmore

This event is co-sponsored by Asian American Studies, The Cultural Center, English, The President’s Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, OMSA, and The Women’s Center.

What does it mean to be a Mixed Asian American Writer/Artist?

Mixed Race Studies scholar Wei Ming Dariotis, Assistant Professor Asian American Studies San Francisco State University, and Laura Kina, DePaul University Associate Professor Art, Media, & Design, Vincent dePaul Professor & Director Asian American Studies, will take on identity, categorization, and issues specific to Asian American mixed heritage populations in their dialogue with award winning writer, screenwriter and performer, Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters, Dream Jungle, The Gangster of Love, Danger And Beauty, and editor of Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction and Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World. Her next novel, Toxicology, will be published by Viking Penguin in 2011.

This event is free and open to the public.

From: KNPR in Nevada: A Conversation About Race and Ethnicity in America  (2008-08-22)

We continue our conversation about race and ethnicity in America when we host a joint broadcast [on 2008-08-22] with KCEP-FM.  KCEP’s Patricia Cunningham joins us with UNLV [University of Nevada at Las Vegas] Professor Rainier Spencer and Pastor Robert Fowler of The Victory Missionary Baptist Church.

Rainer Spencer appears at 09:35 in the program and discusses ‘Generation Mix’ and other issues.

Pictured right are: KCEP Radio Host Patricia Cunningham, KNPR’s State of Nevada Show Host Dave Berns, KCEP IT Mgr and Asst Program Coordinator Ashton Ridley, Prof Rainier Spencer, KCEP Program Mgr Craig Knight and Pastor Robert Fowler (left to right).

Listen the recorded audio (00:47:28) stream here.
Download the recorded audio (00:47:28) file here.

“Who Am I? Mental Health & Dual Heritage” Conference Report

At GMCVO, ST. THOMAS CENTRE
Ardwick Green North, Manchester, M12 6FZ
This event was held on 2009-06-10, from 08:00Z to 13:00Z

Programme:

Mixed Heritage Children and Young People: Issues and Ways Forward was a conference held in London, England on 2009-04-29 and hosted by the Ethnic Minority Achievement Service Cambridge Education @ Islington.

Featured speakers:

Leon Tikly, Professor
University of  Bristol

Bradley Lincoln
Multiple Heritage Project, Manchester

Featured Presentations:

Making Mixed Race Children Visible in the Education System

Jane Daffé, Senior EMA Consultant
Nottingham City, LA

Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing: A study of ‘Mixed Experiences’
…‘In junior school I remember feeling very popular. I had a large group of friends and we had all been brought up in the same area although our parents may have been from elsewhere. I went to the same high school as a lot of the girls in this group but they all spilt up and joined different groups that already existed within the school e.g. the Jewish girls joined a group of Jewish girls, the black girls joined a group of black girls etc. I wasn’t a ‘member’ of any of these groups and I didn’t want to be’
Dinah Morley

‘I had an attitude like I don’t know what to do I’ll just get on with things…I kind of changed my attitude like I was just saying well I can only be me …and it made things easier in a way’…

Improving the Educational Environment for Mixed Race Children
Professor Leon Tikly
University of Brsitol

Dr. Maria P. P. Root Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #113 – Maria P. P. Root, Ph.D.
Wednesday, 2009-08-07, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Maria P. P. Root, Ph.D.

Maria P. P. Root, Ph.D., born in Manila, Philippines, grew up in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from the University of California at Riverside in 1977 with degrees in Psychology and Sociology. She subsequently attended Claremont University in Claremont, California receiving her Masters degree in Cognitive Psychology in 1979. She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1983 with an emphasis in minority mental health. Dr. Root resides in Seattle, Washington where she is an independent scholar and clinical psychologist. She has been in practice for over 20 years. Her general practice focuses on adult and adolescent treatment therapy, which includes working with families and couples. Dr. Root’s working areas of knowledge are broad with emphasis on culturally competent practice, life transition issues, trauma, ethnic and racial identity, workplace stress and harassment, and disordered eating. In the early 1980s, she established a group treatment program for bulimia that grew out of her dissertation work. Subsequently, she trained other professionals to recognize and treat people with a range of disordered eating symptoms. She continues to treat people with eating disorders. Dr. Root’s practice also includes formal psychological evaluation. She works as a consultant to several law enforcement departments. She also works as an expert witness in forensic settings performing evaluations and offering expert testimony in matters that require cultural competence and/or knowledge of racism or ethnocentrism. Dr. Root is a trainer, educator, and public speaker on the topics of multiracial families, multiracial identity, cultural competence, trauma, work place harassment, and disordered eating. She has provided lectures and training in New Zealand, England, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States for major universities, professional organizations, grassroots community groups, and student organizations. Dr. Root’s publications cover the areas of trauma, cultural assessment, multiracial identity, feminist therapy, and eating disorders. One of the leading authorities in the field of racial and ethnic identity, Dr. Root published the first contemporary volume on mixed race people, Racially Mixed People in America (1992). Including this book, she has edited two award-winning books on multiracial people and produced the foundational Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People. The U.S. Census referred to these texts in their deliberations that resulted in an historic  “check more than one” format to the race question for the 2000 census. Dr. Root is past-President of the Washington State Psychological Association and the recipient of national and international awards from professional and community organizations. She is also a clay artist, and maintains a website about her work at Primitiva Pottery and Tile.

Listen to the episode here. Download the episode here.