Mixed Race Studies

Sense of Place with Guest Sharon H. Chang

Sense of Place
Roundhouse Radio 98.3 FM
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
November 2015

Minelle Mahtani, Host

Minelle Mahtani and Sharon H. Chang (Source: Facebook)

Author, scholar, sociologist, and activist Sharon H. Chang discusses her new book Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World.

Listen to the interview (00:36:17) here.

Minelle Mahtani is the New Host of “Sense of Place” on Roundhouse Radio 98.3 Vancouver

Sense of Place
Roundhouse Radio 98.3 Vancouver
98.3 FM
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2015-07-14

Minelle Mahtani is an author, journalist and professor. She is an Associate Professor of Human Geography and Planning, and the Program in Journalism, at University of Toronto-Scarborough. She has written two books, “Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality” and “Global Mixed Race.” She has worked in the not-for-profit sector in Vancouver for the former firm IMPACS – Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society and sits on the steering committee of UBC’s journalism school. She is former President of the Association for Canadian Studies and has won several awards, including a Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Award for her contributions to journalism. She is a former CBC TV journalist who worked on “The National.”

I’m on leave from the university to take on this exciting role. I’m taking it on because of what Roundhouse represents and exemplifies. Roundhouse is about active community citizenry. Roundhouse’s commitment to solutions-oriented programming echoes my own professional passions – thinking about ways to encourage a heightened sense of human flourishing for all Vancouver residents. Roundhouse hopes to be a conduit for so many underrepresented groups in this city. As a person of colour, of mixed race descent, I’m obviously supportive of that project. I’m personally committed to entertaining audiences, but also educating and inspiring our listeners to shed light on the complexities of city life today.

For more information, click here.

Professor Minelle Mahtani on ‘Raising Mixed Race’ in Canada

Multiracial Asian Families
2015-10-29

Sharon H. Chang

Following are closing remarks given by Minelle Mahtani after the premiere of my new book Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children In a Post-Racial World at Hapa-Palooza Festival 2015, Vancouver B.C. Minelle Mahtani is Associate Professor of Human Geography and Journalism at University of Toronto-Scarborough. Currently she is on sabbatical to host new show ‘Sense of Place‘ on Roundhouse Radio. She is also author of the recent book ‘Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality.’

My book ‘Raising Mixed Race’ will be released December 11, 2015.

Hi everybody. I’m going to keep this really short and sweet because I just think that we’ve heard so many really important things. But I just want to say thank you, Jeff, for that really warm introduction. And I just want to thank Sharon and Professor Wei Ming Dariotis for the extraordinary contribution they made here tonight.

For me being in this room really means a lot. I think it’s really rare that so many mixed people come together to have these conversations… I think it’s really valuable to remember that you’re not alone in this and that there’s other people around who want to share in these conversations. I grew up as a person of mixed race identity. I’m [of] Indian, Iranian, Muslim, Hindu background. And that was a really complicated identity to have in the suburbs of Toronto, mostly white area, that I grew up in…

Read the entire article here.

Public Symposium — DNA and Indigeneity

Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH)
Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2015-10-22, 12:30-17:30 PDT (Local Time)

On October 22 at 12:30 pm, join us for the DNA and Indigeneity: The Changing Role of Genetics in Indigenous Rights, Tribal Belonging, and Repatriation conference in downtown Vancouver. This event will bring together an international and interdisciplinary group of archaeologists, anthropologists, bioethicists, geneticists, and representatives from Indigenous organizations to explore the promise and perils of using biological and genetic information to inform understandings of identity. Ultimately, this event will investigate the degree to which biology and genetics currently inform these areas, and—perhaps most importantly—identify the limitations of this approach.

The public symposium will be held at Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre in downtown Vancouver and is free for all to attend (make sure you RSVP). The symposium will include presentations that weave together perspectives from anthropology, bioethics, and genetics.

For more information, click here.

Human Variation: A Genetic Perspective on Diversity, Race, and Medicine

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
2014
131 pages
(21 4C, 5B&W), index
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-621820-90-1
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-936113-25-5

Edited by:

Aravinda Chakravarti, Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Molecular Biology & Genetics, and, Biostatistics
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Institute of Genetic Medicine

Since the appearance of modern humans in Africa around 200,000 years ago, we have migrated around the globe and accumulated genetic variations that affect various traits, including our appearance, skin color, food tolerance, and susceptibility to different diseases. Large-scale DNA sequencing is now allowing us to map the patterns of human genetic variation more accurately than ever before, trace our ancestries, and develop personalized therapies for particular diseases. It is also reinforcing the idea that human populations are far from homogeneous, are highly intermixed, and do not fall into distinct races or castes that can be defined genetically.

This book provides a state-of-the-art view of human genetic variation and what we can infer from it, surveying the genetic diversity seen in Africa, Europe, the Americas, and India. The contributors discuss what this can tell us about human history and how it can be used to improve human health. They also caution against assumptions that differences between individuals always stem from our DNA, stressing the importance of nongenetic forces and pointing out the limits of our knowledge. The book is thus essential reading for all human geneticists and anyone interested in how we differ and what this means.

Contents

• Preface
• Perspectives on Human Variation through the Lens of Diversity and Race / Aravinda Chakravarti
• What Type of Person Are You? Old-Fashioned Thinking Even in Modern Science / Kenneth M. Weiss and Brian W. Lambert
• Social Diversity in Humans: Implications and Hidden Consequences for Biological Research / Troy Duster
• Demographic Events and Evolutionary Forces Shaping European Genetic Diversity / Krishna R. Veeramah and John Novembre
• Genetic Variation and Adaptation in Africa: Implications for Human Evolution and Disease / Felicia Gomez, Jibril Hirbo and Sarah A. Tishkoff
• A Genomic View of Peopling and Population Structure of India / Partha P. Majumder and Analahba Basu
• How Genes Have Illuminated the History of Early Americans and Latino Americans / Andres Ruiz-Linares
• Can Genetics Help Us Understand Indian Social History? / Romila Thapar
• Race in Biological and Biomedical Research / Richard S. Cooper
• Personalized Medicine and Human Genetic Diversity / Yi-Fan Lu, David B. Goldstein, Misha Angrist, and Gianpiero Cavalleri
• Index

Raising Mixed Kids: Family Workshop with Sharon Chang

Hapa-palooza Festival 2015
Heartwood Community Cafe
317 E. Broadway
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Saturday, 2015-09-19, 18:00-20:00 PDT (Local Time)

Sharon H. Chang, author, scholar, sociologist and activist
Multiracial Asian Families

How do we have transformative race conversations with multi-racial children when most grownups aren’t even able to so with each other? Is it possible to create an environment for mixed children that leaves them liberated, informed, and empowered to make change? Research shows children as young as 6 months old are able to categorize people by race. By 4 and 5-years-old children have used racial reasoning to discriminate against their peers. Studies also shows children’s biased attitudes are not directly correlated to those of their parents and caregivers. That’s because our children see and hear everything and racism is woven into the very fabric of society. But what does all this mean for mixed race children growing up across racial boundaries? How can we raise multiracial kids to feel good about themselves in a raced world? Please join Hapa-palooza Festival and parent educator Sharon H. Chang for the North American launch of her new book, Raising Mixed Race, and to dialogue on ways we can healthily talk about race with our mixed children at a time in their lives when it’s most critical.

For more information, click here.

Hapa-palooza 2015: Celebrate mixed heritage and own your identity

Vancouver Observer
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2015-09-06

Jordan Yerman

Mixed-race, outsider, or ‘half-breed’: you’re not alone at Hapa-palooza. Get in on Canada’s largest celebration of mixed heritage.

Tôi là người lai mỹ means “I’m an American half-breed”. Author and publisher Brandy Liên Worrall wrote it in her journal while sitting at an outdoor cafe during her first trip to Vietnam. She wrote in Vietnamese for the benefit of the locals who were reading over her shoulder. Worrall’s Vietnamese mother laughed at first, and then asked why her daughter didn’t just say she was Vietnamese. “Because, Mom,” replied Worrall, “I’m not just Vietnamese. I’m not just American. I’m gonna recognize that I’m người lai, and I’m going to own that word.”

“In that country, where I have origins,” says Worrall in a DTES cafe, “[being mixed-race] is still that stigmatized.” We’re sitting with Anna Ling Kaye, editor of Ricepaper Magazine and co-founder of Hapa-palooza, which returns for its fifth year on September 16. Kaye says, “In Taiwan, my extended family is certainly nonplussed by me. They’re complimentary: ‘Oh, you don’t need to perm your hair! You’re so curvy!’” Contrasting that was an encounter with a Chinese woman in Vancouver who told her, “You look how I feel!” The woman saw herself as presenting as Chinese, but feeling Canadian. “We don’t feel Hapa-palooza is only for people of mixed heritage. It’s for anyone who wants to talk about identity.”…

Read the entire article here.

Vancouver’s Hapa Festival, All Grown Up

The Tyee
Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
2015-09-03

Christopher Cheung

From one generation to another, an identity conversation continues.

Jeff Chiba Stearns is about to be a father in November, and there’s an important conversation he wants to have with his daughter that he never had with his own family growing up.

It’s not about anything like table manners or the birds and the bees: it’s a conversation on race and ethnicity.

Stearns grew up in Kelowna in the 1980s, where most people were white. His mother was Japanese and his father had British, Scottish, Russian and German roots (one grandmother makes classic cabbage rolls), but “being mixed meant you were a full minority.”

Like many others with a multiethnic background, Stearns had confusion navigating his identity and faced being called things like “half-breed.”

“Not everyone goes through identity crises in their lives, but everyone has a story,” said Stearns. “Either they’ve rejected the fact they’re part of a minority group, or they’ve embraced that, or they’ve just wanted to be human [and say] I just want to blend in and fit in.”

There are a lot of different names for those with a colourful heritage. Sometimes it’s mixed-race or multiethnic, but it’s really up to the individual…

Read the entire article here.

All Mixed Up: examining mixed children and unions

The Source
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Volume 16, Issue 5 (September 8-22, 2015)

Florence Hwang

Sharon Chang says she embodies “mixedness.” Chang’s thoughtful examination about growing up multiracial at this year’s Hapapalooza festival: “Raising Mixed Kids: Family Workshop” will be at the Heartwood Community Café, Sept. 19 from 6–8 p.m. The Hapapalooza festival celebrates mixed heritage and hybrid cultural identity.

“I bring my lived life to the table. I also now bring the experiences of my family (my husband and son are also mixed) to the table,” says Chang, a mixed-race parenting expert and activist.

Children and race

Every single experience Chang has had with others is inevitably a multiracial exchange. Her father is from Taiwan and her mother is Caucasian American of Slovakian, German and French Canadian descent.

“But what does all this mean for mixed-race children growing up across racial boundaries? How can we raise multiracial kids to feel good about themselves in a raced world?” asks Chang, who will be sharing some of her findings from her new book Raising Mixed Race, which will be released later this fall.

According to Chang, children have used racial reasoning to discriminate against their peers by the ages of four or five. Children see and hear everything and racism is woven into the very fabric of society. Research also shows children as young as six months are able to categorize people by race…

Read the entire article here.

That’s What She Said: Red-face

Eagle Feather News
Saskatchewan, Canada
2015-08-02

Dawn Dumont

Rachel Dolezal is a white woman who decided one day that she was African-American. This crazy white lady braided in some fake hair, darkened her skin with tanning sessions and then became the leader of Spokane’s NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People).

I had no idea that we could switch races whenever we felt like it. I’ve stupidly been Cree just because I emerged from a Cree v-jay-jay. So, for the rest of the month, I’m choosing to be Tibetan. Since this morning, I’ve already sherpa’d six people up Diefenbaker Hill. (I really should have chosen a less hardy race.)

When I look in the mirror, I see a round-cheeked First Nation female looking back at me, but the world begs to disagree. I’ve been mistaken for Vietnamese, Spanish, Hawaiian, and Mexican-Japanese (which seemed oddly specific.) But I don’t have any identity issues. Probably because I lived on a reserve for the first 18 years of my life where I consumed enough deer meat, bologna steak and KFC family meals to keep me real for a lifetime.

It wasn’t until I got to university that I discovered people struggling with their identity. In my first year, friends would point out First Nations people in the hallways who were passing as white. They would casually say: “That’s Jason, he’s from Kawacatoose but he’s white now,” as if he had just switched banks…

Read the entire article here.