Mixed Race Studies

The Long Journey of a Forgotten People: Métis Identities and Family Histories

Wilfrid Laurier University Press
May 2007
370 pages
ISBN13: 978-0-88920-523-9

Editors:

Ute Lischke, Associate Professor of English and Film Studies
Wilfrid Laurier University

David T. McNab, Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies
York University, Toronto

Known as “Canada’s forgotten people,” the Métis have long been here, but until 1982 they lacked the legal status of Native people. At that point, however, the Métis were recognized in the constitution as one of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. A significant addition to Métis historiography, The Long Journey of a Forgotten People includes Métis voices and personal narratives that address the thorny and complicated issue of Métis identity from historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics include eastern Canadian Métis communities; British military personnel and their mixed-blood descendants; life as a Métis woman; and the Métis peoples ongoing struggle for recognition of their rights, including discussion of recent Supreme Court rulings.

Table of Contents

Preface, The Years of Achievement Ute Lischke and David T.McNab
Introduction: We Are Still Here Ute Lischke and David T.McNab

Part I: Reflections on Métis Identities

1. Out of the Bush: A Journey to a Dream Olive Patricia Dickason
2. A Long Journey: Reflections on Spirit Memory and Métis Identities David T. McNab
3. Reflections on Métis Connections in the Life and Writings of Louise Erdrich Ute Lischke
4. The Winds of Change: Métis Rights after Powley, Taku and Haida Jean Teillet

Part II: Historical Perspectives

1. “I Shall Settle, Marry, and Trade Here”: British Military Personnel and Their Mixed-Blood Descendants Sandy Campbell
2. Early Forefathers to the Athabasca Métis: Long-Term North West Company Employees Nicole St. Onge
3. Manipulating Identity: The Sault Borderlands Métis and Colmiac Intervention Karl S. Hele
4. New Light on the Plains Métis: The Buffalo Hunters of Pembinah, 1870- 71 Heather Devine
5. The Drummond Island Voyageurs and the Search for Great Lakes Métis Identity Karen J. Travers

Part III: Métis Families and Communities

1. Searching for the Silver Fox: A fur-Trade Family History Virginia (Parker) Barter
2. The Kokum Puzzle: Finding and Fitting the Pieces Donna G. Sutherland
3. “Where the White Dove Flew Up”: The Saguingue Métis Community and the Fur Trade at Southampton on Lake Huron Patsy Lou Wilson McArthur
4. My Story: Reflections on Growing Up in Lac la Biche Jaime Koebel

Ushering children away from a “light grey world”: Dr. Daniel Hill III and his pursuit of a respectable Black Canadian community.

Ontario History
2007-03-22

Daniel R. McNeil, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies
Newcastle University, United Kingdom

This paper is about Dr. Daniel Hill III, the first director of the Ontario Human Rights Agency. Paying particular attention to Dr Hill’s work with the Committee for the Adoption of Coloured Youngsters and the Ontario Black History Society, I argue that he fashioned himself as “Negro race man”, a masculinist term assigned to people who sought to lead a Black community in North America and lay to rest the infantilised and feminized image of the “tragic mulatto” trapped in a “light grey world”.

Read or purchase the article here.

The Negotiation of Identities: Narratives of Mixed-Race Individuals in Canada

Ontario lnstitute for Studies in Education
University of Toronto
2001
170 Pages

Mélanie Jane Knight
University of Toronto

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Sociology and Equity Studies in Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

This thesis examines how mixed-race individuals shape and negotiate their identities and where they situate themselves along the racial continuum. I share the stories of five individuals of African/Caribbean/Lebanese and French-Canadian descent. This study is distinct tn that it examines participants’ negotiation of two White racially dominant groups, the Anglophone majority and Francophone linguistic minority who themselves differ in social and economic status. It was found that participants’ self-identification as individuals of colour was not an indicator of their participation within subordinate groups. Participants chose to situate themselves at different locations on the racial continuum, either participating within Whiteness, Blackness or both. Negotiations within certain locations on the continuum was found to bring benefits, depend to some extent on phenotype, cause tension and contradiction, to be influenced by racism and racial consciousness and to be complicated by language and ethnicity.

Table of Contents

Abstract
Acknowledgements
Introduction

Chapter One: Understanding the Mixed-Race Individual
Miscegenation
Early Considerations of Mixed-Race Individuals
Earlier Studies: Psychological Models
Limitations of the Models
Ecological Models
Sociological Studies
Later Studies Looking at Sociological Issues
Negotiation of Identity
Negotiations of Race, Culture, Language and Identity
French-Canadians and Historical Contexts

Chapter Two: Researching the Performance of Mixed-Race Identity
Identity
Theorizing Racism
Understanding Everyday Racism
The Structure of Everyday Racism
Methodology-Research Design
Qualitative Research
Criteria for Inclusion
Methods of Collecting the Data
Ethical Concerns
Narratives
Structure of Narratives
“Minorizing” the Majority Language
Structure of Results and Discussion
Research Questions

Chapter Three: My Story/Ma journée

Chapter Four: Participating Within and Negotiating Whiteness
Lyanne’s Story
Karen’s Story
Ann’s Story

Chapter Five: Hybridity and Performing “Blackness”
Martin’s Story
Chantal’s Story

Conclusion
References

…I argue that mixed-race individuals’ self-identification as persons of colour may not coincide with where they participate along the racial continuum. Since non-White individuals have little option as to how to self-identify, they often self-identify as people of colour. This choice, however, may be hollow. For example, choosing to self-identify as Black may not have a great deaf of content to it since individuals may have never lived in Black communities or learned much of Black cultural life. There is then a gap between the self-identification as Black for instance and reality, that being the participation in White spaces. The reality maybe in a sense where mixed-race individuals feel comfort. These spaces of comfort may require them to perform an identity.  I contend that the performance of an identity is accomplished through language and examined in how individuals articulate and express themselves.  I also contend that a performance can be undertaken to prove one’s allegiance to a group/community. There are other dimensions to the performance and negotiation of identities but I focus on how the study participants articulate themselves…

Read the entire thesis here.

Book Review/Compte rendu: Stanley R. Bailey, Legacies of Race: Identities, Attitudes, and Politics in Brazil

Canadian Journal of Sociology
Volume 35, Number 1 (2010)
pages 189-191

Luisa Farah Schwartzman, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Toronto

Stanley R. Bailey, Legacies of Race: Identities, Attitudes, and Politics in Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009, 304 pp. paper (978-0-8047-6278-6), hardcover (978-0-8047-6277-9)

Legacies of Race is a must-read for anyone who thinks they understand “race” in Brazil, since it successfully challenges many assumptions in the literature. It is also an important contribution to the literature on racial attitudes in the US, highlighting their distinctiveness. Finally, its discussion of the myth of racial democracy provides food for thought for debates on whether multiculturalist discourse can address emerging issues of racism in Canadian society.

For decades, foreign observers have wondered why the Brazilian Black Movement has had limited success mobilizing Brazilian blacks to fight for their rights, despite the existence of glaring inequalities correlated with skin color. Since the 1970s, social scientists have blamed this lack of black mobilization on the myth of “racial democracy” — the idea of Brazil as a unified mixed-race nation — used by Brazilian elites to downplay the extent of racial discrimination for most of the twentieth century. Scholars argued that black Brazilians failed to mobilize in large numbers because they were duped into thinking that racism was not a problem. Bailey demonstrates that this theory simply does not square with current survey data…

Read the entire book review here.

Spaces of Multiraciality: Critical Mixed Race Theory

University of Toronto
Geography  (B.A.) Program
2010-2011
Course Number: GGRD19H3
 
From Tiger Woods to Mariah Carey, the popular mixed race phenomenon has captured the popular imagination and revealed the contradictory logic of categorization underpinning racial divisions. We will explore the complexities of racial identity formation to illuminate the experiences of those who fall outside the prevailing definitions of racial identities.

For more information, click here.

A portrait of couples in mixed unions

Component of Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-008-X
Canadian Social Trends
2010-04-20
pages 68-80

Anne Milan, Senior Analyst
Demography Division

Hélène Maheux, Analyst
Immigration and Ethnocultural Section

Tina Chui, Chief
Immigration and Ethnocultural Section in the Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division

As Canada‘s population continues to become ethnoculturally diverse, there is greater opportunity for individuals to form conjugal relationships with someone from a different ethnocultural background. In this study, a mixed union, either marital or common-law, is based on one of two criteria: either one member of a couple belongs to a visible minority group and the other does not; or the couple belongs to different visible minority groups. Using data primarily from the 2006 Census of Population, this study examines the socio-demographic characteristics of mixed union couples in Canada. Studying mixed unions is important not only because these relationships reflect another aspect of the diversity of families today, but also for their implications in terms of social inclusion and identification with one or more visible minority groups, particularly for subsequent generations.

What you should know about this study

Visible minority status is self-reported and refers to the visible minority group to which the respondent belongs.  The Employment Equity Act defines visible minorities as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.” Under this definition, regulations specify the following groups as visible minorities: Chinese, South Asians, Blacks, Arabs, West Asians, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, Latin Americans, Japanese, Koreans and other visible minority groups, like Pacific Islanders.

Mixed couples refer to common-law or marital relationships comprised of one spouse or partner who is a member of a visible minority group and the other who is not, as well as couples comprised of two different visible minority group members. Mixed couples include both opposite-sex and same-sex couples unless indicated otherwise.

Data used are primarily from the 2006 Census of Population, with comparisons to 2001 data where appropriate. Throughout the paper, both person-level and couple-level data are used.

Person-level data are used for characteristics of individuals in mixed unions, such as age, sex, educational level, immigrant status and mother tongue. Couple-level data are more appropriate when analyzing characteristics of the union, for instance, whether it is a marriage or common-law relationship or if there are children present in the home.

Persons of multiple visible minority group status are individuals who reported belonging to more than one visible minority group by checking two or more mark-in circles on the census questionnaire, e.g., Black and South Asian.

List of Tables

• Table 1: Out-group pairing by visible minority group, 2006
• Table 2: Persons in couples and in mixed unions by visible minority group, 2006
• Table 3: Persons in mixed unions by place of birth and visible minority group, 2006
• Table 4: Persons in couples that were mixed unions by highest level of education, 2006
• Table 5: Census family median income by mixed union status, 2006
• Table 6: Percentage of couples in mixed unions by census metropolitan area, 2006
• Table 7: Children in two-parent families by visible minority status, 2006

List of Charts

• Chart 1: Higher proportion of Arab or West Asian, Black and South Asian men in couples were in mixed unions compared to women from these groups
• Chart 2: Longer history in Canada was associated with higher proportion of persons in mixed unions
• Chart 3: Young adults have highest proportion of mixed unions
• Chart 4: Persons in mixed unions are younger compared to those in non-mixed unions
• Chart 5: Persons in mixed unions have much higher levels of education than those in non-mixed unions
• Chart 6: Allophones in mixed unions reported using an official language at home more than allophones in non-mixed unions

Read the entire report here.

Canada’s mixing pot: Multiracial relationships growing at rapid pace

National Post
2010-04-20

Mary Vallis

The number of Canadians in mixed-race relationships and marriages is rising, still primarily a big city phenomenon, but a trend fuelled in part by romances in small cities, according to a new report released by Statistics Canada on Tuesday.

Between 2001 and 2006, mixed unions grew at a rapid pace (33%), more than five times the growth for all couples (6.0%), the agency says in a new report titled “A Portrait of Couples in Mixed Unions.”

According to the 2006 Census, 3.9% of the 7.4 million couples in Canada were “mixed unions,” meaning either one member of the relationship belonged to a visible minority or that both were members of different visible minorities. Fifteen years earlier, mixed unions accounted for 2.6% of all couples.

Residents of small cities with predominantly white populations like Saguenay, Que., Moncton, N.B., and Thunder Bay, Ont., boasted some of the highest percentages of visible minorities in mixed unions. Nearly 63% of all of the visible minorities in Saguenay had spouses or partners from other backgrounds. Saint John, N.B., Kelowna, B.C., Sudbury and Barrie also ranked high…

To read the entire story, click here.

The identity development of mixed race individuals in Canada

University of Alberta
Spring 2010
131 pages

Monica Das

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education in Psychological Studies in Education

The purpose of this study was to explore the identity development of mixed race individuals in a Western Canadian context. The case study methodology was used to guide the overall procedure and participant selection. A thematic analysis was used to analyze patterns in the data. Four individuals of mixed race parentage were interviewed and five themes emerged: (a) the influence of family, (b) the influence of childhood experiences, (c) the influence of physical appearance, (d) the influence of racism, and (e) the influence of adult experiences. The detailed explorations of the participants’ experiences add to the Canadian literature on mixed race identity development, which provides several counselling implications and directions for future research.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review
A Sociological Analysis of Race
A Historical Overview of Race Mixing
A Review of the Contemporary Mixed Race Experience
Identity Development
Racial Identity Development
Mixed Race Identity Development Model
Key Presenting Issues and Counselling Implications
Summary and Research Question

CHAPTER THREE
Methodology
Research Paradigm
Case Study Approach
Participants
Procedure
Data Analysis
Trustworthiness: An Evaluation of the Study
The Researcher
Ethical Considerations

CHAPTER FOUR
Findings from the Within-Case Analyses
Ko
Jessica
Alina
Steven

CHAPTER FIVE
Findings from the Cross-Case Analysis
The Influence of Family
The Influence of Childhood Experiences
The Influence of Physical Appearances
The Influence of Racism
The Influence of Adult Experiences

CHAPTER SIX
Discussion
Implications for Counselling and Education
Future Research Directions
Conclusions
References

Appendix A: Recruitment Handout
Appendix B: Information Letter to Participants and Informed Consent Form
Appendix C: Demographics Form
Appendix D: Interview Guide
Appendix E: Pre-Interview Activity Form

…My interest in this research topic stems from my personal experiences as a mixed race individual. My mother is from Czechoslovakia, my father is from India and I was born and raised in Canada. As a child, I was unaware of terms like interracial marriage or mixed race. Once I became aware of my mixed heritage as a young adult, I became curious as to why my racial and cultural identity were so different from either my Bengali or Czech relatives, or from most of the people around me. As I started to ask questions, I found deep commonalities with other mixed race individuals regardless of their particular racial mix. Additionally, I was amazed at the range and depth of opinions I encountered in casual conversations. It seemed that everyone had an opinion about mixed race individuals.

With this diversity in opinions, I was certain that I would find an overwhelming amount of academic data on the mixed race experience. I did find a significant volume of research on American Black-and-White mixed race people and the American history of anti-miscegenation. However, I was surprised at the minute amount of information available on non-Black-and-White mixed race individuals in general and the Canadian perspective in particular. When given the opportunity to conduct my own research as a Master’s student, I decided to explore the topic of non-Black-and-White mixed race individuals in a Canadian context. I hope that this information can be used to increase awareness of the unique issues that mixed race individuals face.

Consequently, the purpose of the present study is to explore the mixed race experience within its complex contemporary framework. The goal is to investigate the factors that influence the development of a mixed race identity. The information gathered from this study will provide a Canadian contribution to theories relating to racial identity development and a post-modern analysis of race as a socially constructed category. Moreover, this study explores the experiences of mixed race individuals that are not of Black and White parentage, which is a topic that is under-represented in the mixed race literature (Mahtani, 2001). A deeper understanding of the factors that influence the mixed race identity will add to the current literature by enhancing our knowledge of the Western Canadian, non-Black-and-White mixed race individual’s lived experience. Additionally, the results of the present study may help counsellors to increase their own awareness of mixed race issues by encouraging them to challenge any qualms they may consciously or unconsciously harbour about mixed race individuals. Considering the increasing mixed race population, it is important that researchers begin to focus on supportive measures to promote healthy mixed race identity development…

Read the entire thesis here.

One of the Family: Metis Culture in Nineteenth-Century Northwestern Saskatchewan

University of British Columbia Press
2010-02-22
360 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7748-1729-5

Brenda Macdougall, Chair in Métis Studies
University of Ottawa

In recent years there has been growing interest in the social and cultural attributes that define the Metis as both Aboriginal and a distinct people. The study of Metis identity formation has also become one of the most innovative ways to explore cultural encounters and change in North American history and anthropology.

In One of the Family, Brenda Macdougall draws on diverse written and oral sources and employs the concept of wahkootowin—the Cree term for a worldview that privileges family and values relatedness between all beings—to trace the emergence of a distinct Metis community at Île à la Crosse in northern Saskatchewan. Wahkootowin describes how relationships in the nineteenth century were supposed to work and helps to explain how the Metis negotiated with local economic and religious institutions while creating and nurturing—through marriage choices and living arrangements, adoption and the selection of godparents, economic decisions and employment—a society that emphasized family obligation and responsibility.

This path-breaking study showcases how one Metis community created a distinct identity rooted in Aboriginal values about family and shaped by the fur trade and the Roman Catholic Church. It also offers a model for future research and discussion that will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the fur trade or Metis culture and identity.

Table of Contents

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Methodology and Sources
• Note on Writing Conventions
• Introduction
• Chapter One: “They are strongly attached to the country of rivers, lakes, and forests”: The Social Landscapes of the Northwest
• Chapter Two: “The bond that connected one human being to another”: Social Construction of the Metis Family
• Chapter Three: “To live in the land of my mother”: Residency and Patronymic Connections Across the Northwest
• Chapter Four: “After a man has tasted of the comforts of married life this living alone comes pretty tough”: Family, Acculturation, and Roman Catholicism
• Chapter Five: “The only men obtainable who know the country and Indians are all married”: Family, Labour, and the HBC
• Chapter Six: “The HalfBreeds of this place always did and always will dance”: Competition, Freemen, and Contested Spaces
• Chapter Seven: “I Thought it advisable to furnish him”: Freemen to Free Traders in the Northwest Fur Trade
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects

Miscegenation Facts […From 1879]

Daily British Colonist
Vicoria, British Columbia
1879-10-07
21st Year
Page 1, 2nd Column

David W. Higgins, Editor and Proprietor

The child of colored parents of different tints, such as quadroon and mulatto, or mulatto and black, will be nearer to the tint of the darker parent.  If both parents of the same color, the child will be a shade darker, and singularly enough, the second child will be darker than the first, the third darker than the second, and so on to the last. In other words, a colored community, left to itself, is fatally destined to return to the original African black after a limited number of generations.  Thus, while each alliance with an individual of pure Caucasian blood brings the negro a step nearer to the white standard, the reverse is the case the moment the Caucasian element is withheld, and the color retrogrades from light to dark…

Continue reading the “facts” in this article here.