Mixed Race Studies

Mixed Heritage Week 2015: AIDE Presents: “What Are You?” Exploring Biracial and Multiracial Identity (DICE)

The Ohio State University
Student Life Multicultural Center, Alonso Family Room
3034 Ohio Union, 1739 N. High Street
Columbus, Ohio
Thursday, 2015-03-26, 20:00-21:00 EDT (Local Time)

This presentation will provide an overview of the changing racial demographics in the United States in relation to multiracial people. This will include identifying issues multiracial college students face, U.S. Census data, examples of multiracial microaggressions, and examples of the use of multiracial identity in modern pop culture…

For more information click here.

Panel discusses effect of race in relationships in second interracial dating panel

The Daily Northwestern: Northwestern and Evanston’s Only Daily News Source Since 1881
Evanston, Illinois
2015-03-06

Emily Chin, Assistant Campus Editor

Jakara Hubbard said she has been told throughout her life that her race is a problem and must be difficult to deal with.

Hubbard, who identifies as mixed race, spoke Thursday about different perspectives about mixed-race people during a panel on interracial dating at Northwestern.

The panel, hosted by the Mixed Race Student Coalition, discussed how relationship dynamics differ in monoracial and interracial relationships before a room of more than 80 people. The panel was a celebration of Loving Days, a series of events that commemorate the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which legalized interracial marriage.

Panelists included Hubbard, a couple and family counselor, Cristina Ortiz, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and Kai Green, a postdoctoral fellow at NU…

Read the entire article here.

Association of Mixed Students hosts celebratory ‘Loving Week’

Student Life: the independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878
Volume 136, Number 38 (Thursday, 2015-02-12)
Page 3

Noa Yadidi, Staff Reporter

Featuring speed dating, free cupcakes and a co-programmed dance, this year’s Loving Week, hosted by the Association of Mixed Students, kicked off Monday in commemoration of the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia.

The group organized a week’s worth of activities to celebrate the case, which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Mixed decided to hold the event in proximity to Valentine’s Day because it fit in well with the themes of love and acceptance.

In continuing the weeklong celebration, students can participate in a speed-dating event at Ursa’s Stageside Thursday night and a dance on Friday night.

Students in Mixed feel that it is especially important to celebrate the individuality and uniqueness of mixed-race students at Washington University…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed 101: Creating a Space to Explore Mixed Race Identity

Duke University
Durham, North Carolina 27708
Counseling & Psych Services (CAPS)
Resource Room 0010
Bryan Center – Multicultural Center
Thursdays, 17:00-18:30 EST (Local Time) on February 12, 19, 26, and March 5

Marcella Wagner and Cat Goyeneche

CAPS is offering a weekly group for students who identify as mixed or multiracial to dialogue and explore our experiences of being mixed race.

For more information, click here.

Obama meets with 10 unsuspecting students for hourlong roundtable

The Stanford Daily
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
2015-02-13

Victor Xu, Desk Editor

Vicki Niu ’18 (right) was one of 10 students who participated in an hourlong roundtable with President Barack Obama on Friday afternoon. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

Rio LaVigne ’15 signed up to meet several White House officials after the morning session of today’s cybersecurity summit. She did not, however, expect to meet President Barack Obama.

Earlier this week, a group of 10 students with interests in cybersecurity was chosen by various Stanford professors and academics to potentially attend a roundtable meeting with “senior White House officials.” It was not until yesterday afternoon that the meeting was confirmed. And it was not until after Obama’s speech, in a back room of Memorial Auditorium, that the students figured out that they might be meeting the president.

“We walked into the room and pretty quickly noticed there was a nametag in front of every seat except one,” LaVigne said. “The table’s a horseshoe shape, and the one seat that was missing was the one in the very back in the center. It was like, ‘Hmm, okay. That’s interesting. I wonder who’s going to sit there. Someone who doesn’t need a nametag?’”…

Read the entire article here.

Dorothy Roberts: Bringing Different Perspectives into Class

University of Pennsylvania
Multimedia
2015-02-12

When Dorothy Roberts was 3 months old, she moved with her parents from Chicago to Liberia, where her mother, Iris, had worked as a young woman after leaving Jamaica.

It was the first of Dorothy’s many trips abroad, and one during which her father, Robert, took a bunch of photographs and filmed home movies with his 16-millimeter camera. The Roberts family moved back to Chicago when Dorothy was 2, and she can recall weekly screenings of the 16-milimeter reels from Liberia in the living room.

“I had a very strong interest in learning about other parts of the world from when I was very little,” says Roberts, the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor. “My whole childhood revolved around learning about other parts of the world and engaging with people from around the world.”…

Read the entire spotlight here.

First Black Elected to Head Harvard’s Law Review

The New York Times
1990-02-06

Fox Butterfield

BOSTON, Feb. 5—  The Harvard Law Review, generally considered the most prestigious in the country, elected the first black president in its 104-year history today. The job is considered the highest student position at Harvard Law School.

The new president of the Review is Barack Obama, a 28-year-old graduate of Columbia University who spent four years heading a community development program for poor blacks on Chicago’s South Side before enrolling in law school. His late father, Barack Obama, was a finance minister in Kenya and his mother, Ann Dunham, is an American anthropologist now doing fieldwork in Indonesia. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii.

“The fact that I’ve been elected shows a lot of progress,” Mr. Obama said today in an interview. “It’s encouraging.

“But it’s important that stories like mine aren’t used to say that everything is O.K. for blacks. You have to remember that for every one of me, there are hundreds or thousands of black students with at least equal talent who don’t get a chance,” he said, alluding to poverty or growing up in a drug environment…

Read the entire article here.

Claiming Race, Identity and a Right to Education

Mixed Roots Stories
2015-02-02

Briellen Griffin, Doctoral Student of sociology in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies
School of Education
Loyola University Chicago

It is my job to think about school. Everyday, I read, write, and speak about education. I ask, and often try to answer, the big questions. Like, why do we have schools? Or, what is the purpose of education? Even more specifically, how do I make sure all kids get the education they deserve? Since I now have my own children, these questions have taken on new meaning in my life. They have become personal. More than I expected, they have become questions that challenge who we are; who I am and who my children will become.

When I think back to my earliest years of schooling, I can’t pinpoint a specific moment when I knew that I was getting a different education that my friends. I grew up in urban public schools, not unlike the one my own kids attend today. I LOVED SCHOOL. I mean, LOVED it. All parts. Carrying the milk crate for snack, practicing handwriting, chasing friends on the playground. Later, the love grew to encompass algebra and writing, student council and more writing… I was good at school and that made every moment satisfying and fulfilling.

At some point, I began to realize that I got more credit than I deserved. It wasn’t just that I was good at what I did. Maybe, I thought, it wasn’t even that I was better than anyone else at school, at all. It did have something to do with having blond hair and blue eyes. It had to do with feeling free in a place that didn’t criminalize me. It had to do with looking white.

I am, perhaps, one of the more stereotypical American multiracial blends, one that connotes the taboo of race-mixing specific to slavery in this country. My mother is white and my father is Black, though his heritage includes European & American Indian and is evidenced by a “high yellow” complexion and wavy black hair. What is less stereotypical about my multiracial identity is that I look white, especially to most white people. And the result is that I benefit from white privilege…

Read the entire article here.

Today’s college students see no problem with multiracial relationships

College
USA Today
2014-01-08

Aja Frost
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Had Kim Kardashian and Kanye West gotten married 48 years ago, they would have probably been met with more policemen than paparazzi. That’s because interracial marriages weren’t legalized in the U.S. until 1967.

Interracial relationships are more common than ever. In 1960, just 0.4% of marriages were interracial. A recent study found that number had increased to 15% for newlyweds.

Nowhere is the growing acceptance and practice of multiracial relationships more common than on college campuses.

“Younger people aren’t tied down with all the old racial stereotypes,” says Dr. Erica Chito-Childs, a sociology professor at Hunter College in New York City and author of two books on interracial marriage. “They’re more likely to have grown up with a favorite musical entertainer [who] is African-American or of a different race. They’ve grown up watching shows or cartoon shows that are multiracial. And depending on where they live, they’ve probably gone to school with friends that are of a different race.”…

…A survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 43% of all Americans believe the rise in intermarriages has been a good thing. However, among 18- to 29-year-olds, a majority 61% approve of interracial marriage and 93% favor multiracial dating. The approval for multiracial marriages rises in accordance with college education levels.

But Dr. Chito-Childs cautions against getting too excited about the statistics surrounding multiracial relationships…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed College Students: WHO vs. WHAT

NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education
2014-12-24

Aaron Moore, Residence Life: Hall Director
Ohio State University

Over the past few weeks I have read Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories (2014) and was extremely pleased with the thought provoking and eye opening narratives that were shared by the many students included in this book. I decided to read this book as a means of furthering my understanding of identity and how students come to understand who they are, but specifically, for individuals who identify as multiracial. I teach a Social Justice education course and understanding the racial landscape is often tough for students when they look at understanding themselves and relating to others, but grasping that there is not a “binary” if you will as it relates to how one identifies can be a challenging topic to explore and a tough even tougher for individuals trying to answer the question of “who am I.” When reading this book and the narratives I often had moments where I shook my head and understood what was being shared, but as I worked to connect with each student sharing their story, I found myself clothed with empathy as I tried to imagine what it must be like to answer the following:

• What are you?
• What does it take to be noticed?
• Is there a “better” race to identify with?
• How do I fight for how I want to be seen?

The list went on. The experiences of students who identify as being multiracial is not one of understanding, but is often one that presents itself with more questions than answers…

Read the entire article here.