Mixed Race Studies

Color, culture or cousin: FSU researcher explores interracial dating

Florida State University News
Tallahassee, Florida
2019-11-15

Kara Irby, News and Media Relations Specialist

Shantel G. Buggs, assistant professor of sociology and African American studies. (FSU Photo/Bruce Palmer)

The U.S. Census predicts America will become a majority-minority country between 2040 and 2050, with great growth projected for multiracial populations.

A new study from Florida State University researcher Shantel G. Buggs examined how this growing population of multiracial women view interracial relationships and what that illustrates about American’s broader views about race.

Buggs wanted to determine how multiracial women classify interracial relationships and what factors influence their decision to engage with a potential suitor.

“As a multiracial person myself, I was always interested in what happens when multiracial people become adults who then have to navigate relationships with other people,” Buggs said. “It was a goal of this study to debunk this racial fetishizing that is common in society today — the idea that multiracial people are more attractive, are the best of both worlds and will end racism.”

Her findings are published in the Journal of Marriage and Family…

Read the entire article here.

Color, Culture, or Cousin? Multiracial Americans and Framing Boundaries in Interracial Relationships

Journal of Marriage and Family
Volume 81, Issue 5 (October 2019)
pages 1221-1236
DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12583

Shantel Gabrieal Buggs, Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies
Florida State University

Abstract

• Objective: This article analyzes how some multiracial people—the “products” of interracial relationships—conceptualize what counts as an interracial relationship and how they discuss the circumstances that influence these definitions.
• Background: Scholars have argued that the added complexity expanding multiracial populations contribute to dating and marriage‐market conditions requires additional study; this article expands on the limited research regarding how multiracial people perceive interraciality.
• Method: The article uses in‐depth interviews with self‐identified multiracial women (N = 30) who used online dating platforms to facilitate their dating lives in the following three cities in Texas: Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.
• Results: In framing their relationships through lenses centered around skin color, cultural difference, and “familiarity” in terms of seeing potential partners as similar to non‐White male family members, multiracial women illustrate varied and overlapping means of describing their intimate relationships, providing additional nuance to sociological understandings of shifts in preferences and norms around partner choice across racial/ethnic lines and opening up opportunities to continue the exploration of the impact of racial inequality on partner choice.
• Conclusion: Multiracial people internalize racial, gendered, and fetishistic framings about potential partners similarly to monoracial people, demonstrating how racial boundaries and degrees of intimacy are (re)constructed for this growing demographic in the United States.

Read or purchase the article here.

Noel Ignatiev, scholar who called for abolishing whiteness, dies at 78

The Los Angeles Times
2019-11-11

Sewell Chan, Deputy Managing Editor, News

Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book “How the Irish Became White” was influential and controversial, touching off a firestorm of debate.

Noel Ignatiev, a former steelworker who became a historian known for his work on race and class and his call to abolish “whiteness,” died at Banner-University Medical Center Tucson on Saturday. He was 78. The cause was an intestinal infarction, according to Kingsley Clarke, a longtime friend.

Ignatiev’s best-known book, “How the Irish Became White,” was immediately influential and controversial upon its publication in 1995. It touched off a firestorm of debate at the time at academic conferences and in the pages of newspapers. In time his view that whiteness is a social and political construction — and not a phenomenon with a biological basis — has become mainstream. The resurgence of white identity politics and white nationalism in recent years made Ignatiev’s arguments relevant to a new generation of readers who argued the notion that race is more about power and privilege rather than about ancestry, or even identity.

The book detailed how the Irish, who had first come to North America as indentured servants and were reviled by the more settled populations of English and Dutch Americans, became, by the mid-19th century, accepted as white. Sadly, Ignatiev argued, the Irish became incorporated into whiteness just before the Civil War, through support for slavery and violence against free African Americans. To become white, Ignatiev wrote, did not mean to be middle class, much less rich, but rather to be accepted as equal citizens and to have access to the same neighborhoods, schools and jobs as others…

Read the entire obituary here.

Beyond being either-or: identification of multiracial and multiethnic Japanese

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Published online: 2019-10-30
DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2019.1654155

Sayaka Osanami Törngren
Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare
Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden

Yuna Sato
Graduate School of Human Relations
Keio University, Tokyo, Japan

Although the number of multiracial and multiethnic Japanese who are socially recognised and identified as haafu (mixed) has increased due to a rise in intermarriages, the identities and experiences of mixed persons in Japan are seldom critically analysed. Based on interviews with 29 multiracial and multiethnic individuals residing in Japan, this article explores not only how multiracial and multiethnic Japanese identify themselves but also how they feel they are identified by others in society. The analysis shows that multiracial and multiethnic persons self-identify in a way that goes beyond either-or categories and the binary notions of Japanese/foreigner. It also reveals how both multiracial and multiethnic persons face a gap between self-identity and ascribed identity and that they negotiate this gap in various ways. However, the gap and the negotiation process that multiracial persons face differ to those of multiethnic persons. Multiracial persons whose mixedness is phenotypically visible experience more constraints in their ethnic options and have more difficulty in passing as Japanese, whereas multiethnic persons whose mixedness is invisible can pass as Japanese more easily but face constraints in their ethnic option to be identified as mixed and in claiming their multiethnic background.

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Who Do Multiracials Consider Part of Their Racial In-Group?

Social Psychological and Personality Science
First Published 2019-10-24
11 pages
DOI: 10.1177/1948550619876639

A. Chyei Vinluan, Graduate Students
Department of Psychology
Tufts University, Medford Massachusetts

Jessica D. Remedios, Principal Investigator
Social Identity and Stigma Laboratory
Tufts University, Medford Massachusetts

We propose that Multiracials have flexible racial in-groups in that Multiracials can potentially consider members from three target racial groups as in-group members: same-race Multiracials, racial component Monoracials, and different-race Multiracials. Across three studies, we find that Black/Whites and Asian/Whites consider racial component Minorities (i.e., Blacks or Asians) and different-race Multiracials who share their Minority identity (i.e., Black/Asians) as in-group members in addition to, but to a lesser extent than, same-race Multiracials (i.e., Black/Whites or Asian/Whites). Moreover, participants who reported frequently encountering discrimination related to their Black or Asian backgrounds were more likely to consider individuals who share their Minority background as in-group members. Implications for Multiracials’ psychological well-being and the broader intergroup literature are discussed.

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Psychophysiological Stress Responses to Bicultural and Biracial Identity Denial

Journal of Social Issues
First published: 2019-08-14
DOI: 10.1111/josi.12347

Analia F. Albuja, Social Psychology Ph.D. Student
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Sarah E. Gaither, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Diana T. Sanchez, Associate Professor of Psychology
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Brenda Straka, Ph.D. Student
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Rebecca Cipollina, Social Psychology Ph.D. Student
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Bicultural and biracial individuals (those who identify either with two cultures or two races) are often denied membership in the groups with which they identify, an experience referred to as identity denial. The present studies used an experimental design to test the effects of identity denial on physiological and self‐reported stress, and naturalistic behavioral responses in a controlled laboratory setting for both bicultural (Study 1; N = 126) and biracial (Study 2; N = 119) individuals. The results suggest that compared to an identity‐irrelevant denial, bicultural participants who were denied their American identity and Minority/White biracial individuals who were denied their White identity reported greater stress and were more likely to verbally reassert their identity. Bicultural participants also demonstrated slower cortisol recovery compared to those in the identity‐irrelevant denial condition. The results are the first to highlight the negative physical health consequences of identity denial using an experimental design for both bicultural and biracial populations, underscoring the necessity to promote belongingness and acceptance.

Read or purchase the article here.

New Evidence of Skin Color Bias and Health Outcomes Using Sibling Difference Models: A Research Note

Demography
Volume 56, Issue 2 (April 2019)
pages 753-762
DOI: 10.1007/s13524-018-0756-6

Thomas Laidley, Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute of Behavioral Science
University of Colorado

Benjamin Domingue, Assistant Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of Sociology
Stanford University

Piyapat Sinsub
Princeton University

Kathleen Mullan Harris, James Haar Distinguished Professor of Sociology
University of North Carolina

Dalton Conley, Henry Putnam University Professor in Sociology
Princeton University

In this research note, we use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to determine whether darker skin tone predicts hypertension among siblings using a family fixed-effects analytic strategy. We find that even after we account for common family background and home environment, body mass index, age, sex, and outdoor activity, darker skin color significantly predicts hypertension incidence among siblings. In a supplementary analysis using newly released genetic data from Add Health, we find no evidence that our results are biased by genetic pleiotropy, whereby differences in alleles among siblings relate to coloration and directly to cardiovascular health simultaneously. These results add to the extant evidence on color biases that are distinct from those based on race alone and that will likely only heighten in importance in an increasingly multiracial environment as categorization becomes more complex.

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Crossing the racial line: The fluidity vs. fixedness of racial identity

Self and Identity
Published online: 2019-09-04
DOI: 10.1080/15298868.2019.1662839

Payton A. Small, Graduate Student
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
University of California, Santa Barbara

Brenda Major, Distinguished Professor
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
University of California, Santa Barbara

Five studies investigated perceptions of individuals whose identity claims violate societal ascriptions of group membership. Studies 1–3 showed that perceivers dislike targets whose claimed race/ethnicity does not match either of their parent’s racial/ethnic ancestry, delegitimize their identity claims, and deny their claimed identity relative to targets whose claimed race/ethnicity matches at least one of their parents’ race/ethnicity backgrounds. Study 4 showed that mismatched religious identities are not similarly devalued, suggesting that perceived misrepresentation of racial/ethnic identity holds special significance as a violation of social norms. Study 5 found that racial essentialism was associated with increased disparagement of targets with two White parents who claim a Black identity, but not of targets with two Black parents who claim a White identity.

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Context-dependence of race self-classification: Results from a highly mixed and unequal middle-income country

PLOS ONE
2019-05-16
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0216653

Dóra Chor
Department of Epidemiology and Quantitative Methods
National School of Public Health
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Alexandre Pereira
Laboratory of Genetics and Molecular Cardiology, Heart Institute (InCor)
University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

Antonio G. Pacheco
Scientific Computing Program
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil

Ricardo V. Santos
Department of Epidemiology and Quantitative Methods
National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
Department of Anthropology, Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil

Maria J. M. Fonseca
Department of Epidemiology and Quantitative Methods
National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Maria I. Schmidt
Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology, School of Medicine
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS Brazil

Bruce B. Duncan
Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology, School of Medicine
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS Brazil

Sandhi M. Barreto, Faculty of Medicine & Clinical Hospital
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG Brazil

Estela M. L. Aquino
Institute of Collective Health
Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, BA Brazil

José G. Mill
Department of Physiological Sciences
Federal University of Espirito Santo, Vitória, ES Brazil

Maria delCB Molina
Department of Physiological Science
Federal University of Espirito Santo, Vitória, ES Brazil

Luana Giatti, Faculty of Medicine & Clinical Hospital
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG Brazil

Maria daCC Almeida
Gonçalo Muniz Institute, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Salvador, BA Brazil

Isabela Bensenor
Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research, University Hospital
University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP Brazil

Paulo A. Lotufo
Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research
University Hospital, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP Brazil

Ethnic-racial classification criteria are widely recognized to vary according to historical, cultural and political contexts. In Brazil, the strong influence of individual socio-economic factors on race/colour self-classification is well known. With the expansion of genomic technologies, the use of genomic ancestry has been suggested as a substitute for classification procedures such as self-declaring race, as if they represented the same concept. We investigated the association between genomic ancestry, the racial composition of census tracts and individual socioeconomic factors and self-declared race/colour in a cohort of 15,105 Brazilians. Results show that the probability of self-declaring as black or brown increases according to the proportion of African ancestry and varies widely among cities. In Porto Alegre, where most of the population is white, with every 10% increase in the proportion of African ancestry, the odds of self-declaring as black increased 14 times (95%CI 6.08–32.81). In Salvador, where most of the population is black or brown, that increase was of 3.98 times (95%CI 2.96–5.35). The racial composition of the area of residence was also associated with the probability of self-declaring as black or brown. Every 10% increase in the proportion of black and brown inhabitants in the residential census tract increased the odds of self-declaring as black by 1.33 times (95%CI 1.24–1.42). Ancestry alone does not explain self-declared race/colour. An emphasis on multiple situational contexts (both individual and collective) provides a more comprehensive framework for the study of the predictors of self-declared race/colour, a highly relevant construct in many different scenarios, such as public policy, sociology and medicine.

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How States Make Race: New Evidence from BrazilHow States Make Race: New Evidence from Brazil

Sociological Science
Volume 5, (2018-11-26)
pages 722-751
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a31

Stanley R. Bailey, Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

Fabrício M. Fialho, Postdoctoral Researcher
Centre de Recherches Internationales, Sciences Po Paris, France

Mara Loveman, Professor of Sociology
University of California, Berkeley

The Brazilian state recently adopted unprecedented race-targeted affirmative action in government hiring and university admissions. Scholarship would predict the state’s institutionalization of racial categories has “race-making” effects. In this article, we ask whether the Brazilian state’s policy turnabout has affected racial subjectivities on the ground, specifically toward mirroring the categories used by the state. To answer, we conceptualize race as multidimensional and leverage two of its dimensions—lay identification and government classification (via open-ended and closed-ended questions, respectively)—to introduce a new metric of state race-making: a comparison of the extent of alignment between lay and government dimensions across time. Logistic regression on large-sample survey data from before the policy turn (1995) and well after its diffusion (2008) reveals an increased use of state categories as respondents’ lay identification in the direction of matching respondents’ government classification. We conclude that the Brazilian state is making race but not from scratch nor in ways that are fully intended.

Read the entire article here.