Mixed Race Studies

JewAsian: race, religion, and identity for America’s Newest Jews [Review]

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Volume 40, 2017 – Issue 13
pages 2380-2382
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1329544

Hasia R. Diner, Paul And Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History
New York University

Helen Kiyong Kim and Noah Samuel Leavitt, JewAsian: Race, Religion, and Identity for America’s Newest Jews (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016).

Sociologists Helen Kiyong Kim and Noah Samuel Leavitt, a married couple, he of Jewish background, presumably European, and she of Korean derivation, have, with this slim book, launched an important topic for further research and scholarly inquiry. The two authors explore here, using the conventional methods of sociological study, a trend, presumably new and emblematic of postmodernity. This trend can be accessed by even the most casual readers nearly every Sunday in the wedding announcements in The New York Times‘ Style section. Like JewAsian—obviously a neologism—The Times postings chronicle the not uncommon phenomenon of, for the most part, Jewish men, bearers of identifiable Jewish surnames, marrying women marked by their names and by the accompanying photographs identifiable as Asian, primarily individuals who themselves or their forbears hailed from China, Korea, and Vietnam.

The text of the wedding announcements, besides detailing the usually impressive occupations and educational backgrounds of bride and groom, and those of their parents, fit well with this fascinating book. Nearly all the nuptial notices indicate that a rabbi or cantor will be officiating at the ceremony, indicating that Jews, certainly the non-Orthodox among them who constitute the American majority, have embraced this emerging reality of marriages across lines of race, ethnicity, and religion. So too the fact that the brides in these marriages have chosen to have their unions solemnized by a member of the Jewish clergy, rather than by someone representing Christianity or Buddhism or any other religious tradition associated with Asian and Asian American culture, represents an important contemporary reality which Kim and Leavitt explore in their book.

The wedding announcements, like the much publicized union between FaceBook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, sweethearts since their Harvard days and like the data presented in JewAsian, point to the trend by which the non-Jewish, Asian women who marry Jewish men become integrated and absorbed into the fabric of American Jewish life. Kim and Leavitt, who for the most part leave out the details of their personal journey as an Asian and Jewish couple, focusing carefully on the pairs whom they interviewed, do appropriately indicate in the Preface that they met and fell in love while graduate students at the University of Chicago…

Read or purchase the review here.

Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption

University of Nebraska Press
October 2018
352 pages
12 photographs
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4962-0746-3
eBook (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-4962-1088-3
eBook (EPUB) ISBN: 978-1-4962-1086-9

Susan Devan Harness, Member
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes

In Bitterroot Susan Devan Harness traces her journey to understand the complexities and struggles of being an American Indian child adopted by a white couple and living in the rural American West. When Harness was fifteen years old, she questioned her adoptive father about her “real” parents. He replied that they had died in a car accident not long after she was born—except they hadn’t, as Harness would learn in a conversation with a social worker a few years later.

Harness’s search for answers revolved around her need to ascertain why she was the target of racist remarks and why she seemed always to be on the outside looking in. New questions followed her through college and into her twenties when she started her own family. Meeting her biological family in her early thirties generated even more questions. In her forties Harness decided to get serious about finding answers when, conducting oral histories, she talked with other transracial adoptees. In her fifties she realized that the concept of “home” she had attributed to the reservation existed only in her imagination.

Making sense of her family, the American Indian history of assimilation, and the very real—but culturally constructed—concept of race helped Harness answer the often puzzling questions of stereotypes, a sense of nonbelonging, the meaning of family, and the importance of forgiveness and self-acceptance. In the process Bitterroot also provides a deep and rich context in which to experience life.

Colorism: Raising A Dark Skinned Daughter As A Light Skinned Woman In America

Blavity
2018-10-11

Angela Dennis

“We are beautiful because of our blackness, not in spite of it.”

As a mother at times it is hard enough to get through the everyday struggles of parenting, and as a black single mother there comes a whole host of other obstacles we are challenged with. In society we often discuss black parenting in regards to race, but rarely do we talk about parenting in regards to colorism. Colorism is an issue that has been present within the black community for quite some time. It is a symptom of racism. To educate those that are unaware or unclear, it is prejudiced attitudes or discrimination based on the tone or shade of one’s skin complexion. Racism on the other hand, is prejudgment against people based on their perceived racial status. Colorism can also be a symptom of racism.

Slave owners engaged in colorism with the practice of separating and giving preference to slaves with lighter complexions. This included allowing them to work indoors and assigning them with less grueling work. Dark skinned slaves were treated much harsher and inferior to their lighter counterparts. Later on, the brown paper bag test would be implemented within our own community to determine admittance. If your skin was darker than the bag, you did not merit inclusion. Today, the paper bag test is gone but we see reminders of how colorism continues to affect black people everyday.

I myself, as a light skinned woman of color with bi-racial heritage have experienced it throughout my life…

Read the entire article here.

Negotiating the (Non)Negotiable: Connecting ‘Mixed-Race’ Identities to ‘Mixed-Race’ Families

Journal of Intercultural Studies
Volume 39, 2018 – Issue 4: Critical Mixed Race in Global Perspective
Published 2018-08-01
pages 414-428
DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2018.1486292

Mengxi Pang
Department of Sociology
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Whilst being a global phenomenon, ‘mixed-race’ means different things in different contexts. ‘Mixed-race’ individuals make sense of their mixed heritages by drawing on interactions with intimate others from their social networks. Based on an empirical study conducted in Scotland, this paper seeks to explore the linkage between mixed identities, society and families. Examining first-person accounts derived from interviews with self-identified mixed Scots, this paper delineates the dynamics involved in ‘mixed-race’ identifications and it contends that the ways in which mixed individuals make sense of their mixedness are profoundly influenced by their early experiences at home. This paper analyses qualitative data from in-depth interviews to examine the interrelationship between expressed identities and their experiences at home. The focus of analysis is placed upon the ways in which families are factored into the process of negotiating racialised differences by those who had grown up with limited knowledge about their non-Scottish heritage. This paper suggests that the role of families is two-folded: on one hand, it generates symbolic resources for children to negotiate racialised difference; on the other hand, it serves as a key site for the development of racial ideologies. The two roles of families shed light to understand the formation of mixed identities.

Read or purchase the article here.

Call for papers for the special issue of The Journal of Early Adolescence: “Biracial, Multiracial, and Multiethnic Adolescents”

Editor in Chief: Alexander T. Vazsonyi
University of Kentucky

Guest Editors: Adrienne Nishina and Melissa Witkow

Because of their ethnic/racial ambiguity, multiethnic youth (youth from more than one ethnic/racial background) are still sometimes ignored in developmental research. Yet, by the year 2060, multiethnic youth are projected to comprise almost 10% of the total youth population in the United States, rendering subsample deletion impractical.

The Journal of Early Adolescence invites papers that explicitly examine early adolescents from multiethnic/multiracial backgrounds. We are particularly interested in papers that use a variety of methods to identify these youth. As such, papers should include clear descriptions of how multiethnic/multiracial status was identified, and why a particular method was chosen.

In terms of content, papers can be methodological or descriptive in focus – for example, providing and assessing conceptual frameworks on how and when to classify multiethnic youth as their own group as opposed to a different classification. Papers can also be process-oriented (e.g., how better understanding multiethnic youth can help the field understand more basic developmental processes related to ethnicity). In this respect, papers can focus solely on multiethnic youth, or it can be comparative in nature.

All papers should include a section labeled “Practical Recommendations” in the discussion that provides recommendations for researchers moving forward, as well as the rationale on which these recommendations are based.

Authors of potential submissions can contact Adrienne Nishina (anishina@ucdavis.edu) or Melissa Witkow (mwitkow@willamette.edu) if they have questions about the suitability of their study for this special issue.

Submissions for this special issue are due December 15, 2018.

Submit your manuscript today: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/earlyadolescence

Critical Mixed Race in Global Perspective

Journal of Intercultural Studies
Volume 38 (2018)
2018-08-01

• Introduction
  • Critical Mixed Race in Global Perspective: An Introduction / Erica Chito Childs
• Hierarchies of Mixing: Navigations and Negotiations
  • An Unwanted Weed: Children of Cross-region Unions Confront Intergenerational Stigma of Caste, Ethnicity and Religion / Reena Kukreja
  • Mixed Race Families in South Africa: Naming and Claiming a Location / Heather M. Dalmage
  • Negotiating the (Non)Negotiable: Connecting ‘Mixed-Race’ Identities to ‘Mixed-Race’ Families / Mengxi Pang
  • Linguistic Cultural Capital among Descendants of Mixed Couples in Catalonia, Spain: Realities and Inequalities / Dan Rodríguez-García, Miguel Solana-Solana, Anna Ortiz-Guitart & Joanna L. Freedman
  • ‘There is Nothing Wrong with Being a Mulatto’: Structural Discrimination and Racialised Belonging in Denmark / Mira C. Skadegård & Iben Jensen
  • Exceptionalism with Non-Validation: The Social Inconsistencies of Being Mixed Race in Australia / Stephanie B. Guy
• Mixed Matters Through a Wider Lens
  • Recognising Selves in Others: Situating Dougla Manoeuvrability as Shared Mixed-Race Ontology / Sue Ann Barratt & Aleah Ranjitsingh
  • What’s Love Got To Do With It? Emotional Authority and State Regulation of Interracial/national Couples in Ireland / Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain
  • Re-viewing Race and Mixedness: Mixed Race in Asia and the Pacific / Zarine L. Rocha

Read or purchase this special issue here.

Converse, Converse

2016
video/sound installation: 2-channel color HD video projection,
4-channel audio, 2 floating screens, bench
Projected image size: 14’3”x 8’, TRT 16 minutes

Elizabeth M. Webb

Converse, Converse is a two-channel video installation that creates a virtual conversation between family members who have never met.

At age 18, I discovered a family history that had gone unspoken for a generation: my father’s father, whom I never met, was African-American—my father had been passing as white. He had also decided to raise our family as such, giving us no knowledge of our black ancestry. I have since connected with that side of my family and spoken with my father about his decision. Through a process of recording conversations with my father and separate conversations with the women I learned were my second cousins, I positioned myself as a go-between, filming each side watching the other’s interviews and finally, the reactions to their respective reactions.

They married in 1968 as a nation fought for civil rights. 50 years later an interracial couple looks back

The Los Angeles Times
2018-05-29

Colleen Shalby, Community Engagement Editor

Charles and Janice Tyler are photographed in a hallway lined with family photographs including their wedding day photo, at right, at their Huntington Beach home. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Their wedding day was bookended by the deaths of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in April and Robert F. Kennedy in June. The Vietnam War raged abroad as a fight for civil rights continued at home.

For many, 1968 was marked by violence, bloodshed and protest. For Janice, a white woman, and Charles, a black man, 1968 marked the unlikely beginning of a 50-year marriage filled with four children and 11 grandchildren.

Interracial marriages were by no means a societal norm the year the Tylers wed. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which struck down the remaining laws that banned such unions, was handed down just one year before. Charles and Janice were not directly affected by the case – Illinois wasn’t one of the remaining 16 states. They did face prejudice, nonetheless.

“Back then, you just didn’t see black and white,” Charles said about the racial divide…

Read the entire article here.

In Celebration of Loving Day: Raising Multiracial Kids

PBS Parents
Expert Tips & Advice
2018-06-12

Marj Kleinman

One year ago today, I met six-year-old Mattie (below) at a Loving Day event. Families had gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia, the 1967 landmark Supreme Court decision that made interracial marriage legal across the United States.

Between blowing bubbles and dancing, Mattie told me: “Today is a special day and it doesn’t matter if you’re black, brown or any other color; it’s just about your love.”

Her dad, Allen, shared, “It’s important to be here because we want the future to be brighter, safer and more diverse for them. We want to show them that that exists now and make it more commonplace going forward.”

In the last 50 years, the number of interracial marriages has increased dramatically — as has public acceptance of these marriages. Yet parents still face a variety of challenges around raising multiracial kids. Allen and his wife, Kelly (with their kids, below) said that they sometimes face stares and the question, “Is that really your child?”…

Read the entire article here.

Tangled Roots: Real Life Stories from Mixed Race Britain

Tangled Roots
2015-12-11
205 pages
ISBN: 978-0993482403

Edited by:

Katy Massey

12% of UK households are mixed race. These are our stories.

The Tangled Roots book brings together over 30 writers to answer the question: What is life like for mixed families in Britain today?

Five leading authors—Bernardine Evaristo MBE, Sarfraz Manzoor, Charlotte Williams OBE, Diana Evans and Hannah Lowe—together with 27 members of the public tell the story of their mixed lives with heart-breaking honesty, humour and compassion.