Mixed Race Studies

Counseling the Multiracial Population: Couples, Individuals, and Families

Microtraining Associates
2003
01:15:00

Kelley Kenney

Mark Kenney

This film presents the worldview experiences of interracial couples, multiracial individuals, and multiracial families including trans-racial adoptive families. It also makes clear suggestions for action in the interview.

Six live demonstrations showcase typical issues such as concerns and challenges faced by the multiracial population, acceptance and respect by society and family, questions of identity, positive identity development, and navigating cultural worldview differences.

Read the leader guide here.

Multiethnic Adults Grapple With Questions of Identity

KQED News
San Francisco, California
2015-10-14

Adizah Eghan

In his 1964 Nobel Prize lecture, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described humanity as a “world house,” filled with family of all backgrounds who must somehow learn to live with each other.

Within the borders of our countries, cities and states, our own homes are increasingly becoming multi-ethnic, multiracial microcosms of the greater world house to which King refers.

Today, nearly one in six newlyweds marries across racial or ethnic lines. If we continue in this direction, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that the multiracial population will triple by 2060…

On the most recent episode of So Well Spoken, we dove into the complex world of multiethnic families, interracial marriages and cross-cultural adoptions. How do families handle racial issues and celebrate who they are?

Read the entire article here. Listen to the episode (00:51:26) here.

Bill de Blasio, Chirlane McCray are now empty nesters as daughter goes to college

The New York Daily News
2015-09-17

Jennifer Fermino, City Hall Bureau Chief

Chiara de Blasio, seen here with her mom, First Lady Chirlane McCray, left for college on Thursday. David Wexler/New York Daily News

The city’s First Family is officially empty Gracie Mansion-ers.

Chiara de Blasio left for college Thursday, marking the first time in 21 years that Mayor de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, won’t have one of their kids living under their roof.

Chiara’s younger brother, Dante, left for his freshman year at Yale in late August.

“In a few hours, I will be experiencing the empty nest for the very first time,” a bittersweet de Blasio told the Daily News.

He said it’s the first time they haven’t had a child at the house since Dec. 6. 1994 — Chiara’s birthday…

Read the entire article here.

Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide

Heritage Press Publications
2015-09-06
192 pages
9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1937660666

Sarah Ratliff

Bryony Sutherland

Good, bad, ugly and illuminating-everyone has an opinion on race. As biracial people continue trending, the discussion is no longer about a singular topic, but is more like playing a game of multi-level chess. The anthology, Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide, cites the experiences of twenty-four mixed-race authors and those in interracial partnerships of all ages and backgrounds, from all over the world. It blends positivity, negativity, humor, pathos and realism in an enlightening exploration of what it means to be more than one ethnicity.

Multiracial kids will soon have a more colorful toy set for pretend play

The Chicago Tribune
2015-09-23

Sadé Carpenter

The MyFamilyBuilders toy set includes 48 magnetic wooden pieces that snap together. (MyFamilyBuilders)

When Ez Karpf went shopping for a gift for his friends’ children, he thought it would be easy to find a toy set that represented their multiracial family. In the U.S. — Karpf is from Argentina — there are products for everyone, or so he thought.

He quickly realized the store aisles were not overflowing with the toys he hoped to buy. He noticed not only a lack of racial diversity, but also the absence of toys portraying same-sex parents and single-parent households.

“A lot of kids are not reflected in today’s toys; a lot of families are not reflected in today’s toys,” Karpf said. “It’s much easier to learn not to be biased about differences than to unlearn that.”…

…A product developer/designer, Karpf assembled a group that included an education specialist, child psychologist, illustrator and tech entrepreneur to address the lack of diversity in toys. Together, they created MyFamilyBuilders.

“When kids don’t see themselves reflected in toys they play with every day, basically this is like having no mirror of themselves,” Karpf said.

The MyFamilyBuilders toy set includes 48 magnetic wooden block pieces children 3 and up can use to customize their playtime experience. It also includes 25 cards for five different games for children 5 and up. The goal is for parents to join the playing process and create teachable moments for their kids…

Read the entire article here.

Raising a Biracial Child as a Mother of Color

The Atlantic
2015-09-19

Lara N. Dotson-Renta

A mother’s reflection on her own childhood and that of her biracial child—and the inevitable differences of the two.

A few months ago, I was walking home from the bus stop with my eldest daughter during the last week of kindergarten. She was lagging behind as usual, picking up sticks and shiny rocks, when she casually asked, “Mama, are the kids with browner skin more trouble? Why can some of them not read too well? Why do some people think Spanish is not good?”

In that moment, the heart that lives in my stomach jumped, and a mild nausea set in. At six years old, my now first-grade daughter is privileged, more than she understands, in ways that are painful and complicated for me to discern as both a highly educated, upper-middle-class parent, and as a woman of color who did not start out with such advantages.

…My daughter is half white, has a non-Latino last name, and navigates a space in between, of mixed heritage and lineage. She is frequently complemented on how “beautifully tanned” her skin is in the winter. When I say we speak Spanish in the home and our family is together, we are complimented on our efforts to make her bilingual. But, when I am out alone with my two daughters, the youngest yet too little to notice, we are looked askance at for not using English. Sometimes at the park I am mistakenly assumed to be their nanny, suddenly keenly aware of how the sun catches the blond streaks in their hair. It is strange that language can stake so many claims; so often are my children presumed not to be my own…

Read the entire article here.

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.

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.

Blended Families

Mixed Roots Stories
2015-09-02

Tru Leverette, Associate Professor of English
University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida

What does it mean to call a family blended? The term still refers to families formed after divorce and remarriage—step-parents and step-children and step-siblings pieced together in new patterns. The term can also encompass families that are interracial; in these families, blending takes on additional permutations that certainly have puzzled some throughout history.

Like other interracial families, those that are also blended through remarriage contend with external assumptions and judgments—the confused looks and questioning glances, the “ah-ha” moments or oblivious denial. When I was married to my daughter’s father—who, like me, has both a black and a white parent—I slipped into the ease of relative inconspicuousness for the first time in my life…

Read the entire article here.

Are You Sensitive to Interracial Children’s Special Identity Needs?

Young Children
Volume 42, Number 2 (January 1987)
pages 53-59

Francis Wardle
Red Rocks Community College, Colorado

Early childhood educators continually adjust to families they serve. Educators must provide for children not living with their natural parents, children from abusive families, children who rarely see their parents, and children from single-parent homes. Early childhood educators are becoming increasingly aware of children living in single-father families (Briggs & Walters, 1985), as well as single-mother families. Now these professionals have an additional challenge: to be sensitive and supportive of the unique needs of interracial children and their families.

The number of interracial marriages has increased to more than 100,000 in the past decade. The 1983 census cites 632,000 interracial marriages in the United States; 125,000 are Black/White unions. These figures reflect only current interracial marriages; they do not include divorced parents or interracial unions not resulting in marriage (Shackford, 1984). Although there are no data on the number of interracial children in our society, because census forms do not include include an interracial or mixed category, it is clearly increasing and posing new challenges to all involved in raising children (Wardle, 1981). These new challenges include the interracial child with one Black and one White parent, and all other combinations of one parent of color and one White, including Asian American/White, Native American/White, and so on…

Read or purchase the article here.