Mixed Race Studies

Multinational families, creolized practices and new identities: Euro-Senegalese cases

Oxford University
The Oxford Diasporas Programme
2011-01-01 through 2015-12-31

Hélène Neveu-Kringelbach, Oxford Diaspora Programme Research Fellow, African Studies Centre Junior Research Fellow
St Anne’s College, University of Oxford

The Oxford Diasporas Programme is a five-year research programme involving various centres at the University of Oxford and led by the International Migration Institute.
 
The research consists of 11 projects focusing on the impact of diasporas.
 
The programme is funded by the Leverhulme Trust from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2015.

One of the effects of the global intensification of mobility is the formation of multicultural and transnational families involving spouses with different citizenships, as well as linguistic, religious and cultural backgrounds. In many parts of coastal West Africa, there is a long history of marriage with Europeans, dating back to the transatlantic slave trade. With a focus on bi-national families involving a Senegalese and a European partner as a case study, this project explores processes of family making in a diasporic context, from a gendered and cross-generational perspective. This project will contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the resilience of diasporas over time and their integration into ‘host societies’.

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Fuori/Outside

Third World Newsreel
1997
Color
12 minutes
United States

Kym Ragusa

In Fuori/Outside the videomaker, a woman of African American and Italian American descent, examines her relationship with her Italian American grandmother. The lives of the two women are inextricably linked to local geographies; family stories embedded in the walls of tenement buildings and suburban landscapes. Personal memories overflow into public spaces, contradictions around race within the family are contextualized within larger conflicts between Italian Americans and African Americans. The foundation of Fuori/Outside is the powerful bond between the two women, marginalized by color and age, that survives the instability of family, class and ethnic identity.

Awards
Best Video, South Bronx Film and Video Festival, 1997

For more information, click here.

2011 Brigitte M. Bodenheimer Lecture on Family Law by Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig: “According to Our Hearts: What Does the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander Case Teach Us about Race, Law, and Family?”

University of California, Davis
School of Law
Kalmanovitz Appellate Courtroom
2011-11-08, 16:00-18:00 PST (Local Time)
Run Time: 01:05:58

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Charles M. and Marion J. Kierscht Professor of Law
University of Iowa

The 2011 Brigitte M. Bodenheimer Lecture on Family Law features Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig. She delivers a lecture entitled, “According to Our Hearts: What Does the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander Case Teach Us about Race, Law, and Family?”

Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig explores the social and legal meanings of the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander case by examining its various lessons regarding law and society’s joint role in framing the normative ideal of family as monoracial.

The Rhinelander trial of 1925 involved a lawsuit in which wealthy, white Leonard Kip Rhinelander sued his wife, Alice Beatrice Rhinelander, for an annulment based on fraud. Leonard alleged that Alice claimed to be white when she was actually “of colored blood.” Legend has it that the two were madly in love, but Rhinelander’s father encouraged the annulment proceeding because he did not approve of the relationship.

Professor Onwuachi-Willig analyzes the case as a representation of the simultaneously tragic and inspiring story about race and race relations in the United States.

A former member of the UC Davis law faculty, Professor Onwuachi-Willig is the Charles M. and Marion J. Kierscht Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. She specializes in the areas of Employment Discrimination, Family Law, Feminist Legal Theory, and Race and the Law.

Established in 1981 in memory of Professor Brigitte M. Bodenheimer, this endowed lecture brings scholars and practitioners to King Hall to discuss recent developments affecting the family.

Chinese Caucasian interracial parenting and ethnic identity

University of Massachusetts, Amherst
1988
264 pages
Publication Number: AAT 8813254

Jeffrey B. Mar

This exploratory study looks at Chinese-Caucasian interracially married parents’ experience of raising their children. The goal is to characterize these parents’ stances toward their children’s ethnic identity. A semi-structured, clinical interview was developed for the study in order to gather information about the respondent’s family and individual histories, as well as their childrearing practices and beliefs. The sample consisted of 29 interracially married parents who had at least one child older than nine years old. Eight intraracially married Chinese parents were also interviewed for comparison purposes. The interview data was subjected to a content analysis which generated the following six-dimensional conceptual framework of ethnic identity: (1) Group Identification; (2)Ethnic Continuity; (3) Physical Characteristics; (4) Objective Culture; (5) Subjective Culture; (6) Sociopolitical Consciousness.

It was found that parents did not feel that their children’s ethnic identity was the focus of a great deal of concern. Parents also emphasized that it had rarely been a source of psychological or social difficulty for their children. The ethnic identity of the Chinese parent was stressed far more than the ethnic identity of the Caucasian parent. Surprisingly, parents expressed very little concern about their children’s racial marginality or the issue of racial continuity. On a conscious level, parents were more strongly committed to “group identification” and “objective culture.” In actual practice, however, their commitment in these areas carried a great deal of ambivalence. On an unconscious level, parents were most likely to pass down “subjective culture.” This was the one area of regular cultural conflict in these families, particularly around expectations about family roles. These parents’ greatest concern revolved around their children losing their Chinese culture. However, parents were generally unsuccessful when they tried to actively guide their children in an ethnic direction. Parents stressed that their children’s most durable ethnic commitments developed largely independently of their own efforts to influence, emphasizing that their own personal ethnic involvements (modelling) seemed to have the most impact.

The study concludes by offering some integrative comments about the nature of ethnic identity and the forces that propel it across generations. An important area of future research would be to talk with these parents’ biracial children about their ethnic identities.

Purchase the dissertation here.

The making of a middlerace: the social politics surrounding Black-White interracial marriages and Black White biracial identity

Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois
May 2008
253 pages

Yoftahe K. Manna

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Communication Studies

In an attempt to uncover the social politics surrounding Black-White interracial marriages and Black-White biracial identity, this thesis investigates outsiders’ and insiders’ perspectives on the issues. Black and White participants of the study reported positive attitudes toward Black-White interracial marriage, while they reported negative attitudes toward Black-White biracial individuals. No statistically significant differences were found between Blacks and Whites in attitudes toward Black-White interracial marriages and Black-White biracial identity. No statistically significant differences were found between men and women, either. The insiders’ reports, however, contradicted these findings. Both Black-White interracial couple and Black-White biracial adult participants of this study reported that society’s (Blacks’ and Whites’) attitudes toward them were negative. Findings are discussed and ideas for future studies forwarded.

Table of Contents

• Contents page
• Acknowledgments
• Abstract
• Foreword
• Chapter One: Review of the Literature
  • Introduction
  • BIack-White interracial marriage
  • Black-White intermarriages: Historical backgrounds
  • Interracial marriages on the rise
  • Intermarriage motivations
  • Challenges, discrimination, and stereotypes
  • Interracial marriages: Pathological?
  • Attitudes toward, and acceptance of, interracial marriages
  • Attitudes toward biracial identity
  • Black-White interracial marriages: Implications
  • Racial identity and Black-White biracial individuals
  • Implications of biracial identity
  • Role of environment and social support for biracial individuals
  • Implications of biracial identity
  • Social politics surrounding interracial marriage
  • Social politics surrounding biracial identity/Social stigma
  • Role of communication
  • Research importance
  • Symbolic interactionism and social constructionism
• Chapter Two: Attitudes toward Black-White Interracial marriage and Black-White biracial identity
  • Introduction
  • Method
    • Participants
    • Procedure
  • Results
    • Attitudes toward Black-White interracial marriages
    • Attitudes toward Black-White biracial individuals/identity
  • Discussion
• Chapter Three: The Social Politics Surrounding Black-White Interracial Marriages
  • Introduction
  • Method
  • Findings
    • “Just another marriage”
    • “We are possible because of love”
    • Family’s attitude toward Black-White interracial marriage andrelationship with the interracial couple
    • Social attitudes toward and society’s relationship with Black-White interracial families
    • “Human”
    • “We have differences but not racial ones”
    • “God-centered”
    • “No challenges, but … “
    • Advantages and disadvantages
    • Comfort zone
    • Role of communication
    • “Support matters”
    • Upbringing and environment
    • “Better covered”
    • Race talk
    • “What we mean”
  • Discussion
• Chapter Four: Middlerace: The Social Politics Surrounding Black-White Biracial Identity
  • Introduction
  • Method
  • Findings
    • Racial identity
    • Challenges, advantages, and disadvantages
    • Attitudes toward Black-White interracial marriage
    • Attitudes toward Black-White biracial individuals
    • “Support matters”
    • Environment’s role
    • Middlerace
    • Role of communication
    • Race talk
    • “My box”
  • Discussion
• Chapter Five: General Discussion: The Social Politics Surrounding Black-White Interracial
  • Marriages and Black-White Biracial Identity
    • Introduction
    • Role of communication
    • Conclusion and ideas for future studies
• References
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C

Read the entire thesis here.

International Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Mixedness and Mixing

Routledge
2012-05-25
224 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-59804-0

Edited by

Suki Ali, Senior Lecturer of Sociology
London School of Economics and Political Science

Chamion Cabellero, Senior Research Fellow
Social Capital Research Group
London South Bank University

Rosalind Edwards, Professor of Sociology
University of Southampton

Miri Song, Professor of Sociology
University of Kent

People from a ‘mixed’ racial and ethnic background, and people partnering and parenting across different racial and ethnic backgrounds, are increasingly visible internationally and often construed in diametrically opposed ways. On the one hand, images of racial and ethnic diversity are posed in opposition to unity and solidarity, creating a crisis of cohesive social trust. On the other hand, there are assertions that the portrayals of segregation and conflict ignore the reality of ongoing interactions between a mix of minority and majority racial, ethnic and religious cultures, where multiculture is an ordinary, unremarkable, feature of everyday social life.

This interdisciplinary volume brings internationally well-respected researchers together to explore the different contexts and concepts underpinning discussions about mixedness and mixing. Moving beyond pathologically focused research about confused identities and a dualistic black-white conception of mixedness, the book includes chapters on:

• Multiraciality and race classification
• Mixed race couples
• Mixedness in everyday life
• Mixed race politics

International Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Mixedness and Mixing develops theoretical perspectives and presents intellectually shaped empirical evidence that can deal with complexity and normalcy in order to move the debate onto more fruitful grounds. It is an important book for students and scholars of race and ethnicity.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction / Suki Ali, Chamion Caballero, Rosalind Edwards and Miri Song
2. Multiraciality and census classification in global perspective / Ann Morning
3. Mixed race across time and place: an international perspective / Ilan Katz
4. Scaling diversity: mixed-race couples, segregation and urban America / Steven Holloway
5. The geography of mixedness in England and Wales / Charlie Owen
6. From ‘Draughtboard Alley’ to ‘Brown Britain’: the ordinariness of mixedness in British life / Chamion Caballero
7. How mixedness is understood and experienced in everyday life / Peter Aspinall and Miri Song
8. Finding value on a council estate in Nottingham: voices of white working class women / Lisa McKenzie
9. How to find mixed people in quantitative datasets / Anne Unterreiner
10. When ethnicity became an important family issue in Slovenia / Mateja Sedmak
11. Same difference? Developing a critical methodological stance in critical mixed race studies / Minelle Mahtani
12. Mixed race politics / Suki Ali

Families on the color-line: patrolling borders and crossing boundaries

Race and Society
Volume 5, Issue 2, 2002
Pages 139-161
DOI: 10.1016/j.racsoc.2004.01.001

Erica Chito-Childs, Associate Professor of Sociology
Hunter College, City University of New York

Multiracial couples and families are becoming increasingly more common, yet opposition to these relationships still exists even if it is often hidden in color-blind language. In this lingering societal opposition to black-white unions, the strongest opposition often comes from the couples’ families. The social institution of the family plays an integral role in reproducing the dominant ideologies of race that exist in society, and more specifically a racialized discourse that actively discourages interracial unions. Families reproduce racial boundaries, by patrolling who their members can and cannot become involved with. In our society where group membership is all-important and identity is based primarily on one’s racial group, families object to individuals from different “racial” groups redefining themselves apart from their racial identities. Drawing from in-depth interviews with black-white couples, the responses of their white and black families will be explored to illustrate how families express opposition to black-white interracial relationships. In both white and black families, certain discourses are used when discussing black-white relationships that reproduce the image of these unions as different, deviant, even dangerous. Interracial relationships and marriage often bring forth certain racialized attitudes and beliefs about family and identity which otherwise are not expressed.

Article Outline

• 1. The role of family in societal opposition
• 2. Theorizing black–white couples and their families
• 3. Racialized discourses and color-blindness
• 4. Methods
• 5. Findings
• 6. Color-blind or blinded by color?
• 7. Family responses: from ambivalence to opposition
• 8. “But what about the children?”
• 9. Black–white differences in familial opposition
• 10. Black, white, and shades of grey
• References

Read or purchase the article here.

One Big Hapa Family

KCTS 9 Television
Real NW
Seattle, Washington
Monday, 2011-11-14, 22:00 PST

After a family reunion, Japanese-Canadian filmmaker, Jeff Chiba Stearns embarks on a journey of self-discovery to find out why everyone in his Japanese-Canadian family married interracially after his grandparents’ generation.

Using a mix of live action and animation, “One Big Hapa Family,” explores why almost 100 percent of Japanese-Canadians—more than any other ethnic group—marry interracially and how their mixed children perceive their unique multiracial identities.

The stories of our generations of a Japanese-Canadian family to come to life through animation by some of Canada’s brightest independent animators, including Louise Johnson, Ben Meinhardt, Todd Ramsay, Kunal Sen, Jonathan Ng, and the filmmaker himself.

“One Big Hapa Family” makes us question: Is interracial mixing the end of multiculturalism as we know it?

 For more information, click here.

The Stain of White: Liaisons, Memories, and White Men as Relatives

Men and Masculinities
Volume 9, Number 2 (October 2006)
pages 131-151
DOI: 10.1177/1097184X06287764

Janaki Abraham, Assistant Professor Women Studies
Jawaharlal Neru University

During British colonial rule some matrilineal Thiyya women in North Kerala, India, had liaisons with British men. While the response of the caste (here, a Backward caste) to these liaisons shifted over time, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century many women who had liaisons and their families were excommunicated. A “white connection” became a stain and kinship with the white man was denied or shrouded. This article looks at the ways in which both the liaisons and the denial of the white man as father or relative were located within practices of matrilineal kinship. Furthermore, this article seeks to understand how these liaisons are remembered today and how the presence of the white man as a relative is layered over by processes of forgetting and remembering.

Read or purchase the article here.

In Strangers’ Glances at Family, Tensions Linger

The New York Times
2011-10-13

Susan Saulny

TOMS RIVER, N.J. — “How come she’s so white and you’re so dark?”

The question tore through Heather Greenwood as she was about to check out at a store here one afternoon this summer. Her brown hands were pushing the shopping cart that held her babbling toddler, Noelle, all platinum curls, fair skin and ice-blue eyes.

The woman behind Mrs. Greenwood, who was white, asked once she realized, by the way they were talking, that they were mother and child. “It’s just not possible,” she charged indignantly. “You’re so…dark!”

It was not the first time someone had demanded an explanation from Mrs. Greenwood about her biological daughter, but it was among the more aggressive. Shaken almost to tears, she wanted to flee, to shield her little one from this kind of talk. But after quickly paying the cashier, she managed a reply. “How come?” she said. “Because that’s the way God made us.”

The Greenwood family tree, emblematic of a growing number of American bloodlines, has roots on many continents. Its mix of races — by marriage, adoption and other close relationships — can be challenging to track, sometimes confusing even for the family itself…

…Jenifer L. Bratter, an associate sociology professor at Rice University who has studied multiracialism, said that as long as race continued to affect where people live, how much money they make and how they are treated, then multiracial families would be met with double-takes. “Unless we solve those issues of inequality in other areas, interracial families are going to be questioned about why they’d cross that line,” she said.

According to Census data, interracial couples have a slightly higher divorce rate than same-race couples — perhaps, sociologists say, because of the heightened stress in their lives as they buck enduring norms. And children in mixed families face the challenge of navigating questions about their identities…

…Once, on a beach chair at a resort in Florida years ago, a white woman sunning herself next to Mrs. Dragan bemoaned the fact that black children were running around the pool. “Isn’t it awful?” Mrs. Dragan recalled the woman confiding to her.

Within minutes, Mrs. Dragan, ever feisty despite her reserved appearance, had her brood by her side. “I’d like to introduce you to my children,” she told the woman. Awkward silence ensued…

Read the entire article here.