Mixed Race Studies

“Being a Half-breed”: Discourses of Race and Cultural Syncreticity in the Works of Three Metis Women Writers

Canadian Literature
“Native, Individual, State”
Number 144, Spring, 1995
pages 82-96

Jodi Lundgren

In his introduction to All My Relations, Thomas King asserts that “being Native is a matter of race rather than something more transitory such as nationality”: “one is either born an Indian or one is not.” While King adds that there is no “racial denominator” among Natives and that it is important to “resist the temptation of trying to define a Native,” at least until the body of work by authors of Native ancestry reaches some sort of critical mass,” he contends that Indianness is an inborn genetic trait (x-xi). The danger of King’s position is elucidated by ethnohistorian James Clifton:

the uncritical use of Indian, White, and Black, and the associated ethnocentric assumptions about ancient differences in behaviour and potentialities, history, and culture effectively block analytic thinking. These historically derived, culturally patterned, institutionally reinforced convictions include such persistent ideas as being and becoming Indian is a matter largely of biological ancestry, that Indianness is fixed by blood. A related assumption is that the labels White and Indian mark sharply defined categories—culturally defined ways of sorting diverse people into a few classes. A further assumption is that these differences are primordial, inevitable, original, durable and natural. (23)

In other words, when race is considered anything more than an “accident of birth” (King xi), biological determinism soon follows and is inevitably used to justify and perpetuate the disempowerment of oppressed groups. Historically, as Noel Elizabeth Currie asserts, Europeans constructed the different “races’ they encountered in their colonialist and imperialist ventures as “inferior” and “savage’ in order to exploit them economically; contemporary Canadian society, internalized racism is a key element in Native people’s oppression. Beatrice Culleton’s novel April Raintree demonstrates the way in which a light-skinned Metis girl, for whom assimilation into white society appears a possibility, is convinced by her teachers, foster family, and social workers that Native people are responsible for their own disempowerment and that their social positioning is unalterable. Growing up isolated from any Metis community, April Raintree perceives her options as dichotomous: either become the drunken Indian Other or assimilate. In contrast, Maria Campbell’s autobiography Halfbreed illustrates the validating effects of having been raised in a family with a strong sense of Metis identity. Situating the Metis historically, Campbell characterizes their identity as a cultural construct; her emphasis is thus on ethnicity rather than race. In I Am Woman and Sojourner’s Truth, Lee Maracle too focusses not on race but on cultural heritage and political disempowerment as determinant of Metis experience. Hybrid by definition, Metis identity is predicated upon what is “an inescapable and characteristic feature of all post-colonial societies,” namely, cultural syncreticity (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 30). Thus, a positivist emphasis on race such as that put forth by Thomas King is peculiarly problematic for the Metis. That racial stereotyping has had a devastating impact on the Metis and other Native peoples is, however, undeniable. Its operation is thoroughly explored in April Raintree…

Read the entire article here.

IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas

Smithsonian Institution
2009
256 pages
6 5/8 x 9 1/2 inches
115 color and black-and-white illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-58834-271-3

Twenty-seven passionate essays explore the complex history and contemporary lives of people with a dual heritage that is a little-known part of American culture. Authors from across the Americas share first-person accounts of struggle, adaptation, and survival and examine such diverse subjects as contemporary art, the Cherokee Freedmen issue, and the evolution of jazz and blues. This richly illustrated book brings to light an epic history that speaks to present-day struggles for racial identity and understanding.

IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas accompanies the groundbreaking exhibition of the same title developed by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Through the concepts of policy, community, creative resistance, and lifeways, the exhibition and publication examine the long overlooked history of Native American and African American intersections in the Americas.

The book features a foreword by NMAI Director Kevin Gover and NMAAHC Director Lonnie G. Bunch, III, essays by leading scholars, and approximately 100 object images, documents, and photographs. IndiVisible illuminates a history fraught with colonial oppression, racial antagonism, and the loss of culture and identity. Uncovered within that history, however, are stories of cultural resurgence and the need to know one’s roots. Guided by NMAI historian Gabrielle Tayac, five Native scholars served as curatorial advisors for the exhibition and contributors for the publication: Angela A. Gonzales, Robert K. Collins, Judy Kertész, Penny Gamble-Williams, and Thunder Williams. In addition to the curatorial advisors, esteemed authors Theda Perdue, Tiya Miles, Richard Hill, Sr., Herman J. Viola, and Ron Welburn—among the book’s many expert voices—discuss race relations in the Jim Crow South, creative resistance, the relationship between African Americans and the Haudenosaunee, the famed buffalo soldiers of the American West, and the roots of jazz and blues. Taken together, the book’s essays and images create a portrait of a vital American subculture.

Read the forward here.

African Creeks: Estelvste and the Creek Nation

University of Oklahoma Press
2007
368 pages, 6″ x 9″
Illustrations: 15 color illustrations, 4 maps
Hardcover ISBN: 9780806138152
Paperback ISBN: 9780806168951

Gary Zellar, Assistant Professor of History
University of Saskatchewan

A narrative history of the African Creek community

Among the Creeks, they were known as Estelvste—black people—and they had lived among them since the days of the first Spanish entradas. They spoke the same language as the Creeks, ate the same foods, and shared kinship ties. Their only difference was the color of their skin.

This book tells how people of African heritage came to blend their lives with those of their Indian neighbors and essentially became Creek themselves. Taking in the full historical sweep of African Americans among the Creeks, from the sixteenth century through Oklahoma statehood, Gary Zellar unfolds a narrative history of the many contributions these people made to Creek history.

Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Zellar reveals how African people functioned as warriors, interpreters, preachers, medicine men, and even slave labor, all of which allowed the tribe to withstand the shocks of Anglo-American expansion. He also tells how they provided leaders who helped the Creeks navigate the onslaught of allotment, tribal dissolution, and Oklahoma statehood.

In his compelling narrative, Zellar describes how African Creeks made a place for themselves in a tolerant Creek Nation in which they had access to land, resources, and political leverage—and how post–Civil War “reform” reduced them to the second-class citizenship of other African Americans. It is a stirring account that puts history in a new light as it adds to our understanding of the multi-ethnic nature of Indian societies.

Personal passion fuels Smithsonian exhibit

San Francisco State University News
2010-02-12

Denize Springer

The search for identity is particularly complex for Americans of both African and Native American heritage, according to Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies Robert Keith Collins.

Of Choctaw and African American descent, Collins has turned a personal passion into a career. His research, featured in a major exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, focuses on the racially motivated laws and other influences and issues that continue to complicate the lives of mixed-heritage people throughout the Americas.

According to the 2000 U.S. census, hundreds of thousands of Americans claim both African and Native American heritage. The tangled relationship between these groups began when Native Americans were enslaved, took African slaves, rescued them from slavery and married freed or freeborn African slaves. Collins’ research involves scouring historical records of the Americas, particularly the slave narratives compiled by the WPA (Works Project Administration) during the Great Depression, which illuminated the dynamics of slave life within Native American nations…

Read the entire article here.

A dissertation: ‘Mixed-race’ identity among young adults in Britain

University of Sussex
2010

Sophie Kingham

This article addresses the various processes through which ‘mixed-race’ identity is constructed with relation to a national British identity. A multiplicity of belongings which are negotiated on an everyday basis were explored and analysed, alongside theoretical issues and problematic terminology. Based on triangulate qualitative research on young ‘mixed-race’ adults in Brighton and Hove, this research found that many factors contributed to the ability to form a positive identity including the ability to define identity in itself, and the negative impact of being ascribed an identity by other parties. The research also found that many participants were able to positively negotiate an English identity irrespective of their race; contradictory to many theories, although predominantly a British identity was preferred as it allowed them to acknowledge other affiliations. However, factors such as transnational and ethnic practices, familial relations, and racial demographic either heightened or lessened their sense of multiple heritages. These multifaceted identities follow common theories of identity construction and highlight the transient nature of culture and nationality. The research adds to the current literature by exploring more diverse heritages and affiliations, building on current literature that primarily focuses on a black/white dichotomy.

Table of Contents

• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• List of plates and figures

1. Introduction
2. Literature review
   • Terminology
   • Race & Ethnicity
   • Nationalism & Culture
3. Practical methodology and limitations
   • Finding the Participants
   • Statistical Analysis
   • Self-Directed Photography
   • Follow-up Interviews
4. Brighton and Hove’s Ethnicity and Religion statistics
5. Results and analysis
   • Nationality & culture
   • Transnationalism
   • Childhood Family & Home
   • Visual appearance & racial markers difference
6. Conclusion
   • Further Research
7. Bibliography
8. Appendix
   • Census Questions

List of plates and figures

• Table 1: 2001 Census data.
• Figure 1: Jessica celebrating Chinese year with the Asian society
• Figure 2: The children from Tibet that Alex taught.
• Figure 3: Andy with his younger brother.
• Figure 4: The Greek Church in which Nicole was christened

Read the entire paper here.

Passing and Performance in the 21st Century: Black-White Biracial Americans and Passing as Black

American Sociological Association
Annual Meeting 2010
Regular Session: Multi-Racial Classification/Identity
Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Monday, 2010-08-16, 16:30-18:10 EDT (Local Time)
35 pages

Session Organizer: Rebecca C. King-O’Riain, Senior Lecturer of Sociology, National University of Ireland-Maynooth 
Presider: Carolyn A. Liebler, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota

Nikki Khanna Sherwin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Vermont

Drawing on interview data with black-white biracial adults, I examine the considerable agency most have in asserting their racial identities to others. Extending research on “identity work,” I explore the strategies they use to perform race, and the individual and structural-level factors that limit the accessibility and/or effectiveness of some strategies. I further find that how these biracial respondents identify is often contextual – most identify as biracial, but in some contexts, they “pass” as monoracial. Scholars argue that “passing” may be a relic of the past, yet I find that “passing” still occurs today and quite frequently. Most notably, I find a striking reverse pattern of “passing” today – while “passing” during the Jim Crow era involved “passing” as white, I find that these respondents more often report “passing” as black today. Motivations for “passing” are explored, with an emphasis on “passing” as black.

Read the entire paper here.