Mixed Race Studies

Video From Angle Event Reopens Subject of Race

New York Times
2010-10-19

Susan Saulny, National Correspondent

Louie Gong, a 36-year-old Seattle resident who is a mix of American Indian, white and Chinese, is often mistaken for Latino.

“Most people don’t look at me and say ‘Chinese,’ ” he said. “Then I tell them what my heritage is, and they argue with me, saying, ‘No, you look Hispanic.’ That’s offensive on a whole other level—it’s like their sensibility of racial aesthetics trumps my 36 years of life experience, and the fact that my last name is Gong.” …

…Further complicating the role of race is that a growing number of Americans are identifying themselves as racial mixtures that can be difficult to categorize based on looks alone. Beyond that, some members of minorities are pushing back against anyone who wants to tell them what race they are, then stereotype them, whether Asian or Latino or black or some combination.

“We are more complex than our phenotype,” said Mr. Gong, the past president of Mavin, an advocacy group for mixed-race families, and the co-founder of the Mixed Race Heritage Center, an information clearinghouse. “People have the right to self-identify in this country, on the census or in personal actions.”…

Read the entire article here.

The Population Variance of the Proportion of Genetic Admixture in Human Intergroup Hybrids

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
December 1971
Volume 68, Number 12
pages 3168–3169
PMCID: PMC389614

T. Edward Reed, Professor of Zoology and Anthropology; Associate Professor of Paediatrics
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

For each individual in a human hybrid population there is a proportion μi, whose value is usually unknown, that expresses the fraction of his genes deriving from a specified parental population. The distribution of these individual proportions about the mean proportion μ is not known for any large hybrid population in man. It is of interest to know whether the population variance of individual proportions (μi) can be estimated from the variation between different, independent estimates of the mean proportion (μ).This possibility was tested with data on Negroes of the Oakland, California area, by the use of some of the principles of analysis of variance. Even with a large sample and the useful Duffy blood-group system to indicate admixture, almost no information about the population variance of individual proportions is provided by between-sample variation in estimates of μ. It is concluded that group data on admixture proportions usually do not give useful information about the population variance. It is further concluded that a recent estimate of this variance by Shockley is in error.

Read the entire article here.

Neither Strange Nor Familiar: Contemporary Approaches to Hybridity

Location: TBD
Toronto, Canada
2010-10-22 through 2010-10-23

Kenote Speaker

Stephan Palmié, Professor of Anthroplogy
University of Chicago

We are pleased and excited to announce this interdisciplinary conference. The study of identity, whether from a sociological, ethnographic, anthropological or historical perspective, has been a widely debated topic. As real or imagined social constructs, identities are continuously contested. Involved in a relentless process of becoming, they negotiate between an array of connections—local, regional, national, global, and they cross racial, ethnic and gender lines. Hence, identities must not be construed as rigid phenomena but rather as being continuously reconstructed, revisioned and reinterpreted in a variety of ways. They are fluid and dynamic, and can fuse or coexist in multiple forms. As they move through a cultural matrix of meanings, they can mediate between the familiar and the strange, between the local and the global, between assimilation and differentiation, to assume new or modify old forms.

Contemporary approaches that explore this process of cultural production have revealed the multiplicity of identities and selves that can exist in a single space or context. Colonies and diasporas, borderlands and pluralistic societies—all offer insightful venues for the study of hybridity. In the contemporary era of migrations, cultural intermixture is quickly becoming an even more notable reality. But history abounds with examples of pluralistic societies where dual or partial identities flourished. Habsburg Empire, Transylvania or the Mexican-American borderlands, the Jewish or Iranian Diasporas in New York City, and the Canadian-Korean or American-African women can reveal much about the discourse of hybrid identities. The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars from across disciplines with a common interest in hybridity to stimulate discussion about how identity is constructed and reconstructed.

For more information, click here.

Caucasian Genes in American Negroes

Science (1969-08-22)
Volume 165
pages 762-768
DOI: 10.1126/science.165.3895.762

T. Edward Reed, Professor of Zoology and Anthropology; Associate Professor of Paediatrics
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Measurement of non-African ancestry is difficult, but it is worthwhile for several genetic reasons.

It is very difficult to describe the genetic history of a large, defined human population in a meaningful way. As a result there have been few opportunities, at the population level, to study the consequences of known genetic events in the recent past of modem populations. The Negro population of the United States, however, is one of the exceptions to these generalizations. The American individual to whom the term Negro is applied is almost always a biracial hybrid. Usually between 2 and 50 percent of his genes are derived from Caucasian ancestors, and these genes were very probably received after 1700. While it is obviously of social and cultural importance to understand Negro hybridity, it is less obvious that there are several pertinent genetic reasons for wishing to know about the magnitude and nature of Caucasian ancestry in Negroes. Recent data, both genetic and historical, now make possible a better understanding of American Negro genetic history than has been possible heretofore. Here I review and criticize the published data on this subject, present new data, and interpret the genetic significance of the evidence.

In order to put the genetic data in proper context, I must first give a little of the history of American slavery. The first slaves were brought to what is now the United States in 1619. Importation of slaves before 1700 was negligible, however, but after that date it proceeded at a high rate for most of the 18th century. Importation became illegal after 1808 but in fact continued at a low rate for several more decades (1, 2). The total number of slaves brought into the United States was probably somewhat less than 400,000 (3). Charleston, South Carolina, was the most important port of entry, receiving 30 to 40 percent of the total number (4). More than 98 percent of the slaves came from a very extensive area of West Africa and west-central Africa-from Senegal to Angola-and, in these areas, from both coastal and inland regions. Shipping lists of ships that brought slaves to the United States-and to the West Indies, often to be sent later to the United States provide a fairly detailed picture of the geographic origins of the slaves and a less complete picture of their ethnic origins. Table 1 gives the approximate proportions of American slaves brought from the eight major slaving areas of Africa. The contribution from East Africa is seen to be negligible, whereas the area from Senegal to western Nigeria contributed about half the total and the region from eastern Nigeria to Angola contributed the other half. An earlier tabulation for entry at Charleston alone (5) is quite similar, except that the contribution from the Bight of Biafra is much less (0.021 as compared to 0.233) and that from “Angola” is appreciably greater (0.396 as compared to 0.245).

At some early point in American slavery, matings between slaves and Caucasians began to occur. Quantitative data are lacking, and we can say only that most of these matings occurred after 1700. Our concern here is the genetic consequences of the matings the introduction of Caucasian genes into the genome (or total complement of genetic material) of the American Negro. We could, in theory, estimate the Caucasian contribution to American Negro ancestry in a very simple way if certain strict criteria were met. In practice it is not possible to show that all these criteria are met, but this fact has not stopped geneticists, including myself, from making estimates…

Read the entire article here.

Intellectual Development of Children from Interracial Matings

Science (1970-12-18)
Volume 170, Number 3964
pages 1329-1331
DOI: 10.1126/science.170.3964.1329

Lee Willerman
Perinatal Research Branch
National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, National Institutes of Health

Alfred F. Naylor
Perinatal Research Branch
National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, National Institutes of Health

Ntinos C. Myrianthopoulos
Perinatal Research Branch
National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, National Institutes of Health

Interracial offspring of white mothers obtained significantly higher IQ scores at 4 years of age than interracial offspring of Negro mothers, suggesting that environmental factors play an important role in the lower intellectual performance of Negro children.

Read or purchase the article here.

The Sociological Relevance of the Concept of Half-Caste in British Society

Phylon (1960-)
Volume 36, Number 3 (3rd Quarter, 1975)
pages 309-320

G. Llewellyn Watson, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Prince Edward Island

Great Britain has a long tradition of social class distinctions and relations. Indeed, the early British railways of the nineteenth century had as many as four different classes of carriages or compartments for passengers, and these were based on an idea other that simply the ability to pay; they were based on the idea of the different kinds of people who should used them.

Today, of course, the existence in Britain of several thousand blacks from Britain’s lost colonies in the Third World has complicated the traditional world view and theoretical ideas about class relations. One very important aspect of this complication is the phenomenon of Half-Caste.

It is highly significant, from a socio-historical point of view, that in Britain, a class society, the children of mixed (i.e., black and white) sexual unions are characteristically known as Half-Caste. To full understand the socio-historical significance of this key concept and to grasp it in its dynamic perspective, one must necessarily utilize a mode of interpretation which would require that we refer to the cultural unity underlying the various world view of a given society in a given epoch. In this paper I propose to examine how the symbolic meaning of the concept of Half-Caste lies in its ability to typify and delineate the boundaries of inter-ethnic relations in British society…

Mai i ngā Ao e Rua–From Two Worlds: An investigation into the attitudes towards half castes in New Zealand

University of Otago, Dunedin
October 2006
91 pages

Suzanne Boyes

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), in Māori Studies at the University of Otago, Dunedin

This dissertation investigates the attitudes of others’ experienced by ‘half-caste’ or biethnic people of New Zealand, that is, people who have both Māori and Pākehā heritage. The dissertation combines the personal narratives of four half-caste people, my own story, and historical/theoretical literature to illuminate this subject. The dissertation introduces the topic by firstly, discussing the current identity politics in New Zealand, which has tended to dominate the political landscape as of late, and left half-caste people between the crossfire. Secondly, I introduce part of my own story as a half-caste person in New Zealand. In Chapter one, the pre-colonial origins of attitudes towards race, intermarriage and miscegenation are examined through an analysis of religious and scientific discourses. Chapter Two provides a basic understanding of Māori and Pākehā identity as separate entities, with the aim of demonstrating the binary opposites that have informed attitudes towards half-castes in New Zealand. The third chapter outlines a number of themes regarding attitudes towards the half caste people I interviewed as part of this research. The final chapter brings together literature and interview material through the lens of a Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People to provide an approach for looking towards the future of half-caste identity politics.

Read the entire dissertation here.

Organizers of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference to be Featured Guests on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox and Heidi W. Durrow
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Bonus Episode: Organizers of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference
When: Sunday, 2010-10-24, (20:00 EDT, 17:00 PDT), [Monday, 2010-10-25, 00:00Z, 01:00 BST]

Don’t miss out on this great chat and preview of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference—with the conference organizers!

Fanshen Cox, Tiffany Jones, and myself will participate in a Greg Carter (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) moderated round-table discussion titled “Exploring the Mixed Experience in New Media” on 2010-11-05 from 10:15 to 12:15 CDT at the conference.  For a complete schedule, click here.

Dr. Sue-Je Gage to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox and Heidi W. Durrow
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #178 – Dr. Sue-Je Gage
When: Thursday, 2010-11-04, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 16:00 CDT, 14:00 PDT)

Sue-Je Gage, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ithaca University

Dr Gage’s specific research focuses on citizenship, identity, blood, gender and transnationalism by examining the identities of Amerasians in South Korea. It explores how Amerasians as local, national and global citizens identify themselves and strategically use their identities to maneuver within Korean society and the globalizing world.

Download or listen to the podcast here.

Selected Bibliography:

• “The Amerasian Problem: Blood, Duty, and Race,” International Relations, Volume 21, Number 1 (2007): 86-1102.

Danielle Evans, an author straddling racial divides

Washington Post
2010-10-07

DeNeen L. Brown, Staff Writer

It is the tale of a biracial girl who is sent by her mother one summer to visit her white grandmother. But the grandmother immediately disapproves of her daughter’s child with the brown skin and long, curly hair. “If I thought my grandmother would like me better when my mother wasn’t around, our reunion quickly disabused me of the thought… ,” [Danielle] Evans reads.

The grandmother greets the girl, whose name is Tara, with an obligatory kiss, then tentatively touches her hair, which is twisted into tight cornrows.

“Did your mother do this to you?” Evans reads, standing in a black sweater dress in front of a stack of her books. A small crowd spills attentively before her into the aisles.

” ‘My hair?’

” . . . ‘Mommy can’t do my hair,’ I said. ‘A girl from her school did it for her.’

” ‘I swear, even on a different continent, that woman — When you go upstairs, take them out. You’re a perfectly decent-looking child, and for whatever reason your mother sends you looking like a little hoodlum.’

” ‘I am wearing pink,’ I said, more in my own defense than in my mother’s.”

The crowd laughs nervously. Evans continues to read. Some attendees will say later that they were astounded by the maturity of Evans’s voice as a writer, by the telling of stories of characters who seem so familiar. Depending on who is listening, the characters in the collection—titled “Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self“—could be a best friend or that girl down the street, but many of them are “outsiders,” says Evans, black or biracial people who are wrestling with race and the legacy of race in a so-called post-racial era…

…”Right now we have a moment with a lot of language about post-racialism and yet a lot of evidence that we are clearly not post-anything,” she says, “and there’s a lot of room for complication, contradiction and ambiguity, which is good territory for fiction.”…

Read the entire article here.