Mixed Race Studies

What Being Biracial Means Today

The New York Times
The Opinion Pages
2011-02-05

Jordan Awan

Re “Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above” (“Race Remixed” series, front page, Jan. 30):

To the Editor:

Oh, big deal! In 1947, as college students, we used to answer the race question with “human.” Each generation thinks it’s inventing the wheel!

Amalia Jacobucci
Centerville, Mass., Jan. 30, 2011…

Read all of the letters here.

Revisioning Black/White Multiracial Families: The Single-Parent Experience

American Sociological Association,
Atlanta Hilton Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia
2003-08-16
18 pages, 5,006 words

Rachel Sullivan

In the literature on Black/White multiracial families, there is a significant group of families missing from most research. These are households that are lead by a single parent of a biracial child. While data on the relative prevalence of single parenthood in multiracial populations is sparse, my research indicates that a significant percentage of multiracial families are headed by single parents. Nearly half of the Black/White biracial infants and toddlers in my study where born to a unmarried parent (National Maternal and Infant Health Survey 1988, 1991). This study also indicates that these families are much like other single parent families demographically. In most cases they fall somewhere between black and white single parent households; however, in areas where there are differences they tend to be closer to African American families.

…Since so much of the research is narrowly focused on identity and marriage,  single parents of biracial children, who are divorced, widowed, or never married, are rarely discussed. One reason this group is overlooked is because of the methodological  techniques used to analyzed multiracial families. Research on marriage uses often uses Census data to find intermarried couples; however, the level of analysis is generally the couple, so married couples are identified and then sorted into various racial combinations. Since so much of the research is narrowly focused on identity and marriage,  single parents of biracial children, who are divorced, widowed, or never married, are  rarely discussed. One reason this group is overlooked is because of the methodological  techniques used to analyzed multiracial families. Research on marriage uses often uses Census data to find intermarried couples; however, the level of analysis is generally the couple, so married couples are identified and then sorted into various racial combinations…

Read the entire paper here.

In Census, Young Americans Increasingly Diverse

The New York Times
2011-02-04

Sabrina Tabernise

WASHINGTON — Demographers sifting through new population counts released on Thursday by the Census Bureau say the data bring a pattern into sharper focus: Young Americans are far less white than older generations, a shift that demographers say creates a culture gap with far-reaching political and social consequences.

Mississippi, Virginia, New Jersey and Louisiana all had declines in their populations of white residents ages 18 and under, according to the bureau’s first detailed report on the 2010 Census.

…Growth in the number of white youths slowed sharply in the 1990s, up by just 1 percent in the decade, as the number of white women of childbearing age fell, according to Kenneth M. Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire.

More recently, it has dipped into a decline. The number of whites under the age of 20 fell by 6 percent between 2000 and 2008, Mr. Johnson said, citing countrywide census estimates.

Instead, growth has come from minorities, particularly Hispanics, as more Latino women enter their childbearing years. Blacks, Asians and Hispanics accounted for about 79 percent of the national population growth between 2000 and 2009, Mr. Johnson said.

The result has been a changed American landscape, with whites now a minority of the youth population in 10 states, including Arizona, where tensions over immigration have flared, said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution…

…Even in Virginia, a largely suburban state whose white adult population rose considerably over the decade, the young white population registered a decline.

In contrast, the number of mixed-race children doubled, Hispanic children doubled, and Asian children were up by more than two-thirds, according to Mr. Johnson…

Read the entire article here.

A Conceptual Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identity

Journal of College Student Development
Volume 41, Number 4 (July/August 2000)
pages 405-414

Susan R. Jones, Associate Professor of Education
Department of Counseling and Personnel Services
University of Maryland, College Park

Marylu K. McEwen, Professor Emeritus
Department of Counseling and Personnel Services
University of Maryland, College Park

A conceptual model of multiple dimensions of identity depicts a core sense of self or one’s personal identity. Intersecting circles surrounding the core identity represent significant identity dimensions (e.g., race, sexual orientation, and religion) and contextual influences (e.g., family background and life experiences). The model evolved from a grounded theory study of a group of 10 women college students ranging in age from 20-24 and of diverse racial-ethnic backgrounds.

…Reynolds and Pope (1991) drew attention to the importance of multiple identities through their discussion of multiple oppressions. They used several case studies to provide examples of how individuals might deal with their multiple oppressions and then extended Root’s (1990) model on biracial identity development to multiple oppressions. Specifically, Reynolds and Pope (1991), in creating the Multidimensional Identity Model, suggested four possible ways for identity resolution for individuals belonging to more than one oppressed group. These four options were created from a matrix with two dimensions—the first concerns whether one embraces multiple oppressions or only one oppression, and the second concerns whether an individual actively or passively identifies with one or more oppressions. Thus, the four quadrants or options become:

1. Identifying with only one aspect of self (e.g., gender or sexual orientation or race) in a passive manner. That is, the aspect of self is assigned by others such as society, college student peers, or family.
2. Identifying with only one aspect of self that is determined by the individual. That is, the individual may identify as lesbian or Asian Pacific American or a woman without including other identities, particularly those that are oppressions.
3. Identifying with multiple aspects of self, but choosing to do so in a “segmented fashion” (Reynolds & Pope, 1991, p. 179), frequently only one at a time and determined more passively by the context rather than by the individual’s own wishes. For example, in one setting the individual identifies as Black, yet in another setting as gay.
4. The individual chooses to identify with the multiple aspects of self, especially multiple oppressions, and has both consciously chosen them and integrated them into one’s sense of self…

 Read the entire article here.

Parent and Child Influences on the Development of a Black-White Biracial Identity

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
2009-10-07
286 pages

Dana J. Stone Harris

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Human Development

In this qualitative study, the interactive process of exploring and developing shared, familial meanings about biracial identity development was investigated from the perspectives of both parents and children in Black-White multiracial families. Specifically, this study examined how monoracial parents and their biracial children describe the influence parents have on the biracial children’s identity development process from the biracial individuals’ youth into adulthood. Monoracial parents and their children were also invited to share how they negotiated the uniqueness of a biracial identity in both the parents’ and the children’s social arenas. Data were obtained through in-person, semi-structured interviews with 10 monoracial mothers and 11 of their adult (ages 18 to 40) biracial children. The data were analyzed using phenomenological methodology. The analysis of participants’ experiences of biracial identity development revealed four major themes: that family interactions and relationships contribute to the creation of identity for biracial individuals, that mothers intentionally worked to create an open family environment for their biracial children to grow up in, that parents and children affect and are affected by interactions with American culture and society throughout their development, and finally that growing up biracial is a unique experience within each of aforementioned contexts. While there were many shared experiences among the families, each family had its own exceptional story of strength and adjustment to the biracial identity development process. Across cases, the overarching theme was one of togetherness and resiliency for the mothers and their adult children. Data from this study has important implications for research and practice among a number of human service professionals.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• LIST OF TABLES
• LIST OF FIGURES
• DEDICATION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
  • BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE
  • JUSTIFICATION: BLACK-WHITE INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES
  • STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
  • PURPOSE STATEMENT
  • CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
  • DEFINITIONS OF KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
  • RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
  • IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
  • RACIAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
  • BIRACIAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
  • RACIAL SOCIALIZATION: THE ROLE OF FAMILIES
  • INTERRACIAL COUPLES: ATTITUDES AND EXPERIENCES
  • INTERRACIAL PARENTS AND RACIAL SOCIALIZATION
  • THE PRESENT STUDY
• CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
  • PHENOMENOLOGICAL INQUIRY
  • SAMPLE
  • PROCEDURES
  • MEASURES
  • ROLE OF THE RESEARCHER
  • DATA ANALYSIS
  • TRUSTWORTHINESS
• CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS
  • INTRODUCTION OF THE PARTICIPANT FAMILIES
    • Participant Demographics: Mothers
    • Participant Demographics: Biracial Adults
    • Descriptions of Participant Families
  • MULTIGENERATIONAL FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
    • Family Constellations and Parental Dating Practices
    • Supportive and Close Parent-Child Relationships
    • Supportive Siblings: Sharing the Biracial Experience
    • Grandparents and Great-Grandparents
  • FAMILIAL INFLUENCES ON THE BIRACIAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
    • Raising Biracial Children: An Intentionally Unique Responsibility
    • Racially Labeling Children
    • Acknowledging Potential Challenges for Biracial Children
    • Family pride: We are Comfortable and Proud to be an Interracial Family
  • NEGOTIATING OUR RACIAL IDENTITY WITH THE “OUTSIDE” WORLD
    • Friendships
    • Neighborhoods and Local Communities
    • Trying to Fit Me into a Box: Pressure to Choose Black or White
    • Fighting Discrimination and Racism as a Family
    • The Impact of Racially Historical Events
  • THE EXPERIENCE OF GROWING UP WITH A UNIQUE RACIAL HERITAGE
    • How I Describe My Racial Identity
    • The Color of My Skin Matters
    • “The Biggest Issue I’ve had is Hair”
    • Stuck in the Middle and “The Best of Both Worlds”
    • Resiliency: My Racial Identity Makes me a Stronger Person
  • SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
• CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
  • OVERVIEW
  • REFLEXIVITY AND PERSONAL PROCESS
  • DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS
    • Mother’s Perceptions of their Influence on Biracial Identity Development
    • Biracial Children Describe the Influence of their Parents and Families
    • Biracial Identity from Childhood into Adulthood
    • Negotiating Biracial Identity in the Social Arenas of Mothers and Children
  • LIMITATIONS
  • PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS
    • Mental Health Implications
    • Treatment Suggestions
    • Social and Political Implications
    • Community
    • Social Change
  • RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
  • FINAL CONCLUSIONS
• REFERENCES
  • APPENDIX A: ADVERTISEMENT FLYER
  • APPENDIX B: RECRUITMENT EMAIL/LETTER
  • APPENDIX C: IRB APPROVAL LETTER VIRGINIA TECH
  • APPENDIX D: IRB APPROVAL LETTER UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
  • APPENDIX E: INFORMED CONSENT
  • APPENDIX F: INTERVIEW GUIDES
  • APPENDIX G: DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONNAIRES
  • APPENDIX H: THEMES DRAFT 1
  • APPENDIX I: THEMES DRAFT 6
  • APPENDIX J: EMAIL LETTER FOR MEMBER CHECKS

LIST OF TABLES

• TABLE 1 SUMMARY OF THEMES
• TABLE 2 MOTHER DEMOGRAPHICS
• TABLE 3 BIRACIAL ADULT DEMOGRAPHICS

LIST OF FIGURES

• FIGURE 1 VINCENT FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 2 NELSON FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 3 SIMON FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 4 EDWARD FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 5 RULE FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 6 COLLINS FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 7 JACOBS FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 8 OLSON FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 9 MONROE FAMILY GENOGRAM
• FIGURE 10 BROOKS FAMILY GENOGRAM

Read the entire dissertation here.

White Negritude: Race, Writing, and Brazilian Cultural Identity [Review]

H-Net Reviews
February 2010

Lorenzo Veracini

Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond. White Negritude: Race, Writing, and Brazilian Cultural Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Cloth ISBN 978-1-4039-7595-9.

Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond has published a persuasive outline and contextualization of Brazilian “Race Democracy” advocate Gilberto Freyre. In a forthcoming book, I argue that settler projects use a variety of “transfers” in order to manage indigenous and exogenous alterity in their respective population economies, and that “transfer” does not apply only to people pushed across borders. This review of White Negritude contends that Freyre was indeed a master (discursive) transferist.

Casa Grande e Senzala (1933) proposed a reading of Brazilian race relations that in many ways remains paradigmatic. The specific conditions afforded by a tropical environment and the encounter between Portuguese colonizers and African slaves had produced a uniquely Brazilian synthesis. The master/slave dialectic had been upturned; the inherent antagonism and violence that should have accompanied that relation had been defused. This synthesis, Freyre argued, demonstrated among other things Brazil’s superiority to the United States. While this stance contributed to Casa Grande e Senzala’s reception and career, Isfahani-Hammond suggests that it may also have prevented scrutiny—Brazilian race relations are still routinely construed—both in Brazil and in the US—as primarily an “antithesis” of something else. Freyre, the generally accepted reading goes, made the Afro-Brazilian a central character of the national narrative, recognized that the slaves were the true colonizers, framed senzala and Casa Grande in the same interpretative frame, and proposed a consistently non-eugenicist reading of Brazilian society and culture. Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond successfully problematises this interpretation.

The main point in Freyre’s argument is that Brazilian slave masters identify with their slaves and, having assimilated their cultural traits, can therefore genuinely and authentically represent them. This identification is acquired, for example, via sexual (non reproductive and noncoercive) intercourse with black women. Afro-Brazilian “atmospheric” influences are thus transferred to the white masters in the unique context of the northeastern Brazilian plantation complex (a self-contained social microcosm that is presented as the epicentre of the Brazilian cultural experience). Isfahani-Hammond insists on Freyre’s strategic disavowal of genetic hybridisation. Branquemento (“whitening”) was one available possibility, an approach that advocated the progressive elimination of black genes through miscegenation and immigration policies that favoured Europeans. Freyre, on the other hand, developed more effective discursive strategies. This is where Isfahani-Hammond’s argument is most convincing, and Freyre’s “celebration” of Afro-Brazilian cultural traits is shown as ultimately seeking to “replace sociohistorical blackness with a discourse about blackness” (p. 7). In this way, a potentially destabilising oppositional agency is expropriated and circumvented. Despite its ostensibly non-racial determinants, Freyre’s reasoning is shown to actually culminate in the “exclusionary resolution of Brazilian heterogeneity” (p. 14)…

Read the entire review here

Julianne Jennings: The mixed blood of Indians explained

The Providence Journal
Providence, Rhode Island
2009-01-30

Julianne Jennings
Willmantic, Connecticut

EUROPEAN EXPLORERS discovered a land inhabited by an agricultural people who grew corn, beans and squash and who had a sophisticated system of government that, some would argue, would later be adopted by the United States. The settling of a hostile “wilderness” and the near-extinction of Native Americans is now an annual American celebration called Thanksgiving. Every year, school-age children are taught the legend of the first encounter between Indians and the Pilgrims.

Included in the mythical story is a description of what an “authentic” Indian looked like and how he or she behaved. These false images are promulgated in children’s literature and in film and have become the death of many Native Americans who do not fit the popular stereotype, especially Indians who live along the Eastern Seaboard and whose physical features reflect blood mixing.

In New England, after the Pequot War (1636-1637) and the King Philip’s War (1675-1676), the Pequots were either executed, forced into indentured servitude in colonial households, divided among other Eastern tribes, or shipped to Bermuda and the Caribbean as slaves. Today, eight out of ten Native Americans are of mixed blood as a result of slavery and post-slavery intermarriage, particularly in New England. Further, the infamous “one-drop rule,” which is also tied to the colonial slave system, decreed that a single drop of black blood, or a single ancestor who was African, in an individual of mixed race defined that person as black.

After the Pequot War and the King Philip’s War, slavery was a booming business in Bermuda in the late 1600s. The English conducted a census of the population living on the island. There were five categories of race: white, negro, Indian, mulatto and mustees. Mustees were people who were of mixed race but passed for white. During the late 1700s another census was conducted. There were still five categories; however, Indians were now classified as “colored.” After emancipation in 1834, the classification of mustees were dropped, people of color were either negro, colored or mulatto, depending on their features, skin color and hair texture…

Read the entire article here.

Dr. Rainier Spencer to be Guest on MSNBC NewsNation with Tamron Hall

NewsNation
MSNBC TV
Wednesday, 2011-02-02, 19:00-20:00Z (14:00-15:00 EST, 11:00-12:00 PST) (Recheduled due to a White House news conference on the situation in Egypt from 2011-01-31.)

Tamron Hall, Host

Rainier Spencer, Director and Professor of Afro-American Studies; Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Dr. Spencer is the author of the new book, Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix (2011) in where he argues cogently, and forcefully, that the deconstruction of race promised by the American Multiracial Identity Movement will remain an illusion of wishful thinking unless we truly address the racist baggage that serves tenaciously to conserve the present racial order.

View the video here.

Selected bibliography:

• “Mixed-Race Chic,” The Chronicle Review, May 19, 2009.
• Challenging Multiracial ldentity. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006.
• Spurious Issues: Race and Multiracial Identity Politics in the United States, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.

Passing, Cultural Performance, and Individual Agency: Performative Reflections on Black Masculine Identity

Cultural Studies↔Critical Methodologies
Volume 4, Number 3
pages 377-404
DOI: 10.1177/1532708603259680

Bryant Keith Alexander, Acting Dean and Professor of Communication Studies
California State University, Los Angeles

This performative article uses the trope of “passing” as reference to crossing racial identity borders as well as to intra/interracial issues of identity and authenticity. Passing is constructed as a performative accomplishment and assessment by both the group claimed and the group denied. This article is structured around three divisions—passing as cultural performance, the social construction of identity, and the quest for self-definition of socially mediated expectations. All issues are centered within the specific concerns of Black masculine identity. In the process, the essay also seeks to establish the notion of an integrative ethnography of performance that envelops the critique of a performance as a part of the overall textual presentation of experience.

Read or purchase the article here.

Changing Census, Changing America

Southern Changes: The Journal of the Southern Regional Council
Volume 22, Number 4 (2000)
pages 24-26

Edward Still

Every census is different from the last, but there are some big changes in store with Census 2000. Beginning in early March 2001, the Bureau will publish census data for each state to use in redistricting. What new things can we expect from this census? To begin with, we will have access to census data more easily via computer. The Census Bureau will be posting census data on its website, www.census.gov and a separate site for the American Factfinder, www.factfinder.census.gov. More importantly, the data will be different from past censuses. I want to discuss two changes: the racial data and the sampling controversy.

Reporting One or More Races

For the first time, Census 2000 allowed respondents to identify themselves as a member of more than one race. The census asked, “What is this person’s race? Mark one or more races to indicate what this person considers himself/herself to be.” The races which the Census Bureau will report are: white; black, African American, or Negro; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; and, “Some other race.” (In the 1990 Census, the Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander groups were combined.)

Because the respondents were allowed to choose more than one race, there are fifty-seven possible combinations of racial groupings-ranging from people who mark two races (ten possible combinations) to people who claim all six racial categories…

Read the entire article here.