Mixed Race Studies

It’s not easy being green: stress and invalidation in identity formation of culturally-complex or mixed-race individuals

Texas A&M University
May 2008
159 pages

Samaria Dalia Roberts Perez

Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS

This is an exploratory study to examine a population which has not been widely researched, mixed-race or “culturally-complex” individuals and identification. In the interest of this study, “culturally-complex” refers to individuals who report parents being from two or more different races/ethnicities; i.e. Black, White, Latino/Hispanic, Asian, Native-American, etc. Current literature reveals through quantitative methods that mixed-race adolescents often report more stress and are at greater health risks than most mono-racial adolescents. However, past studies have not thoroughly investigated why and how this stress exists and at times is inconsistent, which points to the need for qualitative inquiry. Although most of the previous literature focuses on mixed-race adolescents, this study focused on an adult population. Study participants were recruited through snowball sampling for in-depth, open-ended interviews. The data was analyzed by searching for common themes that illustrate the possible causes for stress in culturally-complex individuals.

Though this study cannot be representational of all culturally-complex individuals it did provide for noteworthy findings. Race and ethnicity, and particularly being culturally-complex are topics that are often not spoken about in the family or between siblings. In general, culturally-complex individuals are not provided with space for dialogue and so thus, having a place to voice ideas, experiences, and opinions was appreciated by all participants. In all interviews, frustration and confusion was expressed towards box-checking. Though stress and invalidation was inconsistent in past literature surrounding mixed-race and culturally-complex individuals, only some participants in this study reported stress and invalidation, while other participants did not report having ever experienced stress or invalidation. While literature had posed that often culturally-complex individuals would identify with the ethnicity of the father, in this study most of those who identified as one culture over another had identified as the ethnicity of the mother. Participants additionally had ―hierarchies of identities‖ where being culturally-complex was not always their most important role. Future research should examine populations from different socioeconomic groups and other demographics.

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Persistent Borderland: Freedom and Citizenship in Territorial Florida

Texas A&M University
August 2007
295 pages

Philip Matthew Smith

A Dissertation by Philip Matthew Smith Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History

Florida’s Spanish borderland was the result of over two hundred and fifty years of cooperation and contention among Indians, Spain, Britain, the United States and Africans who lived with them all. The borderland was shaped by the differing cultural definitions of color and how color affected laws about manumission, miscegenation, legitimacy, citizenship or degrees of rights for free people of color and to some extent for slaves themselves.

The borderland did not vanish after the United States acquired Florida. It persisted in three ways. First, in advocacy for the former Spanish system by some white patriarchs who fathered mixed race families. Free blacks and people of color also had an interest in maintaining their property and liberties. Second, Indians in Florida and escaped slaves who allied with them well knew how whites treated non-whites, and they fiercely resisted white authority. Third, the United States reacted to both of these in the context of fear that further slave revolutions in the Caribbean, colluding with the Indian-African alliance in Florida, might destabilize slavery in the United States.

In the new Florida Territory, Spanish era practices based on a less severe construction of race were soon quashed, but not without the articulate objections of a cadre of whites. Led by Zephaniah Kingsley, their arguments challenged the strict biracial system of the United States. This was a component of the persistent borderland, but their arguments were, in the end, also in the service of slavery and white patriarchy.

The persistent border included this ongoing resistance to strict biracialism, but it was even more distinct because of the Indian-African resistance to the United States that was not in the service of slavery. To defend slavery and whiteness, the United States sent thousands of its military, millions of its treasure, and spent years to subdue the Indian-African alliance and to make Florida and its long shorelines a barrier to protect whiteness and patriarchy in the Deep South.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• ABSTRACT
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• LIST OF FIGURES
• LIST OF TABLES
• CHAPTER
• I INTRODUCTION
  • The problem
  • An imaginary line
• II FLORIDA’S BORDERS
  • First-contact Florida.
  • First Spanish Period, 1565-1763
  • British Period, 1763-1784
  • Second Spanish Period, 1784-1821
  • The Adams-Onís Treaty, 1818-1821
• III A NEW TERRITORY
  • “The Province is as yet such a Blank”
  • First impressions
  • “warm climates are congenial to bad habits.”
  • “There is such a heterogeneous mass here.”
  • Who was in Florida?
  • Appendages and sustenance
  • Who can be a citizen?
  • “no law except the law of force”
  • “the retreat of the opulent, the gay and the fashionable.”
  • Citizenship, lotteries and matrimony
  • Color, race, and subjection of the borderland
• IV OPPORTUNITIES IN A CARRIBEAN PLACE
  • Borderland or profitable periphery
  • Unlocking the economy
  • Infrastructure
  • “In a Spanish street”
  • “The sickness rages here.”
  • “an added peculiar charm”
• V INDIAN LANDS AND CARIBBEAN THREATS
  • “ – the land was not theirs, but belonged to the Seminoles”.
  • Natural and unnatural connections
  • “apprehensions of hostilities on our southern border”
  • “a separate and distinct people.”
  • “most exposed, but important frontiers of the Union”
  • “apply force to a much greater extent.”
  • “the horrors of St. Domingo enacted over again in earnest”
• VI WHITE ADVOCATES
  • Liberty for people of color
  • Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. and Anna Madigigine Jai
  • Kingsley’s arguments
  • “this species of our population”
  • “the grand chain of security”
  • “the materials of our own dissolution”
  • Colonization versus naturalization
  • The difference between biracial and multi-tier slavery
  • Memorial to Congress of 1833
  • Leaving Florida for Haiti
  • Other signers
  • Another white advocate
  • Legacy of white advocacy
• VII BLACK CITIZENS
  • Free blacks in Florida
  • Slavery laws and manumission
  • Free black rights reduced
  • Free blacks resist
  • Mixed families, white allies
  • Parents and children
  • The good old flag of Spain
• VIII CONCLUSION
  • Summary
  • True to our native land
  • The defining feature
  • The insecure Deep South
• REFERENCES
• APPENDIX A
• APPENDIX B
• VITA

LIST OF FIGURES

1. La Florida, 1584
2. Drake’s attack on St. Augustine, May 28 and 29, 1586
3. Spanish missions in Florida, 1680
4. Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine
5. Fuerte Negro
6. East Florida, 1826
7. Florida, 1834
8. Kingsley home, Fort George Island
9. Anna’s house, Fort George Island
10. Former slave dwellings on Fort George Island
11. Ruins of Fort George Island slave dwellings

LIST OF TABLES

• 1 Northeast Florida Non-Indian population
• 2 Non-Spanish immigration to Florida during Second Spanish Period
• 3 Population of St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period
• 4 Percent free blacks to slaves in 1830
• 5 Percent free blacks to slaves in 1860
• 6 Pre-emancipation census
• 7 Free blacks in households, 1830
• 8 Memorial signers’ households, 1830 and 1840
• 9 Free blacks as a percent of total population during antebellum years
• 10 Population of Nassau, Duval and St. Johns counties
• 11 Black baptisms in St. Augustine, 1784-1821
• A-1 1820 United States Census
• A-2 1830 United States Census
• A-3 1840 United States Census
• A-4 1850 United States Census
• A-5 1860 United States Census
• A-6 1840 Florida Census
• A-7 1850 Florida Census
• A-8 1860 Florida Census

Read the entire dissertation here.