Mixed Race Studies

The Revitalization of Eurasian Identity in Singapore

Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science
Volume 25, Number 2 (1997)
pages 7-24
DOI: 10.1163/030382497X00149

Alexius Pereira

This paper accounts for the revitalization of Eurasian identity in the 1990s. The revitalization was instrumental, as Eurasians had found themselves socially marginalized, particularly since the other ethnic groups were becoming more assertive about their respective ethnic identities since the 1980s. To counter this, the Eurasians selectively constructed a set of cultural practices and outlooks which were unique to the group, but not necessarily reviving practices that were “lost”. The revitalization was therefore not a deep-seated emotional or primordial attachment to their identity; instead, it was used to improve the position of the community in Singapore.

Holistic processing for own-, other- and mixed-race faces is modulated by awareness of race category

Journal of Vision
Volume 11, Number 11 (September 23, 2011)
Article 670
DOI: 10.1167/11.11.670

Rachel Robbins, Research Lecturer
University of Western Sydney
Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University

Dilan Perera
Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University

People are worse at recognising, and show less holistic integration, for other-race faces. Debate continues on how much this is based on perceptual experience versus other factors such as motivation to individuate members of another race. Here we tested integration, using the part-whole task, and racial classification for four faces types matched on basic skin tone: white faces with white features, black faces with black features, white faces with black features and black faces with white features. Task order was manipulated between participants, with both Caucasians and Non-Caucasians tested. If experience is the key factor, integration should be stronger for more experienced faces, regardless of task order (WW>BB>WB = BW, both groups). If motivation or awareness of race is key, then task order should influence the results such that completing the categorisation task first leads to more integration for faces more like one’s in-group (C: WW>WB>BW>BB; Non-C: WW = WB = BW = BB). Race categorisation in mixed-race faces was most affected by changes to the eyes for both Caucasian and non-Caucasian participants. Caucasian participants who completed the part-whole task first showed significant advantages for wholes over parts for all four faces types. However, Caucasian participants who completed the race categorisation task first showed a significant part-whole effect only for black faces with white features, with reduced accuracy on most whole conditions. Non-Caucasian participants showed an overall similar pattern of results, although those who did the part-whole task first only showed significant part-whole effects for black faces with black features and black faces with white features. Caucasian and non-Caucasian groups were closely matched on experience with black faces, but Caucasian participants had higher levels of experience with white faces. This experiment suggests that experience and awareness of race both affect the level of holistic processing for faces, but awareness of race has more influence on integration.

Race Mixture in Hawaii

Journal of Heredity
Volume 10, Issue 1 (1919)
pages 41-47

Vaughan MacCaughey
College of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii

THE CHINESE

The   Hawaiian Islands   arc remarkable for the diversity of  races represented and for the varied conjugal race-mingling which has taken place in this tiny island world during the past hundred and fifty years. Excellent general accounts of the nature of Hawaii’s population can be found in W. F. Blackman’s “The Making of Hawaii” (Macmillan, 1906, 266 pp.) and in “Race Mingling in Hawaii” by Ernest J. Reece (American Journal of Sociology, 20:104-16, July. 1914). The present paper is the first of a series of eugenic studies of Hawaii’s polyglot and polychrome population, a series which embodies data not heretofore assembled and made available for students of eugenics.

The population of Hawaii, 1918, in round numbers is as follows:

Asiatics............................153,500
   Japanses..................105,000
   Chinese....................23,000
   Koreans.....................5,000
   Filipinos..................20,000

Polynesians..........................40,000
   Hawaiian...................23,000
   Caucasian-Hawaiians........11,000
   Chinese-Hawaiians...........6,000

Latins...............................31,000
   Portuguese.................23,000
   Spanish.....................2,000
   Porto Rican.................6,000

Americans. Scotch. British, Germans,
Russians, etc........................22,000

The Hawaiians are remnants of the splendid Polynesian stock that formerly solely possessed this lovely mid-Pacific archipelago. The Americans, North Europeans and other “white men” represent the traders, missionaries, beach-combers, sailors, fugitives from justice, merchants, sugar planters, professional, military and capitalistic classes that have completely dominated and exploited the life and resources of the islands. All of the other races—Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Spanish, Portuguese, Porto Rican, Russian, Negro, South Sea Islanders, etc.—have been imported wholesale by the agricultural corporations to work in the sugar-cane fields. At present the population of Hawaii is predominantly Asiatic, alien, male, illiterate, non-English-speaking, non-Christian, landless, and homeless.

The Chinese have been associated with Hawaii since very early times The first epoch in Hawaii’s industrial exploitation was the “Sandalwood Period,” during which an active trade was carried on with China. Chinese coolie? began to he imported in small numbers about 1870. The flood of coolie labor swelled rapidly and reached a maximum about 1870. The exclusion law, which went into effect with annexation in 1898, has decreased the number of Chinese immigrants. The immigration of foreign-born Chinese into Hawaii to 1910 has been as follows:

Previous to 1890..............6,580
1891-1895.....................3,340
1898-1900.................... 3,830
1900-1905 ......................445
1905-1910.......................205

The Chinese now number 23,000; the increase during the past decade has been slight. There are now 800 registered Chinese voters in Hawaii. In 1900 there were almost as many Chinese children (1,300) in the public and private…

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