Mixed Race Studies

Bill John Baker named official winner in Cherokee chief election

Tusla World
2011-10-13

Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton, World Correspondent

TAHLEQUAH – Bill John Baker is now officially principal chief-elect of the Cherokee Nation.

About 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, the Cherokee Nation Election Commission certified the results from the tribe’s special election. The certified results show Baker defeating former chief Chad Smith, 10,703 votes to 9,128.

“I’d just like to thank every person involved in this election,” said commission chairwoman Susan Plumb. “First and foremost, a big thank you to the voters, who came out in record numbers. We received ballots from all 50 states and four foreign countries.”

Almost 20,000 Cherokee citizens voted in the special election, an increase of 5,000 people from the June 25 general election…

…Among the Baker supporters were several freedmen who came in part because of a tribal Supreme Court order issued Tuesday afternoon.

The order, filed at noon, declined to recognize an agreement brokered in federal district court that reinstated the tribal citizenship of 2,800 freedmen descendants.

“This is a time-out for all the racism that’s going on in all the tribes,” said Yvette Hill. “The large amount he (Baker) won by shows that the Cherokee Nation is not for that. The people have spoken, and the tribe needs to be an example.”

About 1,200 freedmen were registered to vote. It is unknown how many cast ballots in the special election.

The tribe’s attorney general, Diane Hammons, issued a statement Tuesday that the tribe does not have the option of ignoring a federal order. As of Wednesday, it is still unclear, what – if any – impact the justices’ order will have on the election.

On Aug. 22, the tribe’s Supreme Court had upheld a 2007 tribal referendum that disenrolled the freedmen descendants and required at least one Cherokee ancestor on the final Dawes Rolls in order to apply for citizenship…

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In Strangers’ Glances at Family, Tensions Linger

The New York Times
2011-10-13

Susan Saulny

TOMS RIVER, N.J. — “How come she’s so white and you’re so dark?”

The question tore through Heather Greenwood as she was about to check out at a store here one afternoon this summer. Her brown hands were pushing the shopping cart that held her babbling toddler, Noelle, all platinum curls, fair skin and ice-blue eyes.

The woman behind Mrs. Greenwood, who was white, asked once she realized, by the way they were talking, that they were mother and child. “It’s just not possible,” she charged indignantly. “You’re so…dark!”

It was not the first time someone had demanded an explanation from Mrs. Greenwood about her biological daughter, but it was among the more aggressive. Shaken almost to tears, she wanted to flee, to shield her little one from this kind of talk. But after quickly paying the cashier, she managed a reply. “How come?” she said. “Because that’s the way God made us.”

The Greenwood family tree, emblematic of a growing number of American bloodlines, has roots on many continents. Its mix of races — by marriage, adoption and other close relationships — can be challenging to track, sometimes confusing even for the family itself…

…Jenifer L. Bratter, an associate sociology professor at Rice University who has studied multiracialism, said that as long as race continued to affect where people live, how much money they make and how they are treated, then multiracial families would be met with double-takes. “Unless we solve those issues of inequality in other areas, interracial families are going to be questioned about why they’d cross that line,” she said.

According to Census data, interracial couples have a slightly higher divorce rate than same-race couples — perhaps, sociologists say, because of the heightened stress in their lives as they buck enduring norms. And children in mixed families face the challenge of navigating questions about their identities…

…Once, on a beach chair at a resort in Florida years ago, a white woman sunning herself next to Mrs. Dragan bemoaned the fact that black children were running around the pool. “Isn’t it awful?” Mrs. Dragan recalled the woman confiding to her.

Within minutes, Mrs. Dragan, ever feisty despite her reserved appearance, had her brood by her side. “I’d like to introduce you to my children,” she told the woman. Awkward silence ensued…

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The Marginalization of Afro-Asians in East Asia: Globalization and the Creation of Subculture and Hybrid Identity

Global Tides: Pepperdine Journal of International Studies
Volume 5 (2011)
15 pages
Pepperdine University, Malibu, California

Sierra Reicheneker

This article explores the topic of children born of biracial couplings in East Asia. The offspring of such unique unions face severe discrimination and marginalization. The status and future of this minority is especially salient in primarily homogenous states, such as Korea, Japan, and China, where racism varies from social stigma to institutionalized policies. The article will show that they have yet to create a cohesive group identity; they remain vulnerable to negative self-image and socially imposed isolation. In such nations, progress in equality for Afro-Asians will require key Afro-Asian leaders and public figures taking a stand against prejudices, as well as international pressure, and an increase in the number of biracial people due to globalization, in addition to the growing interconnectedness through New Media. Through these actions a hybrid identity and group mentality will form for the Afro-Asians of East Asia.

“All things are possible until they are proved impossible – and even the impossible may only be so as of now.” – Pearl S. Buck

The growing presence of an Afro-Asian population in Asia, particularly in Korea, Japan and China, has recently come to light in the global media. The homogenous nature of these countries exposes its biracial citizens to psychological marginalization. Despite the frequent trend within marginalized groups to create solidarity through a viable counter-culture, the Afro-Asian populations have not done so. However, with the increase in globalization, leading to larger numbers of biracial people born in these states, as well as their ability to connect through the Internet, this small minority will begin to form a group identity. This is furthered by icon-status Afro-Asians leading the way and acting as beacons of aspiration for all Afro-Asians. In addition, with the help of the international community in applying pressure on governments to change racist policies, an Afro-Asian subculture and hybrid identity is likely to emerge.

A Brief History

The first Afro-Asians were the product of American G.I.s during World War II. Starting in 1946, with the occupation of Okinawa and later mainland Japan, as well as the temporary military government of South Korea, Amerasian—including Afro-Asian—children became a visible reality in East Asia. The products of both prostitution and legally binding marriages, these children were largely regarded as illegitimate. When the military presence returned to America, the distinction between the two was, for all practical purposes, null. As the American military departed, any previous preferential treatment for biracial people ended, and was replaced with a backlash due to the return of ethnically-based national pride.

Korea has the largest Afro-Asian population in the Far East, due to increased interracial relationships during the Korean War (1950-1953). Once again, children were the product of both legitimate marriages and prostitution. After the war, the United States Congress passed acts to allow for immigration of biracial children, including the Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1987. The Korean government strongly supported the emigration of Amerasian children to the United States, considering it a “cost-effective way of dealing with social welfare problems,” as they viewed the children, particularly those from Black fathers, as “institutional burdens.”However, American military men looking to bring their Asian families to the states were heavily discouraged from doing so by their superiors; Marines in particular were threatened with court martial. Despite overwhelming support and willing adoptee families in the United States, the majority of Amerasian children remained in Korea. A staggering amount of mothers abandoned their babies, especially Afro-Asian offspring, either to be raised by distant, maternal relatives or to be sent to orphanages—though this is not the case for all of the Amerasian Koreans.

In China, the Afro-Asian people group is a newer phenomenon. They first began to appear beginning with African-American and African students coming to study in China, first in the city of Beijing and later in other larges cities, such as Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. Prominent Afro-Chinese have recently been featured in international news, helping to bring to light the growing Afro-Asian population in China and in East Asia, as a whole…

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Institutional Barriers, Marginality, and Adaptation Among the American-Japanese Mixed Bloods in Japan

The Journal of Asian Studies
Volume 42, Number 3 (1983)
pages 519-544
DOI: 10.2307/2055516

William R. Burkhardt, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Ohio University

Guided by the perspective of marginality theory, the author examines the problems that have faced the mixed-blood progeny of Japanese women and American military servicemen who were reared in father-absent homes and institutions in Japan. The group has experienced discrimination according to racial, class, and family background characteristics and has encountered barriers in the areas of education, employment, marriage, and citizenship or legal status. Although culturally Japanese, mixed bloods are often stereotyped by Japanese as cultural oddities or aliens. Black Japanese have been especially victimized by discrimination and negative stereotypes. Although most American-Japanese have accepted their marginal situation with a fate-orientation common among Japanese, some have responded maladaptively with deviant patterns of aggressive or self-destructive behavior. Others have sought emigration, and a few may have “passed” into Japanese society. The author places these findings in the context of existing research on the Burakumin and Korean minorities in Japan, Korean Amerasians, and Eurasians in East and South Asia.

This study examines the extent to which the American-Japanese or Amerasian mixed-blood group in Japan has been in a marginal situation relative to the larger society. This is accomplished by an historical sketch of the problems faced by mixed bloods in Japan; an examination of specific institutional areas in which opportunities have been blocked and marginality has resulted; and a discussion of three types of adaptations to marginal status, which is based on a review of some case examples of mixed bloods. The research is grounded on unstructured interviews with eight American-Japanese mixed bloods, interviews with several Japanese who have had professional or personally intimate relationships with Amerasians, and a review of the existing literature, including the translation of biographical materials published in Japanese.

The focus of the research is on father-absent Amerasians who have spent at least their childhood and adolescence in Japan. As the Japanese government has never officially identified Amerasians as a distinct racial or societal group, there is no accurate way to estimate their total number, which, according to various sources, probably ranges between ten and sixty thousand. The research will not be concerned with mixed-blood children who were adopted at an early age,  usually by families of American military servicemen, or with the several thousand progeny of Japanese women who married U.S. military personnel or civilians and have a family and cultural life that is characteristically American…