Mixed Race Studies

The Mixed Race of India

Sacramento Daily Union
Volume 84, Number 71
1892-11-11
page 4, column 3
Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

Eurasia has no boundaries. It lies, a varying social fact, all over India, thick in the great cities, thickest in Calcutta, where the conditions of climate and bread-wining are most suitable; where, moreover, Eurasian charities are most numerous. Wherever Europeans have come aud gone, these people have sprung up in weedy testimony of them—these people who do not go, who have received somewhat in the feeble inheritance of their blood that makes it possible for them to live and die in India. Nothing will ever exterminate Eurasia; it clings to the sun and the soil, and is marvelously propagative within its own borders. There is no remote chance of its ever being reabsorbed by either of its original elements; the prejudices of both Europeans and natives are tar too vigorous to permit of much intermarriage with a jat of people who are neither the one nor the other. Occasionally an up-country planter, predestined to a remote and “jungly” existence, comes down to Calcutta and draws his bride from the upper circles of Eurasia—this not so often now as formerly. Occasionally, too, a young shopman with the red of Scotland fresh in his cheeks is carried off by his landlady’s daughter; while Tommy Atkins fall a comparatively easy prey. The sight of a native with a half-caste wife is much rarer, for there Eurasian as well as native antipathy comes into operation. The whole conscious inclination of Eurasian life, in habits, tastes, religion, and, most of all in ambition, is toward the European and away from the native standards. —Popular Science Monthly.

A Sad Case of Amalgamation

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Volume 19, Number 211
1860-09-05
page 1, column 6
Source: Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection

The reporter of the Philadelphia Press has been around among the colored folks of Philadelphia, and In the course of his peregrination he met with the following case of practical amalgamation:

We were next gratified with something previously new to us—a case of practical amalgamation. We had wrought up our feelings to such abhorrence of the intermarriage of races, that nothing short of the absolute misery of families so produced was expected. The chronicle, however, must be true to the experience, and we are compelled to state that this single case of wedded amalgamation was not so repulsive in its effects as we bad wished it to be.

Being cautioned by the officer to say nothing of our prejudices, we passed through a cleanly-arched alley, and trod by a row of rear brick buildings. Hastily glancing through an open door, we saw a thin, neat-looking white woman industriously sewing. At her feet a negro child was playing and she stooped to kiss it as the door post hid her from view.  A black man was chopping wood in the yard. Three yellow children clustered around him, and at the moment the child which bad been gambolling at the woman’s feet tottered from the house and called him ‘Pappy!’

The man looked angrily at us, but he said nothing.

‘Do your children still help you at the market, Tom?’ said the officer.

‘Yes, sir,’ said the man, chopping away at the stick of wood. As he seemed adverse to making any reply, the officer said:

‘Such children as these I never knew—up at 5 o’clock every morning, and wheeling a heavy go-cart through the streets; they are going someday to be richer than their father.’

‘I hope so,’ said the man.  ‘God knows I am poor enough.’ He continued to chop.

‘Nonsense,’ said the officer. ‘Why, Tom, you take care of your money, never drink. How much better off are vou than your neighbors?’

‘I know that,’ said the man, interestedly, leaning upon his axe, ‘but I want to be rich enough to leave this street. I don’t want these boys to grow up with low people or to live in this unhealthy neighborhood. They are good boys, but I don’t like to tell them so. They make—the three of them—as much wages as I do.’

We understood from our guide that the negro and the woman were legally married; that she had been poor, and his attentions to her in poverty had placed her under obligations which ended in wedlock. As we passed out and peeped stealthily again at the woman, fondling her negro babe, she espied us and looked straightforwardly into our faces. There was no shame upon her cheeks.  She seemed to clasp her child still closer, and as we passed out of view we heard her singing.

‘After all,’ said the officer, ‘these children are better off than those miserable mulattoes who have no recognised fathers. If amalgamation is to become an institution, I prefer it sanctioned by marriage.’

We looked forward to that woman’s career. With the existing feelings of society, thrift and integrity will benefit her little; for the life she has chosen will ever cling to her, and every social advance she may make with her dusky husband will make her more opprobrious and abhorred. It is a hard case.

The question of course which naturally suggests itself to every right-minded white man and woman, is. Where is this thing to end? Whither are we tending? What is to be done to stop this most unnatural and detestable movement. For it is as plain as a pikestaff that if it continues, there will be soon no whites left in this once great and prosperous country. We shall all be mulattoes, and be afflicted with all the peculiarities both mental and physical of that unhappy race. The signs of this great and terrible change already begin to make themselves manifest in our streets; for the most careless observer who walks down Broadway, can hardly fail to observe the appearance on a vast number of faces of the well-known brownish tinge. Let that tinge once become general, and then “farewell, a long farewell to all our whiteness!”

“What Are We Coming To, and When Shall We Reach It?,” The New York Times, March 26, 1864. http://www.nytimes.com/1864/03/26/news/what-are-we-coming-to-and-when-shall-we-reach-it.html.

The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays

Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
2012-05-15
220 pages
5 x 8
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-936214-71-6

Tara L. Masih, Writer & Editor

Award-winning editor Tara L. Masih put out a call in 2007 for Intercultural Essays dealing with the subjects of “culture, race, and a sense of place.” The prizewinners are gathered for the first time in a ground-breaking anthology that explores many facets of culture not previously found under one cover. The powerful, honest, thoughtful voices—Native American, African American, Asian, European, Jewish, White—speak daringly on topics not often discussed in the open, on subjects such as racism, anti-Semitism, war, self-identity, gender, societal expectations. Their words will entertain, illuminate, take you to distant lands, and spark important discussions about our humanity, our culture, and our place within society and the natural world.

• Winner of a 2012 Skipping Stones Honor Award
• A Featured NewPages.com New & Noteworthy Book, February 2012
• An Amazon Hot New Release, debuting at #2 on the essay bestseller list

Table of Contents

• Foreword by Tara L. Masih
• Introduction by David Mura
• THE CHALK CIRCLE: IDENTITY, HOME, AND BORDERLANDS
  • If Grandmother Had Married a Peasant Li Miao Lovett
  • Fragments: Finding Center Sarah J. Stoner
  • Giiwe: go home Christine Stark
• AS I AM: LETTERS OF IDENTITY
  • Bufferhood: An Autoethnography Emma Sartwell
  • Valentine and This Difficult World Tilia Klebenov Jacobs
• THE TONGUE OF WAR: A CLASH OF CULTURES
  • Reflecting on Dragons and Angels Shanti Elke Bannwart
  • Tongue-Tied Kelly Hayes-Raitt
  • Tightrope Across the Abyss Shanti Elke Bannwart
• THE TRAGEDY OF THE COLOR LINE
  • A Dash of Pepper in the Snow Samuel Autman
  • “Miss Otis Regrets” Mary Elizabeth Parker
  • Signatures Lyzette Wanzer
• EYEWITNESS: AS SEEN BY ANOTHER
  • Winter Seagull Toshi Washizu
  • Itam Jeff Fearnside
  • High Tech in Gaborone M. Garrett Bauman
  • Triptych: Paradise Gretchen Brown Wright
• THE OTHER
  • Assailing Otherness Katrina Grigg-Saito
  • Fried Locusts Kamela Jordan
  • Israel: Devour the Darling Plagues Bonnie J. Morris
• THE CULTURE OF SELF AND SPIRIT
  • Connections Betty Jo Goddard
  • Palo del Muerte Simmons B. Buntin
• QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
  • Intercultural Considerations
  • Intercultural Connections
  • Quotation Exploration
• About the Editor, Tara L. Masih
• Acknowledgments
• About the Introduction Author, David Mura
• Index of Contributors

Obaloba, The Whale Island

Innovative Transmedia Productions
2012

Matteo Stanzani, Creative Director

‘OBALOBA, the whale island’, is an original project whose purpose is to educate and entertain children aged 4-8 through an innovative transmedia ecosystem made of: online and mobile community and videogames, web and tv cartoon animation series, interactive eBooks, live events, toys and a wide range of sustainable merchandising products.

Main Content

Obaloba, the Whale Island, is a community of super-cute creatures who live in a lush, Hawaii-inspired, uncontaminated island on the back of a whale.

The creatures are created by mixing – in a magic blender – human DNA with animal and vegetal elements from Nature. They’re hundreds and counting, and each one has a unique personality and attitude, like you and me.

The stories of Obaloba, the whale island, unfold through the adventures of the one-of-a-kind characters who live in peace and joy, foster love for diversity and embrace the value of individuality. But, to maintain their community, they are forced to outsmart a super villain who wants to seize the magic-blender to turn them into all-identical – and therefore controllable – creatures…

For more information, click here.