Mixed Race Studies

The Election of Barack Obama: How He Won

Palgrave Macmillan
August 2010
178 pages
DOI: 10.1057/9780230111790
ebook ISBN: 9780230111790
Paperback ISBN: 9780230103511
Hardback ISBN: 9780230314603

Baodong Liu, Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Utah

This book examines the historical election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president from the perspective of racial relations. To trace the effect of time, Liu links Obama’s multiracial winning coalition to the two-party system and the profound impact of racial changes since 1965. Contrary to the popular momentum theory which emphasizes the early victories in mainly two states, Iowa and New Hampshire, this book demonstrates that state context matters. Obama’s electoral performance in a state is better explained by its level of racial tension, rather than the emotional need of Americans to elect a black president.

List of Contents

• Emotion and Rationality: An Introduction
• Minimum Winning Coalition: the 2008 Presidential Election from a Historical Perspective
• Racial Change and the Politics of Hope
• The 2008 Democratic Primaries and the Presidential Selection Process
• Building the Winning Coalition in Time
• Building the Winning Coalition in Space
• Winning the General Election
• The Obama Racial Coalition: Conclusion

Blacks may be second class, but they can’t make them leave: Mexican racial formation and immigrant status in Winston-Salem

Latino Studies
Volume 10, Issue 1 (Spring/Summer 2012)
pages 60-80
DOI: 10.1057/lst.2012.7

Jennifer A. Jones, SBS Diversity Post Doctoral Fellow
Ohio State University, Columbus

In this article, I investigate how race is produced by looking at the reception experiences of Afro and Mestizo Mexican migrants to the new South. Despite the fact that Afro and Mestizo Mexicans are both phenotypically and culturally distinct from one another, they assert a shared racial identity as minorities and as Latinos. On the basis of ethnographic field work in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I argue that their perceived similarities with African Americans and pervasive discrimination owing to status drives Afro-Mexicans to assert a race-based Latino identity that is shaped by their understanding of African American experiences.

Read the entire article here.

Parental messages concerning Latino/Black interracial dating: An exploratory study among Latina/o young adults

Latino Studies
Volume 10, Issue 3 (August 2012)
pages 314-333
DOI: 10.1057/lst.2012.24

Erica Morales, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Missouri

Many immigrant groups have racially distanced themselves from Blacks due to anti-Black prejudice and stigma. Racial distancing can be transmitted to children through regulating intimate contact with Blacks. Few studies have examined how Latino young adults receive racialized messages from their immigrant parents about dating Blacks. In-depth interviews reveal that Latino young adults encounter messages regarding mixed race children, perceived cultural differences and the US racial hierarchy. This regulatory process is gendered with Latinas experiencing more explicit sanctioning than Latino men. This study illuminates how Latino parents create racialized and gendered boundaries between their children and Blacks.

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ETHS 309 D: Race & Ethnicity

Edgewood College, Madison, Wisconsin
Ethnic Studies
Spring 2013

Cynthia Rolling, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology

This course engages students in an analysis of historical and contemporary experiences of race and ethnicity in the United States as influenced by changing migration trends and economic developments. Special consideration is given to the social construction of racial categories; issues of whiteness; and multiracial identity.

Political Attitudes and Ideologies of Multiracial Americans: The Implications of Mixed Race in the United States

Political Research Quarterly
Volume 61, Number 2 (2008)
pp. 253-267
DOI: 10.1177/1065912907313209

Natalie Masuoka, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Tufts University

A contemporary rise in multiracial self-identification provokes a number of questions about the significance that this racial identity may hold for American politics. This research focuses on the political attitudes of multiracial Americans to determine how multiracial identities may influence individual public opinion. I offer a test of three competing theoretical models of multiracial political attitude formation: Classic Assimilation, Minority Trumping, and New Identity Formation. This research finds that, generally, multiracial individuals who self-identify as such develop political opinions that parallel with their minority counterparts.

Read or purchase the article here.