Month: March 2013

  • A long-awaited history that promises to dramatically change our understanding of race in America, “What Comes Naturally” traces the origins, spread, and demise of miscegenation laws in the United States–laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, most often between whites and members of other races. Peggy Pascoe demonstrates how these laws were enacted and applied…

  • What is multiracialism—and what are the theoretical consequences and practical costs of asserting a multiracial identity? Arguing that the multiracial movement bolsters, rather than subverts, traditional categories of race, Rainier Spencer critically assesses current scholarship in support of multiracial identity.

  • The 1850 census marked a watershed in census-taking in several ways. For our purposes, a large part of its significance rests in the introduction of the “mulatto” category and the reasons for its introduction. This category was added not because of demographic shifts, but because of the lobbying efforts of race scientists and the willingness…

  • Runaway Western Carolinian Salisbury, North Carolina 1832-09-17 page 3, column 6 Source: The North Carolina Newspaper Digitization Project On the 10th of September last, from my plantation in Jones county, two negroes, one named WASHINGTON, about 27 years of age, a very bright mulatto, on one of his hands there is a scar occasioned by…

  • Identity for mixed-race kids? ‘Eurasian’ already exists The Straits Times Singapore Forum Letters 2013-03-30 Michael Ang York Poon I am baffled by Mr Peter Wadeley’s letter (“S’porean identity must include mixed-race kids“; March 16). What he is calling for already exists – that is, Eurasians, who are one of Singapore’s four main racial groups. In…

  • S’porean identity must include mixed-race kids The Straits Times Singapore Forum Letters 2013-03-16 Peter Wadeley MRS MARIETTA Koh Ai-meng (“Citizens have every right to expect privileges”; last Saturday) claims that rising consciousness of what it means to be Singaporean should not be decried as chauvinistic or jingoistic. Last year, former president S R Nathan said…

  • Cross-Cultural Affinities between Native American and White Women in “The Alaska Widow” by Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far) MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States Volume 38, Number 1 (Spring 2013) pages 155-163 DOI: 10.1093/melus/mls002 Mary Chapman, Associate Professor of English University of British Columbia When her work was recovered in the 1980s, Edith Eaton…

  • One of the American West’s bloodiest—and least-known—massacres is searingly re-created in this generation-spanning history of native-white intermarriage.

  • Won’t Somebody Think of the Children Slate 2013-03-27 Brian Palmer, Slate’s Chief Explainer Do opponents of marriage equality always claim that they’re merely worried about the kids? During yesterday’s oral arguments over the constitutionality of California’s ban on gay marriage, Justice Antonin Scalia claimed that there is “considerable disagreement among sociologists” as to whether being…

  • One Drop of Love: A Multimedia Solo Performance on Racial Identity by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni at University of Maryland University of Maryland, College Park The Stamp (Adele H. Stamp Student Union) [Directions] Atrium Room Friday, 2013-03-29, 17:00-19:30 EDT (Local Time) Sponsored by the Multiracial Biracial Student Association (MBSA), Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy…