Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Choosing Choosing Racial Sides: Part Two… A Different Perspective

    Choosing Racial Sides: Part Two… A Different Perspective

    USARiseUp.com
    2010-02-20

    Cassandra Franklin-Barbajosa

    Contrary to popular opinion, the way mixed-race people look is not the primary influence that determines what part of their heritage they identify with, according to Seattle clinical psychologist and independent scholar Dr. Maria P. P. Root. She says a host of other factors comes into play.

    “I consider the generation people were born into, the geographical region they came from, the community where they grew up, language, religion, parents’ identity, home values, and even the names they were given,” says Root, who is Filipino and white. “I also look at such things as individual traits. Someone who is very socially skilled and multitalented at a high level—a musician, an athlete, or a scholar, for example—has more identity options.

    Race or gender often become secondary to the part of identity associated with the area of talent. It is almost as though people loosen the rules around race and bigotry if an individual has an exceptional skill that society values and gives the OK to look at a person more as an individual. All of these are very critical influences in how someone is going to identify.”

    Root’s theory about why multiracial people tend to choose one part of their heritage over another began evolving in the 1980s when she discovered that the available literature on mixed-race people was dated. “With few exceptions, it was very pejorative,” she says. “A lot of it reflected the politics of the time, which was against race mixing, and it just did not match the experiences of the multiracial people who were writing doctoral dissertations.”

    That gap led to Root publishing the award-winning book, Racially Mixed People in America, published in 1992. Many consider this highly acclaimed research-based book the definitive contemporary study on the subject, and the first major step in establishing Root as the premiere expert on mixed-race issues.

    “Racial identity starts with family and community,” Root says. “People then begin to negotiate their identity for themselves once they go out on their own.”…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Chosing Racial Sides… American Society Forces Its Children To Make Tough Choices

    Chosing Racial Sides… American Society Forces Its Children To Make Tough Choices

    USARiseUp.com
    2010-02-20

    Cassandra Franklin-Barbajosa

    When Jolanda Williams looks in a mirror, the image she sees is a warm peach complexion framed in dark silky hair, high cheekbones beneath almond eyes, and full lips that slip into an easy, radiant smile. She has a face that could belong almost anywhere in the world, Mexico, India, or Indonesia. Yet Williams, the daughter of a white German mother and a black American father, has spent the better part of her 35 years coming to terms with where she fits in.

    “In America, it is all about your physical characteristics,” says Williams, a resident of Brooklyn, New York, who, for as long as she can remember, has identified herself on paper as African-American. “If I were to put “white” on a job application and walk into an interview, whoever was interviewing me would assume they had the wrong person. It is unrealistic for me to think I can actually walk through the world identifying as white, considering the way I look.”…

    …Dr. Melissa Herman, assistant professor of sociology at Dartmouth College in Hanover, [New Hampshire], understands the reasoning behind the choices made by the more than six million multiracial people in the United States.

    “A lot of our choices about identity have to do with phenotype, our physical characteristics, because it is these characteristics that determine how other people perceive us and treat us,” she says. “If you look even slightly black, there is extreme social pressure in American society to be black, which is certainly a vestige of the system of hypodescent, or the one-drop rule. Even though it is no longer legally enforced, it is very much socially enforced. It is ingrained in children from a very early age; not necessarily by their parents, who may want them to have the freedom to choose, but by our society.”..

    Read the entire article here.

  • Multiracial Americans and Social Class: The Influence of Social Class on Racial Identity

    Multiracial Americans and Social Class: The Influence of Social Class on Racial Identity

    Routledge
    2010-04-21
    256 pages
    Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-48397-1
    Papeback ISBN: 978-0-415-48399-5
    E-Book ISBN: 978-0-203-88373-0

    Edited by

    Kathleen Odell Korgen, Professor of Sociology
    William Paterson University

    As the racial hierarchy shifts and inequality between Americans widens, it is important to understand the impact of social class on the rapidly growing multiracial population. Multiracial Americans and Social Class is the first book on multiracial Americans to do so and fills a noticeable void in a growing market.

    In this book, noted scholars examine the impact of social class on the racial identity of multiracial Americans in highly readable essays from a range of sociological perspectives. In doing so, they answer the following questions: What is the connection between class and race? Do you need to be middle class in order to be an ‘honorary white’? What is the connection between social class and culture? Do you need to ‘look’ White or just ‘act’ White in order to be treated as an ‘honorary white’? Can social class influence racial identity? How does the influence of social class compare across multiracial backgrounds?

    Multiracial Americans and Social Class is a key text for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and academics in the fields of Sociology, Race and Ethnic Studies, Race Relations, and Cultural Studies.

    Table of Contents

    Part 1: Who are Multiracial Americans?

    • 1. Multiracial Americans and Social Class, Kathleen Odell Korgen
    • 2. In-Between Racial Status, Mobility and Promise of Assimilation: Irish, Italians Yesterday, Latinos and Asians Today, Charles Gallagher
    • 3. ‘What’s Class Got to Do with It?’: Images and Discourses on Race and Class in Interracial Relationships, Erica Chito Childs
    • 4. Social Class: Racial/Ethnic Identity, and the Psychology of Choice, Peony Fhagen-Smith
    • 5. Stability and Change in Racial Identities of Multiracial Adolescents, Ruth Burke and Grace Kao

    Part 2: Culture, Class, Racial Identity, and Blame

    • 6. Country Clubs and Hip-Hop Thugs: Examining the Role of Social Class and Culture in Shaping Racial Identity, Nikki Khanna
    • 7. Language, Power, and the Performance of Race and Class, Benjamin Bailey
    • 8. Black and White Movies: Crash between Class and Biracial Identity Portrayals of Black/White Biracial Individuals in Movies, Alicia Edison and George Yancey
    • 9. ‘Who is Really to Blame?’ Biracial Perspectives on Inequality in America, Monique E. Marsh

    Part 3: Social Class, Demographic, and Cultural Characteristics

    • 10. ‘Multiracial Asian Americans’, C. N. Le
    • 11. A Group in Flux: Multiracial American Indians and the Social Construction of Race, Carolyn Liebler
    • 12. Socioeconomic Status and Hispanic Identification in Part-Hispanic Multiracial Adolescents, Maria L. Castilla and Melissa R. Herman

    Part 4: Social Class, Racial Identities, and Racial Hierarchies

    • 13. Social Class and Multiracial Groups: What Can We Learn from Large Surveys? Mary E. Campbell
    • 14. The One-Drop Rule through a Multiracial Lens: Examining the Roles of Race and Class in Racial Classification of Children of Partially Black Parents, Jenifer Bratter
    • 15. It’s Not That Simple: Multiraciality, Models, and Social Hierarchy, Ingrid Dineen-Wimberly and Paul Spickard

    Contributors

    Benjamin Bailey is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His research on the interactional negotiation of ethnic and racial identity in US contexts has appeared in Language in Society, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology and International Migration Review.

    Jenifer L. Bratter is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. Her research focuses on the dynamics of racial intermarriage, marriage and multiracial populations, and has recently been published in Social Forces, Sociological Quarterly, Sociological Forum and Family Relations.

    David L. Brunsma is Associate Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at the University of Missouri. He is author or editor of numerous books, including Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America. His research has appeared in Social Forces, Social Science Quarterly, Sociological Quarterly, and Identity.

    Ruth H. Burke is a Graduate Student in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on racial inequality in the United States and racial identification.

    Mary E. Campbell is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on racial inequality and identification, and has recently been published in American Sociological Review, Social Problems, Social Science Quarterly and Social Science Research.

    Maria Castilla earned her BA in 2009 from Dartmouth College, with high honors in sociology. She currently attends Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.

    Erica Chito Childs is an Associate Professor at Hunter College. Her research interests focus on issues of race, black/white couples, gender and sexuality in relationships, families, communities and media/popular culture. Her publications include Navigating Interracial Borders: Black-White Couples and Their Social Worlds (2005) and Fade to Black and White (2009).

    Ingrid Dineen-Wimberly is a historian and lecturer at UC Santa Barbara, whose forth-coming book, By the Least Bit of Blood, examines the uplift potential a vocal Black identity provided mixed-raced leaders during the 19th and 20th centuries. Her analysis extends beyond the U.S. to include the function of race in the process of Latin-American nation-making.

    Alicia L. Edison is a Graduate Student at the University of North Texas. Her research focuses on race and ethnicity, biracial identity formation, and the perpetuation of racial stereotypes within the media.

    Peony Fhagen-Smith is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. Her research centers on racial/ethnic identity development across the life-span and has published in Journal of Black Psychology, Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, and The Counseling Psychologist.

    Melissa R. Herman, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth, studies how identity affects developmental outcomes among multiracial adolescents. Her current research projects examine perceptions of multiracial people and interracial relationships. Her recent work appears in Child Development, Sociology of Education, and Social Psychology Quarterly.

    Charles A. Gallagher is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminal Justice at La Salle University in Philadelphia. In addition to numerous book chapters, his research on how the media, popular culture and political ideology shapes perceptions of racial and social inequality has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Social Forces and Race, Gender and Class.

    Grace Kao is Professor of Sociology and Education at University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on race and immigrant differences in educational outcomes. Currently, she serves on the editorial boards of Social Science Research, Social Psychology Quarterly and Social Science Quarterly.

    Nikki Khanna is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Vermont. Her research on racial identity negotiation and gender in group processes has been published in Social Psychology Quarterly, Advances in Group Processes, and The Sociological Quarterly.

    C. N. Le is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Director of Asian/Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He focuses on racial/ethnic relations, immigration, institutional assimilation among Asian Americans, and public sociology through his Asian-Nation.org website.

    Carolyn A. Liebler is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. Her research on indigenous populations, racial identity and the measurement of race has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Social Science Research, and Social Science Quarterly.

    Monique E. Marsh is a Graduate Student of Sociology at Temple University. Her research focuses on racial inequality and identification, and has recently been presented at the Eastern Sociological Society Annual Conference and at the National Science Foundation’s GLASS AGEP Research Conference.

    Paul Spickard teaches history and Asian American studies at UC Santa Barbara. The author of fourteen books, including Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity. He is currently studying race in Hawaii and in Germany.

    George A. Yancey is a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas. His work has focused on interracial families and multiracial churches. His latest book is Interracial Families: Current Concepts and Controversies.

  • Everyday Practice of Race in America: Ambiguous Privilege

    Everyday Practice of Race in America: Ambiguous Privilege

    Routledge
    2010-04-13
    128 pages
    Hardback ISBN: 978-0-203-85266-8
    Paperback ISBN: 978-0-415-78055-1
    E-Book ISBN: 978-0-203-85266-8

    Utz McKnight, Assistant Professor of Political Science
    University of Alabama

    An original contribution to political theory and cultural studies this work argues for a reinterpretation of how race is described in US society. McKnight develops a line of reasoning to explain how we accommodate racial categories in a period when it has become important to adopt anti-racist formal instruments in much of our daily lives.

    The discussion ranges over a wide theoretical landscape, bringing to bear the insights of Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, Michel Foucault, Cornel West and others to the dilemmas represented by the continuing social practice of race. The book lays the theoretical foundation for a politics of critical race practice, it provides insight into why we have sought the legal and formal institutional solutions to racism that have developed since the 1960s, and then describes why these are inadequate to addressing the new practices of racism in society. The work seeks to leave the reader with a sense of possibility, not pessimism; and demonstrates how specific arguments about racial subjection may allow for changing how we live and thereby improve the impact race continues to have in our lives.

    By developing a new way to critically study how race persists in dominating society, the book provides readers with an understanding of how race is socially constructed today, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of political theory, American politics and race & ethnic politics.

    Table of Contents

    1. Representation: Class Ambiguity and Racial Subjectivity
    2. The Everyday and Ordinary: Developing a Theory of Race
    3. Cody’s, Foucault, and Race
    4. Working Together: Conditional Subjectivity
    5. Walking the Streets
    6. Passing and Mixing: Challenging the Racial Subject

  • Mixed: Reflections on Race

    Mixed: Reflections on Race

    Mamapedia
    Mamapedia Voices
    2010-03-30

    Kip Fulbeck, Professor of Performative Studies, Video
    University of California, Santa Barbara

    Mom Wisdom comes in many forms. Mamapedia Voices proudly showcases useful and insightful posts by selected writers, from up-and-coming mom bloggers to well-known mom experts.

    I could be anywhere, picking up some innocuous bureaucratic form on a clipboard, filling in lines and checking boxes.

    Name
    Address
    Age
    Gender
    And there it is, staring me in the face.
    Race (check one)

    I’m amazed, on a regular basis, to find this query still printed. Like some old joke that’s lost its humor and turned sour. A true anachronism, as out of place and completely out of bounds as smoking on airplanes, WMD fabrications, or actors wearing blackface. A textual solecism. A farce. Yet I constantly hear from people still confronted with it—on job questionnaires, school surveys, traffic violations, health forms, community and housing assessments. And I still come across it occasionally myself.

    For millions of Americans, this question amounts to asking us to lie. It’s asking us to choose one parent over another, or one great-great-grandparent over another, or one part of ourselves over another. And despite centuries of ignoring (or denying) the idea of racial mixing, multiracial heritage and multiracial identity are core ingredients of our society. Interracial unions have been part of America’s history since its inception, yet only recently have these collective and individual histories begun to be recognized…

    …And while we can rehash the fact that race doesn’t exist biologically, that the very idea of human beings being broken down into genetically discrete groups is scientifically unsound, that somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago our common ancestors migrated out of what is now Africa, we must also acknowledge that, for better or worse, in the reality of our daily lives, race exists. In the broadest sense, viewing others as inherently different has allowed our species to commit some of the worst atrocities in our young history … the enslavement of western African peoples, the decimation to near extermination of Native Americans, the genocides of the Ottoman Empire, Auschwitz, Rwanda, and Nanking to name a few…

    Read the entire article here.

  • For some, question #9 is number one

    For some, question #9 is number one

    Nguoi Viet 2 Online
    2010-04-02

    Denise L. Poon
    LASpot.Us

    When she fills out her 2010 Census form, Mei-Ling Malone is looking forward to answering Question #9 “the race question.” She’s adamant about documenting her multiracial background.

    Malone, who studied multiracial politics at UC Irvine and is now pursuing a doctorate at UCLA, has an African American father and a Taiwanese mother. For Malone, 26, this is her first opportunity to respond to a Census and possibly provide a different answer to the race question than what her parents may have noted for her 10 years ago.

    “President Obama is called our first black president, yet his mother was white,” she said. “For a majority of people who are black and multiracial, we are physically viewed as black, and treated, or discriminated as such. I’m glad that when I indicate I’m multiracial, I’m also counted as black.”

    On 2010 Census forms, respondents have the option to self-identify more than one race. Ten years ago, when, for the first time, respondents had options to self-identify as more than one race, nearly 7 million people (roughly 2.4 percent of the respondents) indicated such…

    Read the entire article here.

  • “Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids” Exhibition in L.A.

    “Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids” Exhibition in L.A.

    The Huffington Post
    2010-04-19

    Victoria Namkung, Lifestyle Journalist

    Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids from artist, slam poet, UCSB professor and filmmaker Kip Fulbeck, features over 70 framed photographic images of multiracial children along with own their statements or drawings. Also a book by the same name, Mixed has a foreward by Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng (President Obama’s sister) and afterword by Cher. The family-friendly and timely exhibition is on display at the Japanese American National Museum through September 26, 2010. I recently caught up with author and photographer Kip Fulbeck to chat about Mixed…

    Read the entire article here.

  • A portrait of couples in mixed unions

    A portrait of couples in mixed unions

    Component of Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-008-X
    Canadian Social Trends
    2010-04-20
    pages 68-80

    Anne Milan, Senior Analyst
    Demography Division

    Hélène Maheux, Analyst
    Immigration and Ethnocultural Section

    Tina Chui, Chief
    Immigration and Ethnocultural Section in the Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division

    As Canada‘s population continues to become ethnoculturally diverse, there is greater opportunity for individuals to form conjugal relationships with someone from a different ethnocultural background. In this study, a mixed union, either marital or common-law, is based on one of two criteria: either one member of a couple belongs to a visible minority group and the other does not; or the couple belongs to different visible minority groups. Using data primarily from the 2006 Census of Population, this study examines the socio-demographic characteristics of mixed union couples in Canada. Studying mixed unions is important not only because these relationships reflect another aspect of the diversity of families today, but also for their implications in terms of social inclusion and identification with one or more visible minority groups, particularly for subsequent generations.

    What you should know about this study

    Visible minority status is self-reported and refers to the visible minority group to which the respondent belongs.  The Employment Equity Act defines visible minorities as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.” Under this definition, regulations specify the following groups as visible minorities: Chinese, South Asians, Blacks, Arabs, West Asians, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, Latin Americans, Japanese, Koreans and other visible minority groups, like Pacific Islanders.

    Mixed couples refer to common-law or marital relationships comprised of one spouse or partner who is a member of a visible minority group and the other who is not, as well as couples comprised of two different visible minority group members. Mixed couples include both opposite-sex and same-sex couples unless indicated otherwise.

    Data used are primarily from the 2006 Census of Population, with comparisons to 2001 data where appropriate. Throughout the paper, both person-level and couple-level data are used.

    Person-level data are used for characteristics of individuals in mixed unions, such as age, sex, educational level, immigrant status and mother tongue. Couple-level data are more appropriate when analyzing characteristics of the union, for instance, whether it is a marriage or common-law relationship or if there are children present in the home.

    Persons of multiple visible minority group status are individuals who reported belonging to more than one visible minority group by checking two or more mark-in circles on the census questionnaire, e.g., Black and South Asian.

    List of Tables

    • Table 1: Out-group pairing by visible minority group, 2006
    • Table 2: Persons in couples and in mixed unions by visible minority group, 2006
    • Table 3: Persons in mixed unions by place of birth and visible minority group, 2006
    • Table 4: Persons in couples that were mixed unions by highest level of education, 2006
    • Table 5: Census family median income by mixed union status, 2006
    • Table 6: Percentage of couples in mixed unions by census metropolitan area, 2006
    • Table 7: Children in two-parent families by visible minority status, 2006

    List of Charts

    • Chart 1: Higher proportion of Arab or West Asian, Black and South Asian men in couples were in mixed unions compared to women from these groups
    • Chart 2: Longer history in Canada was associated with higher proportion of persons in mixed unions
    • Chart 3: Young adults have highest proportion of mixed unions
    • Chart 4: Persons in mixed unions are younger compared to those in non-mixed unions
    • Chart 5: Persons in mixed unions have much higher levels of education than those in non-mixed unions
    • Chart 6: Allophones in mixed unions reported using an official language at home more than allophones in non-mixed unions

    Read the entire report here.

  • Canada’s mixing pot: Multiracial relationships growing at rapid pace

    Canada’s mixing pot: Multiracial relationships growing at rapid pace

    National Post
    2010-04-20

    Mary Vallis

    The number of Canadians in mixed-race relationships and marriages is rising, still primarily a big city phenomenon, but a trend fuelled in part by romances in small cities, according to a new report released by Statistics Canada on Tuesday.

    Between 2001 and 2006, mixed unions grew at a rapid pace (33%), more than five times the growth for all couples (6.0%), the agency says in a new report titled “A Portrait of Couples in Mixed Unions.”

    According to the 2006 Census, 3.9% of the 7.4 million couples in Canada were “mixed unions,” meaning either one member of the relationship belonged to a visible minority or that both were members of different visible minorities. Fifteen years earlier, mixed unions accounted for 2.6% of all couples.

    Residents of small cities with predominantly white populations like Saguenay, Que., Moncton, N.B., and Thunder Bay, Ont., boasted some of the highest percentages of visible minorities in mixed unions. Nearly 63% of all of the visible minorities in Saguenay had spouses or partners from other backgrounds. Saint John, N.B., Kelowna, B.C., Sudbury and Barrie also ranked high…

    To read the entire story, click here.

  • Beyond the Rainbow: Mixed Race and Mixed Culture in the 21st Century Work Place

    Beyond the Rainbow: Mixed Race and Mixed Culture in the 21st Century Work Place

    Society for Intercultural Education Training and Research
    2010 Conference: Living and Working in a Intercultural World
    2010-04-14 through 2010-04-17
    Spokane, Washington
    Session Date: 2010-04-15

    Harriet Cannon, M.C.

    Rhoda Berlin, MS

    Today on the street, at schools and in the workplace, we can no longer be sure of a person’s ethnicity by their surname or appearance. Walk the streets of any larger city, most university campuses, and the majority of businesses in the United States and if you are looking for it, you will be amazed at the number of mixed race people under the age of 40. This quiet revolution is rapidly changing the face of the US, Canada, Europe, and has a presence in Asia.

    The goal of this workshop is to discuss how multicultural and mixed race population growth is pushing the boundaries of our thinking about diversity and cross cultural training. We will discuss appearance and identity and address the breadth and depth of mixed race experience. We will share our research on mixed race adult identity. We will describe strengths and challenges educators and trainers increasingly encounter with this mushrooming diverse mixed race population at university and in the workplace. There will be group participation on brainstorming creative changes in delivery of diversity/intercultural training in the 21st century.

    View the session handout (a few reading resources on biracial and multiethnic identity)  here.