Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Indians and Mestizos: Identity and Urban Popular Culture in Andean Peru

    Indians and Mestizos: Identity and Urban Popular Culture in Andean Peru

    Journal of Southern African Studies
    Volume 26, Issue 2 (June 2000)
    pages 239 – 253
    DOI: 10.1080/03057070050010093

    Fiona Wilson

    The article begins with a discussion of the chronology of conquest and liberation in Peru and reflects on the changing meanings given to the racial categories of Indian and mestizo (half-caste) in colonial and post-colonial periods. Using popular culture as a lens, the transformations taking place in images of race and urban social identities are analysed, using as a case study a provincial town in the Andean highlands in the course of the twentieth century. Through changing forms of street theatre urban groups worked out new identities by weaving together, juxtaposing and contesting different cultural forms. The article explores in detail two manifestations of street theatre that predominated. These are the Dance of the Inca in the 1900s that addressed Indian/white relations, and carnaval where relations between mestizo and white were played out for much of the twentieth century.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Biracial (Black/White) Women: A Qualitative Study of Racial Attitudes and Beliefs and Their Implications for Therapy

    Biracial (Black/White) Women: A Qualitative Study of Racial Attitudes and Beliefs and Their Implications for Therapy

    Women & Therapy
    Volume 27, Issue 1 & 2 (January 2004)
    pages 45 – 64
    DOI: 10.1300/J015v27n01_04

    Tamara R. Buckley, Associate Professor of Counseling
    Hunter College, City University of New York

    Carter T. Robert, Professor of Psychology and Education
    Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology
    Teachers College, Columbia University

    This study examined racial attitudes and beliefs in five biracial (Black/White) women. Participants completed three one-hour semistructured interviews designed to explore the impact of race on psychosocial development and psychological functioning from early childhood through the adult years. Results of thematic analyses and implications for clinical practice are presented.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Slave Mothers and White Fathers: Defining Family and Status in Late Colonial Cuba

    Slave Mothers and White Fathers: Defining Family and Status in Late Colonial Cuba

    Slavery & Abolition
    Volume 31, Issue 1 (March 2010)
    pages 29-55
    DOI: 10.1080/01440390903481647

    Karen Y. Morrison, Assistant Professor of Afro-American Studies
    University of Massachusetts, Amherst

    This paper outlines the mechanisms used to position the offspring of slave women and white men at various points within late nineteenth-century Cuba’s racial hierarchy. The reproductive choices available to these parents allowed for small, but significant, transformations to the existing patterns of race and challenged the social separation that typically under girded African slavery in the Americas. As white men mated with black and mulatta women, they were critical agents in the initial determination of their children’s status-as slave, free, mulatto, or even white. This definitional flexibility fostered an unintended corruption of the very meaning of whiteness. Similarly, through mating with white men, enslaved women exercised a degree of procreative choice, despite their subjugated condition. In acknowledging the range of rape, concubinage, and marriage exercised between slave women and white men, this paper highlights the important links between reproductive practices and the social construction of race.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • The Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting 2010

    The Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting 2010

    81st Annual PSA Meeting
    2010-04-08 through 2010-04-11
    Marriott Oakland City Center
    Oakland, California

    Theme: Revitalizing the Sociological Imagination: Individual Troubles & Social Issues in a Turbulent World

    Selected programs from the Preliminary Program Guide include:

    Friday, 2010-04-09, 12:00-13:10 PDT (Local Time)

    86) Roundtables

    Table 3: Mixed Race & Identity: The Social Construction of Race
    Organizers: Michael McKail & Joanna Norton, UCR [University of California, Riverside]
    Krystale Littlejohn, Stanford Univ.: Interracial Dating & Endogamy among Mixed race Youth in the U.S.
    Charlene Johnson, Univ. of New Mexico: “Brokers” of Culture: Hearing Children of Deaf Adults at the Interchange of Ethnic Identity

    Saturday, 2010-04-10, 15:30-17:00 PDT (Local Time)

    192) Multi-Racial & Multi-Ethnic Identity: Contemporary Trends in Research
    Organizer: Shigueru Tshua, UCR & Reginald Daniel, UCSB
    Adam Louis Horowitz, Stanford Univ.: Don’t Hate on the Halfies: Religious Identity Formation Among Children of Inter-Religious Couples
    Shigueru, Tshua, UCR: The Stacked Bar Model of Ethnic Identity: Peruvian Nikkei’s Shifting Identities from Peru to California
    Rebecca Romo, UCSB: Between Black & Brown: Blaxican Identity in the United States
    Reginald Daniel, UCSB: Hypocritical Hybridity & the Critical Difference: Postraciality in the Age of Obama

    Sunday, 2010-04-11, 11:15-11:45 PDT (Local Time)

    220) Minority Experiences
    Organizer: Aya Kimura Ida, CSU Sacramento
    Sabeen Sandhu, Santa Clara Univ.: Migration & Medical Degrees: U.S. Born Foreign Medical Graduates
    Sarah Schlabach, UCLA: Family, Race & Gender: What Does It Mean To Be Multiracial?
    Aya Kimura Ida, CSU Sacramento: Coping with Discrimination: Role of Self-Esteem for African Americans, Caribbean Americans & European Americans

    For more information, click here.

  • Census Chief Apologizes for ‘Negro’ Category

    Census Chief Apologizes for ‘Negro’ Category

    The New York Times
    2010-03-26

    Kate Phillips

    When Robert Groves, the director of the Census Bureau, appeared on C-Span’s “Washington Journal” program Friday morning, he found himself having to defend the racial designations on the census form…

    Read the entire article here.

  • The Meaning of Style: Black British Style, and the underlying political and social environment

    The Meaning of Style: Black British Style, and the underlying political and social environment

    New Art Exchange
    Nottingham, England
    2010-01-16 through 2010-04-10
    Monday to Friday 10:00-19:00 BT; Saturday 10:00-17:00 BT
    Admission:  Free

    Artists:

    Vanley Burke (Photography)
    Clement Cooper (Photography) [Includes a selection of prints from the DEEP Project]
    Michael Forbes (Photography)
    Gerard Hanson (Painting / Photography)
    Barbara Walker (Painting / Drawing)
     
    Curated By:

    David Schischka Thomas

    New Art Exchange presents an exhibition exploring the presence of young African Caribbean men in Britain over the last 40 years, and how Black music, fashion and culture have influenced mainstream society.

    Young African Caribbean men have often been portrayed as low achievers and perpetrators of crime in British society. But now, with Barack Obama winning the presidency of the biggest superpower in the world, will we see these same young men portrayed in a different light; as a source of huge potential for the future? Will the achievement of black youth in Britain over the last 40 years be recognised and honoured?

    Read the complete description here.

  • Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)

    Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)

    The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) consists of fifty-nine high-precision samples of the American population drawn from fifteen federal censuses, from the American Community Surveys of 2000-2007, and from the Puerto Rican Community Surveys of 2005-2007. Some of these samples have existed for years, and others were created specifically for this database. These samples collectively constitute our richest source of quantitative information on long-term changes in the American population. However, because different investigators created these samples at different times, they employed a wide variety of record layouts, coding schemes, and documentation. This has complicated efforts to use them to study change over time. The IPUMS assigns uniform codes across all the samples and brings relevant documentation into a coherent form to facilitate analysis of social and economic change.

    For more information, click here.

  • Assessing Shifting Racial Boundaries: Racial Classification of Biracial Asian Children in the 2000 Census

    Assessing Shifting Racial Boundaries: Racial Classification of Biracial Asian Children in the 2000 Census

    Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
    2009-12-07
    77 pages

    Sara Megan McDonough

    Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Sociology.

    This study examined the racial identification of biracial Asian children by their parents, in a sample (n=9,513) drawn from 2000 Public Use Microdata Series Census data (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series 2009). I used competing theories of Asian assimilation to examine how characteristics of the child, the Asian parent, the non-Asian parent, and the local Asian community influenced the likelihood of a child′s being identified as Asian, non-Asian, or biracial. Findings showed that child′s, both parents′, and community characteristics significantly influenced the child′s racial classification. While the effects of greater assimilation significantly increased the likelihood of an Asian classification for third-generation children, in contrast, it decreased the likelihood of an Asian identification for first- and second-generation children. Findings showed that children with a black parent were less likely than children with a white parent to be identified as Asian instead of non-Asian. However, inconsistent with past findings, children with a Hispanic parent were more likely than those with a white parent to be identified as Asian rather than non-Asian. Exploratory analyses concerning a biracial classification indicate significant relationships with factors previously found to increase the likelihood of an Asian identification, including the effects of greater Asian assimilation and size of the local Asian community. Moreover, the relationship between parent‟s and child′s gender on the child‟s racial classification may be more complicated than previously theorized, as I found evidence of “gender-matching” which meant that boys were more likely to be identified like their fathers, and girls more like their mothers.

    Read the entire thesis here.

  • DEEP: A Photo-Essay by Clement Cooper

    DEEP: A Photo-Essay by Clement Cooper

    Clement Cooper

    DEEP explores the contentious issue surrounding British Mixed-Race identity through image & oral testimony.

    From 1992 to 1997, Clement Cooper journeyed to and lived in several port cities throughout the UK. Locations where: Toxteth, Liverpool, St Paul’s, Bristol; Butetown, Cardiff & Manchester.

    Using available natural light and shooting for the first time on medium format, Clement Cooper explored the possibilities of portraiture to reveal a powerful and deeply moving monograph—the very first of it’s kind.  From a personal perspective, Clement Cooper was particularly keen to emphasize that behind all notions, concepts and constructs of racial stereotyping there lies one fact.  That there is no such thing as a “race”, there is only the human race.  DEEP celebrates this undeniable truth by revealing the common humanity of all those photographed explicitly.

    A humanity that unites us all regardless.

    View the photo-essay here.

  • Double Consciousness in the Work of Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans

    Double Consciousness in the Work of Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans

    Women: A Cultural Review
    Volume 20, Issue 3 (December 2009)
    pages 277-286
    DOI: 10.1080/09574040903285735

    Pilar Cuder-Domnguez, Associate Professor
    University of Huelva, Spain

    The first novels published by Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans feature twins of mixed-race parentage—a Nigerian mother and an English father—growing up in Britain. Eight-year-old Jessamy in Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl is unaware that she was born a twin, but on travelling to Nigeria she encounters TillyTilly, a troublesome girl she seems unable to shake off. Georgia and Bessi in Evans’s 26a are identical twins who share all their experiences until a visit to their mother’s homeland of Nigeria opens a breach in their perfect union. Both novels were published in 2005 and display certain commonalities of plot, characterisation, location and stylistic choice. Oyeyemi and Evans both explore Yoruba beliefs surrounding the special nature of twins—half way between the world of humans and gods. If one twin dies, parents commission a carving called ‘ibeji‘ to honour the deceased and to provide a location for their soul. The specialness attributed to twins by the Yoruba is compounded in both novels by the fact that they are mixed-race and by the diverging locations, cultures and languages of their parents. Thus, this article addresses how the two writers deploy Yoruba beliefs in order to raise questions about the cultural grounding of their characters’ identities, and how being twins becomes a metaphor for the ‘double consciousness’ of being black and British.

    Read or purchase the article here.