Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • ‘Whose colour was no black nor white nor grey, But an extraneous mixture, which no pen Can trace, although perhaps the pencil may’: Aspasie and Delacroix’s “Massacres of Chios”

    ‘Whose colour was no black nor white nor grey, But an extraneous mixture, which no pen Can trace, although perhaps the pencil may’: Aspasie and Delacroix’s “Massacres of Chios”

    Art History
    Volume 22, Issue 5 (December 1999)
    Pages 676-704
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8365.00182

    Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Professor of Art History
    The University of California, Berkeley

    While painting Massacres of Chios in 1824, Eugène Delacroix wrote in his journal that ‘The mulatto will do very well.’  This paper asks why a ‘mixed-blood’ would figure in a picture painted on behalf of the Greek War of Independence and argues that Chios must be understood as material evidence of the history of France’s imperial aspirations, as a vestige of its confusions as well as its experiments. To broaden the geopolitical horizon of interpretation of Chios is to appreciate the extent to which global politics were performed and remembered in the studio space of an ambitious, insecure and sexually preoccupied young French male painter.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Options: Racial/Ethnic Identification of Children of Intermarried Couples

    Options: Racial/Ethnic Identification of Children of Intermarried Couples

    Social Science Quarterly (September 2004)
    Volume 85, Issue 3
    Pages 746 – 766
    DOI: 10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.00243.x

    Zhenchao Qian, Professor of Sociology
    Ohio State University

    Objective. Whites of various European ethnic backgrounds usually have weak ethnic attachment and have options to identify their ethnic identity (Waters, 1990). What about children born to interracially married couples?

    Methods. I use 1990 Census data—the last census in which only one race could be chosen—to examine how African American-white, Latino-white, Asian American-white, and American Indian-white couples identify their children’s race/ethnicity.

    Results. Children of African American-white couples are least likely to be identified as white, while children of Asian American-white couples are most likely to be identified as white. Intermarried couples in which the minority spouse is male, native born, or has no white ancestry are more likely to identify their children as minorities than are those in which the minority spouse is female, foreign born, or has part white ancestry. In addition, neighborhood minority concentration increases the likelihood that biracial children are identified as minorities.

    Conclusion. This study shows that choices of racial and ethnic identification of multiracial children are not as optional as for whites of various European ethnic backgrounds. They are influenced by race/ethnicity of the minority parent, intermarried couples’ characteristics, and neighborhood compositions.

    Read the entire article here.

  • Raising Multiracial Awareness in Family Therapy through Critical Conversations

    Raising Multiracial Awareness in Family Therapy through Critical Conversations

    Journal of Marital and Family Therapy
    Volume 31, Issue 4
    Pages 399 – 411
    October 2005
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2005.tb01579.x

    Teresa McDowell
    School of Family Studies
    University of Connecticut

    Lucrezia Ingoglia
    Greater Lakes Mental Healthcare
    Tacoma, Washington

    Takiko Seizawa
    Family Service Associates
    San Antonio, Texas

    Christina Holland
    Behavioral Medicine Clinic
    Olympia, Washington

    Wayne Dashiell Jr.
    Tacoma, Washington

    Christopher Stevens
    Renton Youth and Family Services
    Renton, Washington

    Multiracial families are uniquely affected by racial dynamics in U.S. society. Family therapists must be prepared to meet the needs of this growing population and to support racial equity. This article includes an overview of literature related to being multiracial and offers a framework for working with multiracial identity development in therapy. A critical conversation approach to working with multiracial identity is shared along with case examples. The authors’ experiences developing the model via a practitioner inquiry group are highlighted.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Impacts of Multiple Race Reporting on Rural Health Policy and Data Analysis

    Impacts of Multiple Race Reporting on Rural Health Policy and Data Analysis

    Working Paper No. 73
    Working Paper Series
    North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
    Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research
    The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    2002-05-01
    39 pages

    Randy Randolph, M.R.P.

    Rebecca Slifkin, Ph.D.

    Lynn Whitener, Dr.P.H.

    Anna Wulfsberg, M.S.P.H.

    This work was supported by Cooperative Agreement 1-U1C-RH-00027-01 with the federal Office of Rural Health Policy.

    Introduction

    In the 1990s the policy goal of improving the rural minority population’s health status and access to health care gained prominence.  The President’s Initiative on Race, announced in 1998, established goals for improvements in health indicators and declared 2010 as the target year for achieving these goals. In A National Agenda for Rural Minority Health, the National Rural Health Association outlined strategies to realize the President’s goals in rural America. The plan identified three priority areas associated with these goals: Information and Data, Health Policy and Practices, and Health Delivery Systems. All three of these areas require a consistent stream of data describing the racial composition of rural areas and rural residents’ health status. The information and data section recommends that “Data collection systems will incorporate core data sets and employ uniform definitions for relevant terms to facilitate information sharing and comparisons among and across minority populations and nonminority populations as well” (NRHA, 1999).

    Recent changes in federal policy will complicate achieving NRHA’s stated goal and measuring the rural success of the Initiative on Race. On October 30, 1997, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced the first revised federal standards for collecting data on race and ethnicity since 1977. The revisions are to be adopted by all federal agencies working with race-based information.  The modifications to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting (the existing policy) contained changes in both content and naming of racial and ethnic categories requiring that respondents be allowed to choose one or more of five race categories: “American Indian or Alaska Native,” “Asian,” “Black or African American,” “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander,” and “White”; an optional “Other Race” is allowed, but not encouraged, under the rule. Two categories for data on ethnicity—“Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino” are offered in a separate question. The separate ethnicity choice is only a change in category naming with the addition of Latino to the category—the option of also including Spanish Origin is permitted. Some of the new race categories defined by the revision to Directive 15 were changes from the 1977 rule. The most obvious change was disaggregating the “Asian or Pacific Islander” category to distinct “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander” categories. The population covered by the “American Indian or Alaskan Native” category has been expanded from the 1977 classification—which included the indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada—to also include those indigenous to Central America and South America…

    Read the entire paper here.

  • Multiracial Self-Identification and Adolescent Outcomes: A Social Psychological Approach to the Marginal Man Theory

    Multiracial Self-Identification and Adolescent Outcomes: A Social Psychological Approach to the Marginal Man Theory

    Social Forces
    Volume 88, Number 1 (September 2009)
    ISSN: 1534-7605 Print ISSN: 0037-7732
    DOI: 10.1353/sof.0.0243

    Simon Cheng, Associate Professor of Sociology
    University of Connecticut

    Kathryn J. Lively, Associate Professor, Sociology
    Dartmouth College

    Recent public health research has consistently reported that self-identified multiracial adolescents tend to display more problem behaviors and psychological difficulties than monoracial adolescents. Relying on insights from qualitative analyses using small or clinical samples to interpret these empirical patterns, these studies implicitly assume a pejorative stance toward adolescents’ multiracial self-identification. Building on the social psychological arguments underlying [Robert] Park’s and [Everett V.] Stonequist’s seminal discussions of the “marginal man,” we derive hypotheses indicating that self-identified multiracial adolescents may show more psychological difficulties, but are also likely to have more active social interaction and participation than monoracial groups. We also incorporate later elaborations of the marginal man theory to develop alternative hypotheses regarding multiracial youth’s school and behavioral outcomes. Based on a nationally representative sample of racially self-identified youth, the results suggest that patterns of multiracial-monoracial differences are generally consistent with the hypotheses derived closely from the marginal man theory or its subsequent elaborations. We examine the heterogeneities within these general patterns across different multiracial categories and discuss the implications of these findings.

    Read the entire article here.

  • Secret Agent Insiders to Whiteness: Mixed Race Women Negotiating Structure and Agency

    Secret Agent Insiders to Whiteness: Mixed Race Women Negotiating Structure and Agency

    University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
    2007
    325 pages

    Silvia Cristina Bettez, Assistant Professor
    Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations
    University of North Carolina, Greensboro

    A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education.

    In this dissertation, I explore the life stories of sixteen adult mixed race women who have one white parent and one parent who is a person of color. I examine how these women navigate their hybridity, what we can learn from their stories in our efforts to communicate across lines of racial difference, and what experiences the participants share that cross racial and ethnic lines. Data sources include multiple individual and group interviews with predominately middle-class, educated women living in San Francisco/Oakland [California], Albuquerque [New Mexico], and Boston [Massachusetts]. I coded the interview transcripts for themes and patterns and situated my analyses in relation to discourses of postcolonial hybridity, multiraciality, and social justice.

    In relation to navigating hybridity, the women’s experiences reveal an interplay between personal agency, claimed through fluid identities, and limitations to social mobility and acceptance created by social, cultural, and institutional structures. When asked or compelled to choose, all participants chose to align themselves with people of color. I identify several factors that contribute to their ability to communicate across lines of racial difference including physical ambiguity, learning about multiple world views early in life, keen observation, and active listening. Several shared experiences emerged that crossed racial lines. The women in my study largely rejected their white identities, experienced their identities in fluid ways despite this rejection, claimed the right to self-identify racially/ethnically, and sought community with other mixed race people. One of the most significant findings is the degree to which many of the participants’ stories were dedicated to discussions of cultural whiteness, which they viewed as inextricably linked to racism and white supremacy.

    This work adds to the small but growing field of mixed race studies and provides information on improving education for social justice. These narratives serve as embodied experiences of hybridity, challenging the disembodied postcolonial hybridity theories prevalent in the literature that disregard the actual lived experiences of “hybrid”/mixed race people. The stories and analysis also reveal ways in which racism and white privilege are enacted on social and institutional levels, and raise questions about theories of diversity built on racial binaries.

    Read the entire dissertation here.

  • Racially Socializing Biracial Youth: A Cultural Ecological Study of Parental Influences on Racial Identity

    Racially Socializing Biracial Youth: A Cultural Ecological Study of Parental Influences on Racial Identity

    2009

    Alethea Rollins
    University of North Carolina, Greensboro

    Advisor:
    Andrea G. Hunter, Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Studies
    University of North Carolina, Greensboro

    A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

    As our society becomes increasingly multiracial, it is imperative that parents, teachers, counselors, and researchers consider the complex processes associated with crossing racial boundaries and occupying a biracial social location. Few investigations have explored racial socialization within biracial families, and none have empirically examined the relationship between racial socialization and the multidimensional components of racial identity. Using a cultural ecological framework, this study explored the racial socialization messages used by mothers of biracial adolescents and evaluated the relative impact of these messages on the racial identity of biracial adolescents. Data for this study were taken from a public-use subsample of the longitudinal Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study (MADICS; Eccles, 1997). For this investigation, participants were 104 biracial adolescents and their mothers. Mothers of biracial adolescents engaged in a full range of racial socialization messages, including cultural, minority, mainstream, egalitarian, and no racial socialization messages. Racial socialization varied by maternal race, such that Black mothers were most likely to use mainstream socialization messages while White and other minority mothers were more likely to provide no direct racial socialization. In general, Black mothers provided more socialization than their White and other minority counterparts. Mothers of biracial adolescents reported using a combination of racial socialization messages, which can be conceptually reduced into three racial socialization strategies, namely, proactive, protective, and no racial socialization strategies. Proactive socialization was associated with racial identity salience, such that biracial adolescents who received proactive racial socialization reported less racial salience. In addition, maternal race was associated with racial salience, private regard, and exploration, such that biracial adolescents with a White mother reported lower racial salience, private regard, and racial exploration.

    Read the entire dissertation here.

  • “Being Raised by White People”: Navigating Racial Difference Among Adopted Multiracial Adults

    “Being Raised by White People”: Navigating Racial Difference Among Adopted Multiracial Adults

    Journal of Marriage and Family
    Volume 71, Issue 1, February 2009
    Pages 80-94
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00581.x

    Gina Miranda Samuels, Associate Professor
    School of Social Service Administration
    University of Chicago

    There are increasing numbers of multiracial families created through marriage, adoption, birth, and a growing population of multiracial persons. Multiracials are a hidden but dominant group of transracially adopted children in both the United Kingdom and the United States. This paper introduces findings from an interpretive study of 25 transracially adopted multiracials regarding a set of experiences participants called “being raised by White people.” Three aspects of this experience are explored: (1) the centrality yet absence of racial resemblance, (2) navigating discordant parent-child racial experiences, and (3) managing societal perceptions of transracial adoption. Whereas research suggests some parents believe race is less salient for multiracial children than for Black children, this study finds participants experienced highly racialized worlds into adulthood.

    Read the entire article here.

    Listen to the interview on Chicago Public Radio, Eight Forty-Eight from 2009-03-01 here.

  • Communicative Correlates of Satisfaction, Family Identity, and Group Salience in Multiracial/Ethnic Families

    Communicative Correlates of Satisfaction, Family Identity, and Group Salience in Multiracial/Ethnic Families

    Journal of Marriage and Family
    Volume 71, Issue 4
    Pages 819-832
    Published Online: 2009-10-23
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2009.00637.x

    Jordan Soliz, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies
    University of Nebraska, Lincoln

    Allison R. Thorson, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies
    University of San Francisco

    Christine E. Rittenour, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies
    West Virginia University

    Guided by the Common Ingroup Identity Model (S. L. Gaertner & J. F. Dovidio, 2000) and Communication Accommodation Theory (C. Shepard, H. Giles, & B. A. LePoire, 2001), we examined the role of identity accommodation, supportive communication, and self-disclosure in predicting relational satisfaction, shared family identity, and group salience in multiracial/ethnic families. Additionally, we analyzed the association between group salience and relational outcomes as well as the moderating roles of multiracial/ethnic identity and marital status. Individuals who have parents from different racial/ethnic groups were invited to complete questionnaires on their family experiences. Participants (N = 139) answered questions about relationships with mothers, fathers, and grandparents. The results of the multilevel modeling analyses are discussed in terms of implications for understanding multiracial/ethnic families and family functioning.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Deconstructing Race: Biracial Adolescents’ Fluid Racial Self-labels

    Deconstructing Race: Biracial Adolescents’ Fluid Racial Self-labels

    2008-12-01

    Alethea Rollins
    University of North Carolina, Greensboro

    Andrea G. Hunter, Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Studies
    University of North Carolina, Greensboro

    Biracial people shatter the idea of effortless categorization of race, identity, and group membership. Multirace membership forces scholars to examine what race is, how they use it, and what it tells them about people. Lopez (1994) defined race as, “neither an essence nor an illusion, but rather an ongoing, contradictory, self-reinforcing process subject to the macro forces of social and political struggle and the micro effects of daily decisions” (p. 42). Studies of biracial people require that we explore the boundaries, intersections, and fluidity of race and challenge us to deconstruct race as a social construct.

    The aims of this investigation are to:

    • Explore similarities and differences in adolescent racial self-labels reported by parents and adolescents
    • Illustrate fluidity and change in adolescent racial self-labels over time
    • Examine method variance in adolescents’ selection of racial self-labels

    Read the poster summary here.