Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Amalgamation and Hypodescent: The Question of Ethnoracial Mixture in the History of the United States

    Amalgamation and Hypodescent: The Question of Ethnoracial Mixture in the History of the United States

    The American Historical Review
    Volume 108, Number 5 (December 2003)
    pages 1363-1390

    David A. Hollinger, Preston Hotchkis Professor of American History
    University of California at Berkeley

    In the middle of a July night in 1958, a couple living in a small town in Virginia were awakened when a party of local police officers walked into their bedroom and arrested them for a felony violation of Virginia’s miscegenation statute. The couple had been married in the District of Columbia, which did allow blacks and whites to marry each other, but the two Virginians were subsequently found guilty of violating the statute’s prohibition on marrying out of state with the intent of circumventing Virginia law.

    That same summer, Hannah Arendt, the distinguished political theorist, an émigré from Hitler’s Germany then living in New York City, was writing an essay on school integration. That issue had been brought to flashpoint the previous year in Little Rock, Arkansas, by President Eisenhower’s use of federal troops to enforce the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court that public schools were no longer to be racially segregated. But Arendt used her essay on school integration, which had been commissioned by the editors of Commentary, to talk also about miscegenation laws. Arendt seems not to have known of what was happening in Virginia that summer to Richard and Mildred Loving, the couple whose last name was such a fitting emblem for a relationship that was being denied the sanction of law. But Arendt insisted that, whatever the injustice entailed by the segregation of public schools, a deeper injustice by far was any restriction on an individual’s choice of a spouse. The laws that make “mixed marriage a criminal offense,” Arendt declared, were “the most outrageous” of the racist regulations then in effect in the American South.

    The stunned editors of Commentary balked. An aghast Sidney Hook, to whom the editors showed a copy, rushed into print in another magazine to complain that Arendt was making “equality in the bedroom” seem more important than “equality in education.”  Arendt’s essay daring to suggest that the civil rights movement had gotten its priorities wrong later appeared in yet another magazine, the more radical Dissent, but only as prefaced by a strong editorial disclaimer and then followed by two rebuttals, one of which actually defended legal restrictions on interracial marriage.  A well-meaning European refugee, said by friends to be hopelessly naïve about the United States, had raised publicly the very last topic that advocates of civil rights for black Americans wanted to discuss in the 1950s: the question of ethnoracial mixture.

    To what extent are the borders between communities of descent to be maintained and why? The question is an old one of species-wide relevance, more demanding of critical study than ever at the start of the twenty-first century as more nations are diversified by migration, and as the inhibitions of the 1950s recede farther into the past. The history of this question in the United States invites special scrutiny because this country is one of the most conspicuously multi-descent nations in the industrialized North Atlantic West.  The United States has served as a major site for engagement with the question, both behaviorally and discursively.  Americans have mixed in certain ways and not others, and they have talked about it in certain ways and not others.

    From 1958, I will look both backward and forward, drawing on recent scholarship to observe what the history of the United States looks like when viewed through the lens of our question. Certain truths come into sharper focus when viewed through this lens, and whatever instruction the case of the United States may afford to a world facing the prospect of increased mixture comes more fully into view…

    …But we must distinguish between the empirically warranted narrative of amalgamation, punctuated as it is by hypodescent racialization, and the extravagance of the amalgamation fantasy.  The latter is increasingly common in the public culture of the United States today. We see it in journalistic accounts not only of the lives of Tiger Woods, Mariah Carey, and other mixed-descent celebrities but also of the cross-color marriages by leading politicians.  Some commentators predict that ethnoracial distinctions in the United States will disappear in the twenty-first century.  Perhaps they are right, but there is ample cause to doubt it. And a glance at the history of Brazil, where physical mixing even of blacks and whites has magnificently failed to achieve social justice and to eliminate a color hierarchy, should chasten those who expect too much from mixture alone. Moreover, inequalities by descent group are not the only kind of inequalities. In an epoch of diminished economic opportunities and of apparent hardening of class lines, the diminution of racism may leave many members of historically disadvantaged ethnoracial groups in deeply unequal relation to whites simply by virtue of class position.  Even the end of racism at this point in history would not necessarily ensure a society of equals…

    Read the entire article here.

  • The One-Drop Rule in Reverse? Interracial Marriages in Napoleonic and Restoration France

    The One-Drop Rule in Reverse? Interracial Marriages in Napoleonic and Restoration France

    Law and History Review
    Volume 27, Number 3
    Fall 2009
    University of Illinois

    Jennifer Heuer, Associate Professor
    Department of History
    University of Massachusetts at Amherst

    In the early nineteenth century, an obscure rural policeman petitioned the French government with an unusual story.  Charles Fanaye had served with Napoleon’s armies in Egypt.  Chased by Mameluks, he was rescued in the nick of time by a black Ethiopian woman and hidden in her home.  Threatened in turn by the Mameluks, Marie-Hélène (as the woman came to be called) threw in her lot with the French army and followed Fanaye to France.  The couple then sought to wed.  They easily overcame religious barriers when Marie-Hélène was baptized in the Cathedral of Avignon.  But another obstacle was harder to overcome: an 1803 ministerial decree banned marriage between blacks and whites.  Though Fanaye and Marie-Héléne begged for an exception, the decree would plague them for the next sixteen years of their romance.

    As we will see, Fanaye’s history was atypical in several regards.  But he was far from the only person to confront the ban on interracial marriage. The decree, which seemed to reinstate a 1778 edict, went hand in hand with the reestablishment of slavery after the French Revolution.  It was officially applied to metropolitan France, rather than the colonies, and was circulated throughout the continental Napoleonic Empire.  It would remain in effect even after Napoleon fell from power, quietly disappearing only in late 1818 and early 1819.

    This quiet disappearance has persisted in the historical record: both the ban and its application have been almost completely forgotten.  The reasons for this oversight are both conceptual and practical.  While there is burgeoning interest in the history of slavery in the French empire, historians tend to focus on the drama of emancipation during the Revolution, rather than on the more painful return of slavery after 1802.  When scholars of European history think of miscegenation laws, we often turn immediately to colonial arenas, or look to the later nineteenth and twentieth century when social commentators were particularly obsessed with interracial sex; metropolitan France in the early nineteenth century seems an unlikely site for contestations over racial and family law.  More generally, the supposedly race-blind French model of citizenship, that of republican universalism, has often made it difficult to think about racial categories when discussing French history and politics.

    There are also pragmatic reasons why the decree has been forgotten.  The black and mulatto population in metropolitan France was small in the period, at most 5000 people, and there are few records that address them as a group.  Many of the relevant documents are buried in a series at the French National Archives on dispensations for marriage.  While a few are grouped together thematically, many are organized alphabetically, within at least 160 cartons of records.  Others are in a series of administrative correspondence catalogued geographically.  A few are scattered in municipal and departmental archives, often under the rubric of local administration.  These are not categories that promise obvious connections to racial or colonial history…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Journal of Social Issues – Multiracial Identity Issue

    Volume 65, Number 1 issue of Journal of Social Issues, (published by The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues) is entirely focused on mixed-race issues.

    Journal of Social Issues
    Volume 65, Number 1
    pages 1-245
    2009-03

    You can read this issue online for free here or click on the individual articles below.

    OVERVIEW AND INTRODUCTION

    MULTIRACIAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION

    MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE’S VIEWS OF RACE

    PERCEPTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE

    PUBLIC POLICIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES FOR MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE

    COMMENTARY

  • Ethnicity and family – Relationships within and between ethnic groups: An analysis using the Labour Force Survey

    Ethnicity and family – Relationships within and between ethnic groups: An analysis using the Labour Force Survey

    Equality and Human Rights Commission
    2009-01-19

    Lucinda Platt, Professor of Sociology
    Institute of Education, University of London

    This paper outlines the ethnic composition of families in Britain today using the Labour Force Survey household data. That is, it explores whether adults from different ethnic groups are living with someone from the same ethnic group (co-ethnic or ‘same race’ partnerships) or are living with someone from a different ethnic group (inter-ethnic or mixed race’ partnerships), or are living on their own. It also looks at the experience of children living with parents of the same or different ethnic groups (to each other and to the child).  Given the growth of those defining themselves in terms of mixed or multiple ethnicities, the prevalence of adults and children of mixed ethnicity is also summarised. Religious affiliation as well as ethnicity may also be a point of similarity or difference within couples. The report also considers the extent to which men and women of different religious affiliations are in co-religionist and interreligionist partnerships. Finally, some indication of trends is given by comparison with earlier analyses of family composition and ethnic group…

    Read the entire report here.

    …However, if we start to look across generations there are indications of change and increases in diversity of the population.  Almost 20 per cent (or one in five) children under 16 were from minority groups, and nearly 3 per cent of children under 16 were from one of the mixed ethnicity groups.  Around 9 per cent of children were living in families which contained mixed or multiple heritages. While population ageing is the story for the majority, the minority groups tend to be younger.  This is particularly true for the mixed groups . The majority of mixed ethnicity children are under 16. Half of the White British group are over 40 and half are under 40, but the median age for all the minority groups is younger than this. Half of Caribbeans are under the age of 36, for Indians the median age is 33, it is 32 for Chinese, 26 for Black Africans, 24 for Pakistanis and half of Bangladeshis in Great Britain are aged 21 or under. Conversely, nearly a quarter of White British are aged 60 or more, but only 16 per cent of Black Caribbeans, 11 per cent of Indians and fewer than 10 per cent of the other minority groups are (with the exception of the Other White group). This suggests that minorities will make up a larger proportion of the population in the future, and the numerical significance of those claiming a mixed or multiple heritage in particular is set to increase if current trends continue…

    …The analysis showed that overall these expectations were fulfilled. Rates of inter-ethnic partnership were lower among the majority White population (three per cent for men and four per cent for women) than among minorities
    (where they ranged among couples from the non-mixed groups between seven per cent for Bangladeshi men, to 48 per cent of Caribbean men, and between five per cent of Bangladeshi women, to 39 per cent of Chinese women). Those groups, such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis which tend to be more geographically concentrated had lower rates of inter-ethnic partnership (seven and eight per cent among men and five and six per cent among women) than more geographically dispersed groups such as Chinese (17 per cent among men and 39 per cent among women in couples), or Black Caribbeans (48 per cent among men and 34 per cent among women).  Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are also those which tend to be the most economically marginalised of the minority groups, which could also have been reflected in their lower rates of inter-ethnic partnerships…

    …At the other end of the spectrum, Black Caribbean men and women were the most likely of any group to be in an inter-ethnic partnership (48 per cent of men and 34 percent of women in couples were in an inter-ethnic partnership); and this increased between first and second (or subsequent) generations and between older and younger men and women. Rates were also higher among couples with children. For 55 per cent of Caribbean men living with a partner and children under 16, and 40 per cent of Caribbean women, that partner was from a different ethnic group. It therefore appears a trend that is set to continue and that will result in an increasing number of people with diverse identities of which Caribbean heritage forms a part…

    Read the entire report here.

  • Mixed Race Organisations in the UK: Joint Statement

    Mixed Race Organisations in the UK: Joint Statement
    2009-09-13

    People in Harmony in consultation with:
    Multiple Heritage Project
    MixTogether
    Sputnik
    Inheritance Project
    Planet Rainbow Project
    MOSAIC Black and Mixed Parentage Family Group
    Intermix
    Starlight Black Child Mixed Heritage Group

    As a coalition of mixed race organisations we seek to advance the social well being of people, couples and families of mixed race.  One of our main objectives is to influence and improve ways in which public services such as education, health, social care and criminal justice are delivered to the mixed race population though discussion and debate, research, campaigns and the arts.

    In the past mixed race people, couples and families have frequently been portrayed as occupying a problematic position in our social fabric and life.  They have been described as marginal, isolated, and confused, burdened with identity problems, and disadvantaged in their life chances. In the last decade or so much fresh thinking has shifted the ground from that of problematising our various communities to celebrating their diversity.  New cultures of human rights, equality and diversity, and the positive duties expected of our public bodies have created an environment in which our coalition is seeking positive engagement with the various sectors in society, including government, voluntary bodies and NGOs, and the private sector: we are uniquely placed to share our knowledge and experience and to represent the interests of this community. We are aware, too, that disadvantage and discrimination persist, some of which is mediated by differences in socio-economic position across our different communities, and we seek positive change to ameliorate these drawbacks…

    Read the joint statement here.

  • Mixed Race in Britain: A Survey of the Preferences of Mixed Race People for Terminology and Classifications (Interim Report)

    Mixed Race in Britain: A Survey of the Preferences of Mixed Race People for Terminology and Classifications (Interim Report)

    Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS)
    University of Kent at Canterbury
    July 2006

    Peter Aspinall, Senior Research Fellow
    Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS)
    University of Kent

    Miri Song, Professor of Sociology
    University of Kent

    Ferhana Hashem, Research Fellow
    Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS)
    University of Kent

    …This research project into the preferences for terminology and classifications was initiated in 2004 and put into the field in summer 2005.  Its main purposes were: (i) to help inform terminology and classifications for ethnic group for the upcoming 2011 Census and (ii) to serve as a pilot study for an ESRC application: ‘The ethnic options of mixed race people in Britain’ (which also had a focus on official terminology and classifications).  This application was funded by ESRC and the project began on 1st March 2006.  A small dataset on official terminology and classifications is also accruing via this route…

    …On issues of terminology, the salient general term of choice amongst respondents was ‘mixed race’.  The only other terms that attracted significant support were ‘mixed heritage’ and ‘mixed parentage’. Very few preferred ‘dual heritage’.  Respondents identified eleven different terms as offensive, most frequently ‘dual heritage’, ‘half-caste’ and ‘mixed origins’.  The reasons for the dislike of ‘dual heritage’ focussed mainly on its limitation to two groups.  ‘Half-caste’ was regarded as pejorative by several respondents, on the ground of partial recognition & historical connotations.  The largest number of respondents felt that terms like ‘mixed race’ and ‘mixed parentage’ should refer to ‘people who are mixes of white and any minority racial/ethnic group’.  Significant numbers also felt that the terms should refer to people who are mixes of minority racial/ethnic groups, people who are mixes of white and black groups only, and people of disparate ethnic origins…

    Read the entire report here.

  • The United Colors of Family (Interview with Charmaine Wijeyesinghe)

    The United Colors of Family (Interview with Charmaine Wijeyesinghe)

    UMass Amherst, The Magazine for Alumni and Friends
    University of Massachusettes
    Summer 2007

    Interviewed by Faye S. Wolfe

    …Tell us about your work on racial identity.

    For my dissertation I interviewed people who were black, white, or biracial. I came up with a model for how people form a sense of racial identity. Many factors are involved: racial ancestry, physical appearance, cultural attachment, early experience, spirituality…

    Identity is a matter of choice to some degree.  Multiracial people may choose to identify themselves as that, or as monoracial: black, white, Asian. I had three grandparents who were white. My mother was Dutch Portuguese, my father Sri Lankan. Filling out forms, I’ve checked off Asian, I’ve checked off black. Do you check one box or two? There was a time when you could check only one; society constrained one’s choices. It’s still controversial, the idea of racial identity as a choice. Some people would say, choice is a luxury.

    I’m interested in working with “helping agents”—teachers, counselors—on questions this idea raises: What do you think race is based on? What do you bring to an interaction with a multiracial child? With the parents? With a multiracial person who says, I’m white? The idea of racial identity as a choice lends itself to great, sometimes painful conversations…

  • Fletcher Report, 1930 (The)

    The Report on an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and Other Ports or simply, The Fletcher Report of 1930 was a report sponsored by the Liverpool [England] Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children in December, 1927.  The report, released on 1930-06-16, was written by Muriel E. Fletcher a 1920 graduate of the University of Liverpool’s School of Social Science.  She was at that time employed as a probation worker and given the task to investigate the socioeconomic plight of ‘half-castes’.  The social research played particular attention to the family structure of the [so-called] “half-caste” population in Liverpool1.

    The Fletcher Report was written in response to the social tension created by the increased population of black (African) seamen who, via colonization—were deemed British citizens—and their “half-caste” (‘mixed-race’) children of their unions with white (English) women.  This tension culminated with the Liverpool anti-Black riots of 1919.   The report was based on a mere fraction the authors’ purported sample size and had little, if any, concern for the actual well-being of  ‘mixed-race’ children and their families. The report was imbued with the racist “hybrid degeneracy” pseudoscience of the day.  Besides the fact that the Fletcher Report stigmatized ‘mixed race’ individuals for decades, the report owns another ignominious spot in race relations in that it embedded the pejorative term “half-caste” into the British lexicon.

    The report is available at the Library of the University of Liverpool (Reference Number: D7/5/5/5).  See: http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/ead/html/gb141unirelated-p4.shtml#uni.10.09.01.05.05.02

    1Mark Christian, “The Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness,” Journal of Historical Sociology, Volume 21 Issue 2-3, (2008):  213 – 241.

  • The Paradox of “Multiracial” Research

    We are, in fact, at a crucial moment in research on multiraciality.  The idea that race is socially, rather than biologically, constructed is well-accepted in academy and is gaining purchase in the larger society. Most recent research related to multiracial identity begins from the standpoint that racial categories are socially constructed and racial identity is constructed on an individual level through social interactions and cognitive development.  Acceptance of these tenets begs the question: if we believe that race is socially constructed, to what extent are we re-inscribing fixed racial categories by studying multiraciality?  If there are no “races” how can there be “mixed races”? Before proceeding as a research community, we need to address these questions and explore potential solutions.

    Renn, Kristen A., “Tilting at Windmills: The Paradox of Researching Mixed-Race,”  Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in April 2000, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED441889.

  • Racial Ideas and Gendered Intimacies: the Regulation of Interracial Relationships in North America

    Racial Ideas and Gendered Intimacies: the Regulation of Interracial Relationships in North America

    Social & Legal Studies
    Volume 18, Number 3 (September 2009)
    DOI: 10.1177/0964663909339087
    pages 353-371

    Debra Thompson, Assistant Professor of Political Science
    Ohio University

    This article compares the regulation of interracial intimacies in North America, contending that anti-miscegenation laws in the United States and Canada’s Indian Act regimes are both striking and comparable examples of the state’s regulation of the intimate sphere. The author argues that the social signifiers of race and gender, tied together with sexuality, are interlocking sets of power relations and these intersecting discourses are integral to understanding the comparative regulation of interracial intimacy in North America.  In the circumstances of anti-miscegenation laws and the Indian Act, the transgression of gendered/raced social boundaries, the control of raced/gendered sexualities, the interlocking and mutually reinforcing nature of patriarchal, white supremacist and capitalist systems of domination, the threat of non-white access to white capital, and the predicament of racial categorization exist as a corollary of the state’s regulation of interracial intimate life. This article reveals the law and state as important sites of the creation and manipulation of racial boundaries, acting as producers and reproducers of racial ideas, and demonstrates that the interracial transgressions of sexual space were also perceived as transgressions of social, economic, and political boundaries between races, posing a threat to the dominant white and masculine hegemony in North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

    Read or purchase the article here.