Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Monsters, Messiahs, or Something Else? Mixed-Race in Science Fiction Movies

    Monsters, Messiahs, or Something Else? Mixed-Race in Science Fiction Movies

    New York University
    Jeffrey S. Gould Welcome Center
    50 West 4th Street
    New York, New York
    2011-03-28, 18:00-19:30 EDT (Local TIme)

    Eric Hamako
    University of Massachusetts, Amherst

    Join BAMSA, The Center, and the A/P/A Institute for another installment of the Multiple Identity Speaker Series: Monsters, Messiahs, or Something Else? Mixed-Race in Science Fiction Movies—Eric Hamako’s presentation on mixed-race people in science fiction movies and the media. Popular movies are telling stories about Mixed-Race, but what are they saying? Will vigorous hybrid messiahs herald racial salvation? Will degenerate hybrid monsters cause a racial apocalypse? Are you prepared to talk about and talk back to the movies that students love? We’ll explore White Supremacist and Christian Supremacist ideas about mixed-race people prevalent in current science fiction movies like Harry Potter, Blade, and Underworld and why people shouldn’t believe the hype… or the hate.

    This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP at jimmy.suarez@nyu.edu.

  • Session 408: Haafu, mixed race studies and multicultural questions in Japan

    Session 408: Haafu, mixed race studies and multicultural questions in Japan

    AAS-ICAS Joint Conference
    Association for Asian Studes (AAS)/International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS)
    2011-03-31 through 2011-04-03
    Hawai’i Convention Center
    Honolulu, Hawaii

    Session Location and Time:
    Room 316C
    Saturday, 2011-04-02, 07:30-09:30 HAST (Local Time)

    Organizer and Chair:

    Koichi Iwabuchi
    Waseda University, Japan

    Discussant:

    Hsiao-Chuan Hsia
    Shih Hsin University, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

    Mixed race studies has developed primarily in Euro-American contexts. It productively draws attention anew to the strategic and creative negotiations/resistance against racialized marginalization by the persons concerned, while being cautious not to reproduce an underlying essentialist conception of race. This panel will examine how the issues regarding “mixed race”—as now most commonly called “haafu”(half)—are articulated in the Japanese context. While racial mixing has long been (mostly negatively) discussed in Japan, with the increase in migration and international marriage, it has recently become more visible and more positively perceived than before. With a brief introduction of the genealogy of the terms such as “konketsu” (mixed blood) and “haafu” that refer to “mixed race” in Japan, this panel will analyze through three different cases (would-be) celebrities’ strategic uses of cultural capital associated with racial mixing for self-empowerment, their reception by the public and the (im)possibilities of deconstructing an exclusive notion of “Japanese-ness”. The panel will discuss how the racialized politics of inclusion/exclusion is distinctively highlighted in Japan, how the postcolonial questions are underscored by the (non-)whiteness of haafu and how studies of haafu/mixed race enhance critical engagement with multicultural questions in Japan. This panel also aims to discuss how comparative studies of mixed race can be developed in East Asian contexts, offering new insights into mixed race studies and advancing a theoretical reconsideration of notions such as race, hybridity and national identity.

    Covered Bridgings: Japanese Enka and its Mixed-Blood African American Star

    Christine R. Yano, Professor of Anthropology
    University of Hawaii, Manoa

    Jerome Charles White (“Jero”), 28-year old mixed-blood African American from Pittsburgh, debuted in February 2008 as Japan’s first black singer of enka (nostalgized ballads most popular with older adults; characterized as expressive of the “heart/soul of Japanese”). The raised eyebrows generated by his debut stemmed not only from the fact that a mixed-blood African American male in hip-hop clothing with street dance moves was populating a Japanese music stage, but more specifically, that this was an enka stage. This paper analyzes the discursive negotiations surrounding this mixed-blood figure by the Japanese music industry and public. The racialized justification given for Jero’s legitimacy as an enka singer lies in his Japanese grandmother and her love of enka; indeed, Jero, like many African Americans, is of mixed blood. Jero’s in-betweeness enacts racial, national, cultural, and generational bridgings: simultaneously African American, Japanese, and mixed blood, he sings Japanese songs of an older generation. Indeed, Jero’s tears are painted an ambiguously tinged shade of black mixings. Armed with song, tears, and mixed-blood pedigree, Jero performs national inscriptions of displacement that crucially and ironically position him as nothing less than a prodigal grandson.

    Becoming “Haafu”: Japanese Brazilian Female Migrants and Their Racialized Bodies in Japan

    Tamaki Watarai
    Aichi Prefectural University, Japan

    For a discussion about mixed race issues in Japan, I take up Japanese Brazilian female models or those who wish to engage in this profession. Although it’s common to be a mixed race in Brazil, Japanese Brazilian women who come to Japan as return migrants realize that their being “mestiça”, which means mixed race female in Portuguese, now can be valorized as “haafu” in the Japanese printed media. Here I would like to address the following questions: To be successful as “haafu” models, how do Japanese Brazilian women perform, appreciate or contest this racialized image? Are there any differences between being haafu and being mestiça? In the end, what does “haafu” mean to Japanese Brazilians, especially in terms of their transnational lives? By analyzing interviews with the models and modeling agencies and observations of beauty pageants in Brazilian community, I will discuss the complexity and uniqueness of the conception of “haafu”.

    Mixed Race Oiran?: A Critical Analysis of Discourses of (Non-) Japaneseness

    Sayuri Arai
    University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

    Based on a popular manga, and with the twist of a focus on the contemporary world of girls, combined with psychedelic colors, a Japanese film, Sakuran (2007), directed by Mika Ninagawa, depicts the lives of oiran [Japanese prostitutes] in the Edo era (1600-1867). The protagonist, an oiran named Kiyoha, is played by white-Japanese, mixed race actor, Anna Tsuchiya. The casting of Tsuchiya as a “Japanese” oiran was controversial, because by putting a mixed race actor in the role, the film challenges the dominant notion of Japaneseness in Japan. By conceptualizing the theoretical concepts of Japaneseness, whiteness, and haafu [mixed race Japanese people] within a Japanese context, this essay explores the discourses of Japaneseness as they circulate and relate to the mixed race actor cast as an oiran in the film. By analyzing the Internet posts on one of the largest film review websites, this study aims to understand and critique the ways in which discourses of (non-) Japaneseness are narrated contemporarily, as well as explore the ways in which Japanese identities are negotiated and constructed within popular discourses.

    For more information, click here.

  • Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas

    Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas

    Texas Tech University Press
    2003
    256 pages
    8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
    Paper ISBN-10: 0896725162, ISBN-13: 978-0896725164

    Kevin Mulroy, Associate University Librarian
    University of California, Los Angeles

    In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, black runaways braved an escape from slavery in an unprecedented alliance with Seminole Indians in Florida. This is the story of the maroons’ ethnogenesis in Florida, their removal to the West, their role in the Texas Indian Wars, and the fate of their long quest for liberty and self-determination along both sides of the Rio Grande. Their tale is rich, colorful, and epic, stretching from the swamps of the Southeast to the desert Southwest. From a borderlands mosaic of slave hunters, corrupt Indian agents, Texas filibusters, Mexican revolutionaries, French invaders, Apache and Comanche raiders, frontier outlaws, lawmen, and Buffalo Soldiers, emerges a saga of enslavement, flight, exile, and ultimately freedom.

    Table of Contents

    Introduction
    1. Florida Maroons
    2. Emigrants from Indian Territory
    3. Los Mascogos
    4. The Seminole Negro Indian Scouts
    5. Classifying Seminole Blacks
    6. In Search of Home
    7. Either Side of a Border
    Notes
    Bibliography
    Index

  • Interview with Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of “The Invisible Line”

    Interview with Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of “The Invisible Line”

    The Christian Science Monitor
    2011-02-23

    Stacie Williams, Monitor Contributor

    In “The Invisible Line,” law professor Daniel J. Sharfstein uses the stories of three families to explore the fluid nature of racial identity in America.

    Race has never been an easy concept in this country; the rigid constructs by which people judge black and white have always left room for individuals who could move across either side of the line. Today, more Americans are choosing to identify as multiracial; that segment of the population has grown 35% since the 2000 Census.

    Exhibit A: The president of the United States, who has a white mother, but chooses to identify himself as African American.

    Vanderbilt University Associate Law Professor Daniel J. Sharfstein analyzes the constantly evolving perceptions and experience of race in his new book The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White. Sharfstein uses his legal background to fill in the shades of gray and highlight an American experience, which for many changed with the stroke of a pen, or with hair dye.

    I recently had a chance to talk with Professor Sharfstein about his book and questions of racial identity in America….

    …How key is the role of the Census in gauging how many more people are keeping their racial identities fluid?

    As a country, we’re committed to principles of equality. The Census has an important function in figuring out how things are going—how well we’re living up to the principles of equality and anti-discrimination. On one level, how people self-identify is an interesting measure of how far we’ve come. On another level, it’s not completely related to larger societal issues we’ve made a commitment to overcome.

    Have your opinions on racial constructs changed with Obama in the White House?

    I think this country has changed a lot in the past couple decades and the way in which we understand the color line has been changed. As people have embraced multiracialism, its raised interesting questions about people who have been able to discover they have African Americans in their family history. I think these new ways of understanding identity are playing a role in how people are understanding their heritage. But I do think the election of Barack Obama is a major moment in the history of race. Race has never been about biology and blood. Plenty of white people have African blood. I’m looking at this history of migration across the color line and what do categories of black and white mean? These categories have been proxies for hierarchies and discrimination… for having a full set of rights as citizens.

    Read the entire interview here.

  • Griqua Identity: A Bibliography

    Griqua Identity: A Bibliography

    2010
    47 pages

    Allegra Louw, Librarian
    African Studies Library
    University of Cape Town

    Introduction

    Most scholars acknowledge that the origins of the Griqua people are rooted in the complex relationships between autochthonous KhoeSan, slaves, Africans and European settlers. Coupled with the intricacies that underpin the issue of Griqua identity—and often as equally contested—is the matter of terminology.

    Christopher Saunders and Nicholas Southey describe the Griquas as

    Pastoralists of Khoikhoi and mixed descent, initially known as Bastards or Basters, who left the Cape in the late 18th century under their first leader, Adam Kok 1 (c.1710-c.1795).

    They explain the name “bastards” as

    [The] term used in the 18th century for the offspring of mixed unions of whites with people of colour, most commonly Khoikhoi but also, less frequently, slaves.”

    Even in the context of post-apartheid South Africa, issues of identity and ethnicity continue to dominate the literature of the Griqua people. As the South African social anthropologist, Linda Waldman, writes:

    The Griqua comprise an extremely diverse category of South Africans. They are defined neither by geographical boundaries nor by cultural practices.

    Waldman goes on to illustrate the complexities surrounding attempts to categorise the Griqua people by explaining how the Griqua have been described by some as a sub-category of the Coloured people, by others as either constituting a separate ethnic group, by others as not constituting a separate ethnic group, and by still others as a nation…

    Read the entire bibliography here.

  • Invisible Darkness: Jean Toomer and Nella Larsen

    Invisible Darkness: Jean Toomer and Nella Larsen

    University of Iowa Press
    1993
    255 pages, 10 photos
    Paper 0-87745-437-X, 978-0-87745-437-3

    Charles R. Larson, Professor of Literature
    American University

    Invisible Darkness offers a striking interpretation of the tortured lives of the two major novelists of the Harlem Renaissance: Jean Toomer, author of Cane (1923), and Nella Larsen, author of Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). Charles R. Larson examines the common belief that both writers “disappeared” after the Harlem Renaissance and died in obscurity; he dispels the misconception that they vanished into the white world and lived unproductive and unrewarding lives.

    In clear, jargon-free language, Larson demonstrates the opposing views that both writers had about their work vis-à-vis the incipient black arts movement; he traces each writer’s troubled childhood and describes the unresolved questions of race that haunted Toomer and Larsen all of their lives. Larson follows Toomer through the wreckage of his personal life as well as the troubled years of his increasingly quirky spiritual quest until his death in a nursing home in 1967. Using previously unpublished letters and documents, Larson establishes for the first time the details of Larsen’s life, illustrating that virtually every published fact about her life is incorrect.

    With an innovative chronology that breaks the conventions of the traditional biographical form, Larson narrates what happened to both of these writers during their supposed years of withdrawal. He demonstrates that Nella Larsen never really gave up her fight for creative and personal fulfillment and that Jean Toomer’s connection to the Harlem Renaissance—and the black world—is at best a dubious one. This strong revisionist interpretation of two major writers will have a major impact on African American literary studies.

  • Introduction: Re-imagining coloured identities in post-Apartheid South Africa

    Introduction: Re-imagining coloured identities in post-Apartheid South Africa

    Introduction to: Coloured by History, Shaped by Place: New Perspectives on Coloured Identities in Cape Town
    Kwela Books
    2001
    320 pages
    ISBN-10: 0795701365
    ISBN-13: 978-0795701368

    Edited by:

    Zimitri Erasmus, Senior Lecturer in Sociology
    University of Cape Town

    Introduction by:

    Zimitri Erasmus, Senior Lecturer in Sociology
    University of Cape Town

    Hou jou linne binne (Keep your linen hidden). Hou jou koek in jou broek (Keep your fanny in your panties). Vroeg ryp, vroeg vrot (Early to ripen, early to rot). Such expressions abound in coloured communities in South Africa. They stipulate the bounds of sexual behaviour for young coloured women. Such expressions are considered undignified in my family. With our roots in the rural outback, the family’s journey to the city, combined with a Protestant work ethic, has made it now middle class and ‘respectable’. Although not said in quite the same way, the message of my family was that girls who ‘came home with babies’ were ‘not respectable’. Many of my peers as a matter of fact were ‘not respectable’. The price for coming home pregnant was clear: my father would disown me. In my imagination, informed by countless examples in my community, this meant living on the streets, consigned to the fate of being a ‘halfcaste outcast’. These were the possibilities in my young life: respectability or shame.

    Today, looking back, I can see how these possibilities were shaped by the lived realities not only of gender and class but also of ‘race’. I can see how respectability and shame are key defining terms of middle class coloured experience. For me, growing up coloured meant knowing that I was not only not white, but less than white; not only not black, but better than black (as we referred to African people). At the same time, the shape of my nose and texture of my hair placed me in the middle on the continuum of beauty as defined by both men and women in my community. I had neither ‘sleek’ hair nor boesman korrels [or ‘bushman hair’ is a derogatory term used to refer to kinky hair]. Hairstyling and texturising were (and still are) key beautification practices in the making of womanhood among young coloured women. In my community practices such as curling or straightening one’s hair carried a stigma of shame. The humiliation of being ‘less than white’ made being ‘better than black’ a very fragile position to occupy. The pressure to be respectable and to avoid shame created much anxiety. These were discomfiting positions for a young woman to occupy…

    Read the entire chapter here.

  • Coloured Identity: South Africa, A Select bibliography

    Coloured Identity: South Africa, A Select bibliography

    November 2010
    74 pages

    Allegra Louw, Librarian
    African Studies Library
    University of Cape Town

    Introduction

    According to Mohamed Adhikari, a leading scholar on Coloured Identity, the concept of “Colouredness” functioned as a social identity from the time of the formation of the South African state in 1910 to the present. He believes that Coloured identity did not undergo a process of continuous change during the era of white rule in South Africa, but remained essentially stable. This was because of

    the Coloured people‘s assimilationism, which spurred hopes of future acceptance into the dominant society; their intermediate status in the racial hierarchy, which generated fears that they might lose their position of relative privilege and be relegated to the status of Africans; the negative connotations with which Coloured identity was imbued, especially the shame attached to their supposed racial hybridity; and finally, the marginality of the Coloured people, which caused them a great deal of frustration.

    For the sociologist Zimitri Erasmus, “Coloured identities are not based on ‘race mixture’, but on cultural creativity, creolized formations shaped by South Africa‘s history of colonialism, slavery, segregation and apartheid.” She sees Coloured identities as cultural identities comprising detailed bodies of knowledge, specific cultural practices, memories, rituals and modes of being. Coloured identities were formed in the colonial encounter between colonists (Dutch and British), slaves from South and East India and from East Africa, and conquered indigenous peoples, the Khoi and San.

    The South African Population Registration Act (Act 30 of 1950) defined a ‘Coloured person’ as a person who is not a white person or a Bantu. Section 5 (1) and (2) distinguished the following subgroups: Cape Coloureds, Malay, Griqua, Other Coloureds, Chinese, Indians and Other Asiatics.

    There are those who deny the existence of a ‘Coloured’ identity. In the late 1990s, political activist and academic Neville Alexander wrote that coloured identity was white-imposed, reactionary and indicative of new forms of racism. Similarly, Zimitri Erasmus cites Norman Duncan, in an interview in the Cape Times, asserting that “…there‘s no such thing as a coloured culture, coloured identity. Someone has to show me what it is…”.

    An interesting phenomenon is the proliferation of organisations which emerged after the April 1994 elections. Amongst these were the Kleurling Weerstandsbeweging vir die Vooruitgang van Bruinmense (Coloured Movement for the Progress of Brown People), the December First Movement and the Coloured Forum. A more recent development was the emergence of the Bruin Belange Inisiatief (Brown Interests Initiative) which was formed in July 2008. Most of these organisations were based in the Western Cape, and were formed not only for access to material resources, but also for political and social recognition.

    This bibliography has been compiled to aid research on Coloured identity in South Africa, particularly in the Western Cape. It comprises all the divergent views on this phenomenon but is by no means complete. The bibliography is dynamic and will be updated from time to time.

    Read the entire bibliography here.

  • Mixed-Race Americans Are on the Rise: Will It Change Communications?

    Mixed-Race Americans Are on the Rise: Will It Change Communications?

    New York Women in Communications
    February 2011

    In a new series by The New York Times, titled Race Remixed [Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above], reporter Susan Saulny looks at the impact of one of our country’s fastest-growing demographic groups, multiracial and multiethnic Americans, usually grouped together as “mixed race.” Driven by Latino and Asian immigration and intermarriage, this demographic shift has resulted in the largest group of mixed-race college students ever to come of age in the United States…

    ..Not everyone sees this trend as positive. In the series’ second segment “Counting by Race Can Throw Off Some Numbers,” published on Thursday, February 9, experts countered that this can dilute important statistical information for minority groups. These statistics are used to assess disparities in health, education, and employment and housing, as well as to enforce civil rights protections.

    But what does the growing number of mixed-race Americans mean for communication professionals? Will it lead to changes in reporting on race issues and less focus on race overall? Will publications and websites devoted to individual ethnic groups such as Ebony see declining readership and be forced to retool their approach – or even go out of business? Will the demographic shift finally result in a true multicultural approach with all ethnic groups fully represented in communications?…

    Read the entire article here.