Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Written Out of History

    Written Out of History

    Pomona College Magazine
    Pomona College, Claremont, California
    Fall 2002
    Volume 39, Number 1

    Michael Balchunas

    Spurred by a glimpse of family history, Professor Sid Lemelle is bringing to light a little-known aspect of the African Diaspora.

    When the new people moved in, all eyes were upon them. There were comments about the way they looked, how much money they might have, what kind of work they did, their morals, their customs and their character. At first, it was all good. The newcomers, who were farmers, engineers, mechanics and other workers, wrote to friends left behind and extolled the virtues of their new home. That stirred pangs of fear among some residents, and a newspaper ran an editorial. More of these people might come, it said, and “since the Negro is a creature of imitation and not invention…they will degenerate…and [become] vicious…a nuisance and pest to society.”

    The year was 1857, and the newcomers, from Louisiana, had settled near Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, about 50 miles inland from the Caribbean port of Veracruz. Their history, like much of the history of the African Diaspora, is virtually unknown.

    Sidney Lemelle is working to change that…

    …Another misperception is that the U.S. South was a strictly bipolar society of white masters and black slaves, he says. In antebellum Louisiana, a significant number of white planters, businessmen and government officials fathered mixed-race offspring, who became part of a stratum more privileged than slaves, other free blacks or poorer white residents, according to Lemelle. He is particularly intrigued by how race and racial identity issues were connected to property rights and ownership in Louisiana and Mexico in the 19th century. Building on the theories of UCLA legal scholar Cheryl Harris, he believes that “whiteness” was constructed by mixed-blood people and became the basis of racialized privilege; that “whiteness” was legitimized as a form of status property, which gave some individuals rights over others, even though both possessed African blood…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Investigations: Problem behavior

    Investigations: Problem behavior

    University of Chicago Magazine
    October 2006
    Volume 99, Issue 1

    Lydialyle Gibson

    For American children, says Yoonsun Choi, assistant professor at the School of Social Service Administration, early adolescence isn’t getting any simpler. Besides the awkwardness and looming angst, there’s this: more and more youth now find themselves navigating the uncertain territory of multiracial heritage. (Even the term is ambiguous; it can refer to having parents of different races or to generations-old diversity.) The multiracial experience frequently corresponds, Choi says, with higher rates of violence and substance use. “Consistently multiracial youth show, in almost all behavior problems—alcohol, smoking, marijuana, fighting—more problems than other children.”…

    …“However, there is some indication that a strong ethnic identity” with at least one race—a sense of racial or cultural pride, belonging, and confidence—“helps protect kids from these behaviors,” Choi says. But youths must strike a sometimes difficult balance. “This research is just emerging, but it is saying that ethnic identity for multiracial children is unique. They need to endorse every part of who they are, and for children of combinations from conflicting groups”—for instance, black and white or, Choi says, Asian and black—“that will be hard.”…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico

    Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico

    Stanford University Press
    2008
    424 pages
    13 illustrations, 2 maps.
    ISBN-10: 0804756481; ISBN-13: 9780804756488

    María Elena Martínez (1966-2014), Associate Professor of History and American Studies and Ethnicity
    University of Southern California

    María Elena Martínez’s Genealogical Fictions is the first in-depth study of the relationship between the Spanish concept of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) and colonial Mexico’s sistema de castas, a hierarchical system of social classification based primarily on ancestry. Specifically, it explains how this notion surfaced amid socio-religious tensions in early modern Spain, and was initially used against Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity. It was then transplanted to the Americas, adapted to colonial conditions, and employed to create and reproduce identity categories according to descent. Martínez also examines how the state, church, Inquisition, and other institutions in colonial Mexico used the notion of purity of blood over time, arguing that the concept’s enduring religious, genealogical, and gendered meanings and the archival practices it promoted came to shape the region’s patriotic and racial ideologies.

  • Ethnic Identity among Monoracial and Multiracial Early Adolescents

    Ethnic Identity among Monoracial and Multiracial Early Adolescents

    The Journal of Early Adolescence
    Vol. 20, No. 4 (2000)
    pages 365-387
    DOI: 10.1177/0272431600020004001

    Michael S. Spencer, Associate Dean for Educational Programs and Associate Professor of Social Work
    University of Michigan

    Larry D. Icard, Professor of Social Work
    Temple University

    Tracy W. Harachi, Associate Professor of Social Work
    University of Washington

    Richard F. Catalano, Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Director, Social Development Research Group
    University of Washington

    Monica Oxford, Research Associate Professor of Social Work
    University of Washington

    A measure of ethnic identity, the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM), was examined in this study with a sample of 2,184 early adolescents who self-identified with a single race or ethnicity (monoracial, n = 1,812) or with two or more racial or ethnic groups (multiracial, n = 372). Principal components and multigroup confirmatory factor analysis were used to explore and confirm the factor structure of the MEIM items. Two factors were identified: (a) identification and (b) exploration. Identification was represented by items that reflect a sense of belonging and pride in an individual’s ethnic group. Exploration was represented by items that characterize a search for ethnic group identity and participation in ethnic practices. Reliabilities were adequate for the two subscales (= .84, identification; = .76, exploration). Also, the results indicated that most individuals from monoracial minority groups and multiracial subgroups scored similarly on overall ethnic identity.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Social Work Response to the Needs of Biracial Americans

    Social Work Response to the Needs of Biracial Americans

    Surjit Singh Dhooper, Assistant Professor of Social Work
    University of Kentucky

    Journal of Ethnic And Cultural Diversity in Social Work
    Volume 12, Issue 4 (April 2004)
    pages 19 – 47
    DOI: 10.1300/J051v12n04_02

    The number of interracial marriages is rising. The offspring of these marriages are a special group that is experiencing the complexities and frustrations of multiracial existence. Over six million Americans identified themselves as biracial in the 2000 census. These people are different from biracial Americans of the past. They do not want to disown any part of their ancestry and are resisting the societal practice of forcing them to identify with only the racial community of one parent. This paper examines the social realities and worldviews of these Americans and identifies their major needs. It discusses these and suggests a social work response at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of practice.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • Nikkei Heritage: Intermarriages and Hapas: An Overview – Parts 1 and 2

    Nikkei Heritage: Intermarriages and Hapas: An Overview – Parts 1 and 2

    Discover Nikkei (Japanese Migrans and Their Descendants)
    Republished from Nikkei Heritage (The quarterly journal of the National Japanese American Historical Society)
    2007-05-11

    George Kitahara Kich, Senior Trial Consultant
    Bonora D’Andrea

    Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain, Lecturer in Sociology
    National University of Ireland, Maynooth

    Larry Hajime Shinagawa, Associate Professor Director of Asian American Studies
    University of Maryland

    Shizue Seigel

    To be biracial and Japanese American means having many different labels from which to choose. For this historical overview, we will use “Hapa”, a term popularized by the Hapa Issues Forum, to mean people who have an Asian/Asian Pacific Islander parent and a parent of any other race. Our focus here is on those with a Japanese or a Japanese American parent.

    There is no single Hapa experience. Over the decades, Hapas have had widely different experiences based on individual circumstance and background, as well as the time period and environment into which they were born. The history of people of mixed-race has been deeply influenced by the evolving social and legal contexts for interracial relationships and marriages, along with community attitudes about culture, tradition and belongingness. Legal barriers against mixed marriages have fallen; however, discrimination, prejudice, community fears and stereotyping still affect interracial marriages and interracial people today. Nonetheless, about half* of all Japanese American marriages since 1970 have been to non-JAs, and the birthrate of interracial and interethnic children with some Japanese ancestry now exceeds that of JA/JA children. The Japanese American community has been gradually welcoming Hapas as a significant and growing part of the Japanese American community…

    Read the entire Part 1 of the article here.
    Read Part 2 here.

  • Framing mixed race: The face of America is changing

    Framing mixed race: The face of America is changing

    Contra Costa Times
    2010-02-07

    Jennifer Modenessi

    Like any proud mother, Janine Mozée sees beauty when she looks at her four children.

    But the Benicia resident perceives more than their physical qualities and the various shades and hues of their skin, eyes and hair. For Mozée, 46, it’s a “beautiful thing” that they can take strength and security from their identities, traverse diverse worlds and cultures and fit in where they want.

    Bianca, Austin, Weston and Isabella Carr, whose mother is white and father is black, white and Native American, are not alone.

    According to the most recent U.S. census, the number of people identifying as mixed race is growing. California‘s mixed-race population, by percentage, ranks fifth in the nation, and data from the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates that more than 4 percent of Bay Area residents identify as belonging to two or more races. Though that number may seem low and could be attributed to people of mixed heritage choosing to identify with one race, a look at the Bay Area’s diversity suggests the 2010 census could reveal much higher numbers. Still, more youths are being raised in interracial homes, often by mixed-race parents who are encouraging their children to embrace their diverse backgrounds, said sociologist and UC [University of California, ] Santa Barbara professor G. Reginald Daniel. The stories of Bay Area residents such as Carr and her family; Donna and Kim Hunter, sisters whose mother was German and father was black; and Whitney Moses, whose father was black, Native American and white, reflect that trend. And their images, featured in the recent book “Blended Nation: Portraits of Mixed-Race America,” offer further proof that the face of the nation is changing…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Who am I?

    Who am I?

    Middlebury Magazine
    Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont
    Winter 2010

    Kevin Charles Redmon, [class of 20]10

    As Janet Mondlane Rodrigues [class of 20]12 grapples with her own complex racial identity, she implores others to take a look in the mirror, as well, and ask themselves this loaded question.

    Early in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, before clips of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s more polemical sermons looped endlessly on cable television and Obama was forced to publicly denounce his pastor, the neologism “postracial” was on a lot of lips. A hopeful word with an elusive definition, it seemed to have as much to do with Obama’s fair skin and poise as it did with any message he espoused. Indeed, postracial was more about what the junior senator didn’t say than what he did—here was a man of color who appeared to transcend his mother’s whiteness and father’s African heritage, an editor of the Harvard Law Review who could acknowledge the tribulations of being a black man in America without letting it consume him. In short, a man who had moved beyond race. The implication being, so should we.

    Janet Mondlane Rodrigues ’12 hasn’t moved beyond race, and she’s determined not to let others move beyond it, either. Mozambican born and Brooklyn raised, she shoulders a complicated identity: Her maternal grandfather was a black African revolutionary, her maternal grandmother a tenacious, white Indiana girl. Her mother is a multiracial world musician; her father is white Portuguese. From this vantage point, Rodrigues sees an America and a campus still struggling to address racism and privilege. To her, talk of a post-racial era is a way of silencing an argument mid-sentence…

    …In high school, Rodrigues was already probing what it meant to have a multiracial identity, particularly in a borough so heavily segregated. With her Latina friends, “I was known as the white girl, because of how I spoke.” Others mistook her for Dominican or Puerto Rican. “By the black community, I was seen as privileged because I didn’t have the hair; I didn’t have the totally dark skin; I could pretend like I didn’t have this black identity. But among whites, I didn’t have the privileges they had; I didn’t go to private school.” Indeed, race was as much about the deep chasms between socioeconomic classes as it was about skin color…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Beyond Race: Examining the Facets of Multiracial Identity Through a Life-span Developmental Lens

    Beyond Race: Examining the Facets of Multiracial Identity Through a Life-span Developmental Lens

    Journal of Ethnic And Cultural Diversity in Social Work
    Volume 18, Issue 4 (October 2009)
    pages 293-310
    DOI: 10.1080/15313200903310759

    Kelly F. Jackson, Assistant Professor of Social Work
    Arizona State University

    Using a social work developmental lens, this qualitative study explored some of the numerous social and environmental factors that shape a multiracial individual’s cultural identity. Results from transcript analysis portray the cultural identity of multiracial persons as significantly influenced by (1) personal experiences of racism and discrimination; (2) social interactions and relationships with peers and family; and (3) the racial climate of the school and community. The findings from this study support more fluid, ecological models of multiracial identity development that are more effective at explicating some of the highly complex and influential contextual factors that impact a multiracial person’s cultural identity development.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • TALK: India and Gaugin’s Tahitian Nudes: Mapping Modernism In A Global Frame

    TALK: India and Gaugin’s Tahitian Nudes: Mapping Modernism In A Global Frame

    Interdisciplinary Humanities Center
    University of California, Santa Barbara
    3041 HSSB
    2010-02-17 16:00 PST (Local Time)

    Saloni Mathur, Associate Professor of Art History
    University of California, Los Angeles

    This presentation will revisit the legacy of Amrita Sher-Gil, the part-Indian/part-Hungarian painter who stands at the cosmopolitan helm of modern Indian art, by focusing on a single under-examined painting that she produced in 1934. The painting, provocatively titled “Self-Portrait as Tahitian,” depicts the artist’s own nude body in the romantic space of Gauguin’s Tahitian nudes. The talk will examine how Sher-Gil’s mixed race heritage, her insider/outsider status, and her sense of both distance and belonging in relation to India became a powerful driver of her short but influential artistic career.  Saloni Mathur is Associate Professor of Art History at UCLA and author of India by Design: Colonial History and Cultural Display (2007).

    Sponsored by the IHC’s South Asian Religions and Cultures RFG.