Mixed Race Studies

No longer your father’s electorate

The Los Angeles Times
2012-11-08

Paul West, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Even more than the election that made Barack Obama the first black president, the one that returned him to office sent an unmistakable signal that the hegemony of the straight white male in America is over.

The long drive for broader social participation by all Americans reached a turning point in the 2012 election, which is likely to go down as a watershed in the nation’s social and political evolution — and not just because in some states voters approved of same-sex marriage for the first time.

 On Tuesday, Obama received the votes of barely 1 in 3 white males. That too was historic. It almost certainly was an all-time low for the winner of a presidential election that did not include a major third-party candidate.

“We’re not in the ’50s any more,” said William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer. “This election makes it clear that a single focus directed at white males, or at the white population in general, is not going to do it. And it’s not going to do it when the other party is focusing on energizing everybody else.”…

… “Obama lost a lot of votes among whites,” said Matt Barreto, a University of Washington political scientist. “It was only because of high black turnout and the highest Latino turnout ever for a Democratic president that he won.”

Obama planted his base in an America that is inexorably becoming more diverse. If left unchecked by Republicans, these demographic trends would give the Democrats a significant edge in future presidential elections.

Latinos were an essential element of Obama’s victories in the battlegrounds of Nevada and Colorado. States once considered reliably Republican in presidential elections will probably become highly competitive because of burgeoning Latino populations, sometimes in combination with large African American populations. North Carolina, where Obama won narrowly in 2008 and came close this time, is one. The Deep South state of Georgia is another. Texas and Arizona in the Southwest are future swing states — by 2020, if not sooner…

Read the entire article here.

Eric Garcetti invokes Latino-Jewish ancestry in mayor’s race

The Los Angeles Times
2013-01-02

Michael Finnegan

Working a recent breakfast gathering of business owners in Northridge, Los Angeles mayoral contender Eric Garcetti introduced himself in Hindi when a Sikh businessman approached.

A few hours later, Garcetti donned a colorful Peruvian headpiece with ear flaps as he spoke Spanish with immigrants on the steps of City Hall, part of a show of solidarity for designating a stretch of Hollywood’s Vine Street as “Peru Village.”

After lunch, Garcetti joined rabbis at a City Hall menorah lighting. Wearing a yarmulke, the Hollywood-area councilman sang Hanukkah songs in Hebrew, English and Spanish. “Toda la familia,” Garcetti said as the group huddled for a photo.

A top contender to succeed Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Garcetti prides himself on his ease with the city’s diverse cultures. He sees his mixed ancestry (“I have an Italian last name, and I’m half Mexican and half Jewish,” he says) as a powerful part of his appeal in a city where voters for decades have split along racial and ethnic lines in mayoral elections…

Read the entire article here.

No longer your father’s electorate

Los Angeles Times
2012-11-08

Paul West, Washington Bureau

Obama’s reelection marks a turning point in American politics: With the growing power of minorities, women and gays, it’s the end of the world as straight white males know it.

WASHINGTON — Even more than the election that made Barack Obama the first black president, the one that returned him to office sent an unmistakable signal that the hegemony of the straight white male in America is over.

The long drive for broader social participation by all Americans reached a turning point in the 2012 election, which is likely to go down as a watershed in the nation’s social and political evolution — and not just because in some states voters approved of same-sex marriage for the first time.

On Tuesday, Obama received the votes of barely 1 in 3 white males. That too was historic. It almost certainly was an all-time low for the winner of a presidential election that did not include a major third-party candidate.

“We’re not in the ’50s any more,” said William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer. “This election makes it clear that a single focus directed at white males, or at the white population in general, is not going to do it. And it’s not going to do it when the other party is focusing on energizing everybody else.”

Read the entier article here.

Mexico’s black history is often ignored

Los Angeles Times
2008-04-13

John L. Mitchell, Times Staff Writer

In Mexico, the story of the country’s black population has been largely ignored in favor of an ideology that declares that all Mexicans are “mixed race.” But it’s the mixture of indigenous and European heritage that most Mexicans embrace; the African legacy is overlooked.

“They are saying we are all the same and therefore there is no reason to distinguish yourself,” said Padre Glyn Jemmott, a Roman Catholic priest from Trinidad and Tobago who has had a parish of a dozen Costa Chican pueblos since 1984.

“What they are not saying is that in ordinary life in Mexico, lighter-skinned Mexicans are accepted and have first place,” he said.

Jemmott, a co-founder of Mexico Negro, an organization that seeks to promote cultural pride and political strength in the coastal pueblos, said many Costa Chicans often don’t fully understand what it means to be black in Mexico until they leave their region.

Some tell stories of being confronted in other parts of the country by police who refuse to believe they’re Mexican and sometimes accuse them of being there illegally…

…They were not taught the details of their history: that Spanish slavers took Africans to colonial Mexico (New Spain) in the 16th century, long before the first slaves arrived in Jamestown, Va.; that during the colonial period there were more Africans than Europeans in Mexico.

The Costa Chicans were also not taught that some of the blacks were not slaves; that blacks lived throughout what is now Mexico, working in mining, sugar plantations and fishing.

In some instances black Mexicans were explorers and co-founders of settlements, including Los Angeles.

Jose Maria Morelos, one of Mexico’s leaders for independence, was a mulatto, as was Vicente Guerrero, Mexico’s second president, who abolished slavery in 1822…

Read the entire article here.

White and mixed-race youths rank high in alcohol, substance abuse

Los Angeles Times
2011-11-07

Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times/For the Booster Shots blog

The first-ever survey of adolescent alcohol and drug abuse to recognize youths of mixed race or ethnicity has found that such kids hover closest to white adolescents in the rate at which they suffer substance abuse disorders. That is not reassuring, because white adolescents are among the most likely ethnic and racial groups to have substance-use disorders.

Of all ethnic groups, Native Americans were found to suffer the highest rates of drug and alcohol abuse and dependence—about 15% in a given year. African American adolescents were among the least likely to abuse or be dependent on drugs or alcohol: on a yearly basis, roughly 5% of black teens fit the criteria for substance-use disorder—almost as low a rate as prevails among adolescents of Asian or Pacific Islander ethnicity (3.5%).

Latino youths—the fastest-growing ethnic group in this age cohort—fell below white and multi-ethnic adolescents in their rate of substance-use disorders, but not by much: 7.7% qualified as having dangerously abused or been dependent on drugs or alcohol in the past year.

The survey was published Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Between 2005 and 2007, researchers plumbed the drug and alcohol use patterns of 72,561 adolescents between age 12 and 17. They conducted computer-assisted interviews with adolescents  about their use in the past 12 months of alcohol and a wide range of illicit drugs, including marijuana, cocaine and opioid painkillers taken for non-medical reasons…

Read the entire article here.

Where the interracials may take us

Los Angeles Times
2010-09-21

Eli Steele

Of all Americans, they represent the best opportunity to end identity politics and point America back to its tradition of individualism.

We may be in the midst of an interracial baby boom. A recent Pew Research Center study reported that interracial marriages rose from 6.7% in 1980 to a record 14.6% in 2008. If these marriages produce children at the national average, one out of seven Americans could claim two or more races. In Western states where interracial marriage is more common, the ratio rises to nearly one out of four.

The day will arrive when this interracial generation reaches political consciousness and finds itself at odds with America’s divisive identity politics. Of all Americans, they represent the best opportunity to end these politics and point America back to its tradition of individualism…

…Will such identity politics survive the interracial baby boom? Will new categories arise for the African German American or Chinese Latino American? Will a critical mass of interracials become an eclectic race in their own right? Or will they bypass the labels and embrace individualism?…

Read the entire article here.

Race in the Race: Mixed Race Identity and Obama’s Campaign

National Communications Association 95th Annual Convention
Chicago Hilton & Towers, Chicago, IL
2009-11-11
15 pages

Iliana Rucker
University of New Mexico

During Obama’s campaign, a video was created by the Los Angeles Times consisting of interviews with individuals who identify as multiracial. Three sections within the video are identified: assumptions about race, assumptions about racism, and the ideal of transcending race. Each section contains progressive and non-progressive stances on issues concerning multiracial identity and Obama’s candidacy. Obama’s presence in the campaign and his election may recast how race is talked about for the future.

Read the entire paper here.