Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • What’s Biology Got to Do with It? The Social Life of Genetics

    What’s Biology Got to Do with It? The Social Life of Genetics

    Brooklyn Historical Society
    Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations
    Saturday, 2013-11-16, 15:00-18:00 EST (Local Time)

    Part One of the reading series Quantifying Bloodlines

    • What do we learn about ourselves through genetics and genealogy?
    • How does DNA connect with what we know about our family’s ancestry and cultural heritage?

    Join anthropologist, Jennifer Scott in conversation with sociologist Ann Morning, author of The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference (2011), for a discussion examining the social life of DNA.

    Having read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, we will explore the tremendous social impact of one woman’s cellular legacy upon the world. We will discuss the impact on her direct descendants as Henrietta Lacks’ family discovers how their genes were used to make unprecedented medical advancements and enormous profits without their consent. Looking at the connections between biology and culture, this discussion session will explore the meanings of heredity, inheritance, and questions of bioethics.

    Please plan to have read the book prior to our meeting.

    This reading and discussion group is co-sponsored by MixedRaceStudies.org

    For more information, click here.

  • Soledad O’Brien Explores Racial and Ethnic Identity in Provocative Black in America

    Soledad O’Brien Explores Racial and Ethnic Identity in Provocative Black in America

    CNN Press Room
    Cable News Network (CNN)
    2012-12-04

    Who is Black in America? Debuts Sunday, Dec. 9 at 8:00 p.m. & 11:00p.m. ET & PT
    U.S. Encore: Sunday, January 27, 2013,  20:00 p.m. ET, 23:00 p.m ET, and Monday, 02:00 ET
    International Debut on CNN International: Sunday, January 13, 02:00Z and 10:00Z (Saturday, January 12, 21:00 EST and Sunday, January 13, 05:00 EST). View regional schedules here.

    “I don’t really feel Black,” says 17-year-old Nayo Jones. Her mother is Black; she was raised apart from her by her White father, and she identifies herself as biracial. “I was raised up with White people, White music, White food so it’s not something I know,” she says in a new documentary that explores the sensitive concepts of race, cultural identity, and skin tone.

    For the fifth installment of her groundbreaking Black in America series, CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien reports for Who is Black in America? The documentary debuts Sunday, December 09 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET & PT and replays on Saturday, December 15 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET & PT.

    Is Jones Black? Is Blackness based upon skin color or other factors? The 2010 U.S. Census found 15 percent of new marriages are interracial, a figure that is twice what was reported in 1980. One in seven American newborns were of mixed race in 2010, representing an increase of two percent from the 2000 U.S. Census. Within this context, O’Brien examines how much regarding race and identity are personal choices vs. reflections of an external social construct.

    Tim Wise, an author and anti-racism activist believes in self identification, but says, in practice, society often will remind biracial people like Jones of their Blackness, “in a million subtle ways,” he says in the documentary.

    As the hour unfolds, O’Brien follows Jones, and her best friend and fellow high school student Becca Khalil, as they take part in a spoken word workshop led by the Philadelphia-based poet, Perry “Vision” DiVirgilio.
     
    Vision, who is biracial, says he never felt quite White or Black enough to fit in with friends who had parents of one race.  Vision identifies as Black, and says that identity is more than skin – that identity encompasses experiences and struggles.  Through his workshop, he encourages young people to think, talk, and write about identity, as well as the concept of colorism, which he blames for his early struggles with self-esteem and identity.
     
    “Colorism is a system in which light skin is more valued than dark skin,” says Drexel University’s assistant teaching professor for Africana studies, Yaba Blay.  Blay tells O’Brien that, as a young African-American woman growing up in New Orleans, she felt discriminated against – often by lighter skinned African Americans – due to her dark skin tone.
     
    Blay’s work focuses on how prejudice related to skin tone can confuse and negatively impact identity and self esteem.  She aims to help others also develop positive images of cultural identity – for African Americans of all shades.
     
    Often complicating concepts of identity beyond multiracial heritage is skin tone.  Khalil, who has light-colored skin and two parents who are Egyptian in origin, identifies herself as African American.  She feels contemporaries dismiss her African American identity due to her light skin tone.  She says in the documentary that she wishes she had darker skin.
     
    Writer, producer, and image activist, Michaela Angela Davis says she accepts that race is a social construct, but she feels it is important for people to name and claim their own racial identity: “You are who you say that you are,” she says in the documentary…

    Read the entire press release here.

  • Brazil in Black and White

    Brazil in Black and White

    Wide Angle
    Public Broadcasting Service
    2007-09-04

    About the Issue

    As one of the most racially diverse nations in the world, Brazil has long considered itself a colorblind “racial democracy.” But deep disparities in income, education and employment between lighter and darker-skinned Brazilians have prompted a civil rights movement advocating equal treatment of Afro-Brazilians. In Brazil, the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery, blacks today make up almost half of the total population — but nearly two-thirds of the nation’s poor. Institutions of higher education have typically been monopolized by Brazil’s wealthy and light-skinned elite, and illiteracy among black Brazilians is twice as high as among whites. Now, affirmative action programs are changing the rules of the game, with many colleges and universities reserving 20% of spots for Afro-Brazilians. But with national surveys identifying over 130 different categories of skin color, including “cinnamon,” “coffee with milk,” and “toasted,” who will be considered “black enough” to qualify for the new racial quotas?

    About The Film

    “Am I black or am I white?” Even before they ever set foot in a college classroom, many Brazilian university applicants must now confront a question with no easy answer. Brazil in Black and White follows the lives of five young college hopefuls from diverse backgrounds as they compete to win a coveted spot at the elite University of Brasilia, where 20 percent of the incoming freshmen must qualify as Afro-Brazilian. Outside the university, Wide Angle reports on the controversial racial debate roiling Brazil through profiles of civil right activists, opponents of affirmative action, and one of the country’s few black senators.

    For more information, click here.

  • “Free Negroes” and “Mulattoes” of Gloucester County and the Tidewater Area of Virginia Prior to 1800

    “Free Negroes” and “Mulattoes” of Gloucester County and the Tidewater Area of Virginia Prior to 1800

    Renegade South: histories of unconventional southerners
    2013-08-01

    The following guest essay by Wayne K. Driver expands upon my own research on the Morris Family of Gloucester County, Virginia.

    Vikki Bynum, Moderator

    By Wayne K. Driver

    Throughout my years of researching my family from Gloucester County and the Tidewater Area of Virginia, I have noted that several families, including my own, were listed as “free Negroes” or “mulattoes” prior to 1800. This discovery ignited my interest; I wanted to know more about these families and how they fit into a society in which most people of African descent were slaves and where those of European descent dominated. I wondered if these free people of color had any rights, if they owned property or had the freedom to move about without being harassed.  Since my focus was on the years prior to 1800, I also wondered how they felt about the Revolutionary War.  Which side did they support? Which side promised a better future for them?

    Families with the names ALLMOND/ALLMAN, BLUFORD, DRIVER, FREEMAN, GOWEN/ GOING, HEARN, KING, LEMON, MEGGS, MONOGGIN, and MORRIS are identified in various documents as living free from slavery.  “Free” did not necessarily mean, however, that they were as free as those of full European ancestry.  These “free” people did not have slave masters, but they did have limitations place upon them and hardships that would not be understood by my generation.

    The above families of color, as well as others not cited in this essay, contributed to America by serving in wars, participating in religious movements, and working in many trades. At the same time, they strove for greater freedom of access to education, property ownership, and social equality.  Too often, these pioneers are forgotten in the history books; rarely are they recognized for their work in shaping the counties in which they lived.  When I drive through Gloucester, to my knowledge there is no physical memorial that bears witness to their service in the Revolutionary War, or their contributions to their communities.  I can find all types of negative propaganda concerning “free Negroes,” such as recommendations for their forced removal from the county, or punishment for not paying taxes. My hope is that someday the leaders of these communities will recognize free families of color and teach generations to come about their positive contributions…

    Read the entire article here.

  • INDIGO: An Exhibit of Textiles

    INDIGO: An Exhibit of Textiles

    Gandhi Memorial Center
    4748 Western Avenue
    Bethesda, Maryland, 20816
    Washington, D.C.
    Phone: 301-320-6871

    Opening Reception:
    Saturday, 2013-11-16, 14:00-16:00 EST (Local Time)
    Inaugural Remarks at 14:30 EST

    INDIGO, an exhibition of textiles by Laura Kina and Shelly Jyoti will be inaugurated at the Gandhi Memorial Center in cooperation with the Embassy of India and with support of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations on November 16th at the Gandhi Memorial Center, from 2pm to 4pm. Mr. Taranjit Singh Sandhu, Deputy Chief of Mission, will be the distinguished guest for the afternoon. The exhibition features Laura Kina’s “Devon Avenue Sampler” and Shelly Jyoti’s “Indigo Narratives”.  The common thread between both bodies of work is the color indigo blue from India’s colonial past, to indigo-dyed Japanese kasuri fabrics and boro patchwork quilts, through blue threads of a Jewish prayer tallis, to working class blue jeans in the U.S.  Since 2009, “Indigo” has exhibited in galleries and cultural centers in Baroda, New Delhi, Mumbai, Seattle, Miami, and Chicago.

    For more information, click here.

  • Infant Perceptions of Mixed-Race Faces: An Exploration of the Hypodescent Rule in 8.5 Month-Old Infants

    Infant Perceptions of Mixed-Race Faces: An Exploration of the Hypodescent Rule in 8.5 Month-Old Infants

    Pitzer College, Claremont, California
    Senior Theses
    Spring 2013
    42 pages

    Sophie Beiers

    Studies have shown that adults often categorize mixed-race individuals of White and non-White descent as members of the non-White racial group, an effect said to be reminiscent of the “hypodescent” or “one-drop rule.” This effect has not yet been thoroughly studied in infants, although 9-month-old infants have been shown to be able to categorize mono-racial faces into different racial groups. In the present study, the perception of mixed-race White and Asian/Asian American faces was studied in sixteen 8.5-month-old infants. The infants were randomly assigned to two stimulus groups. The stimuli were the photographed faces of female college students who had self-identified as White, Asian/Asian American, or a 50-50 mix of those two races. Half the infants were habituated to White faces and half were habituated to Asian/Asian American faces, after which all infants were shown a mixed-race face. The results revealed that only infants in the White stimulus group recovered looking to the mixed-race face. This effect suggests that 8.5- month-old infants might see the mixed-race face as part of a different racial group than the White faces, and may see the mixed-race face as part of the same racial group as the Asian faces. Implications of this study on a larger scale are discussed. Further research including a larger sample size and participants of Asian/Asian American descent is recommended.

    Read the entire thesis here.

  • Faces of the Future: Race, Beauty and the Mixed Race Beauty Myth

    Faces of the Future: Race, Beauty and the Mixed Race Beauty Myth

    Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota
    American Studies Department Honors Projects
    2012-05-01
    129 pages

    Clara Younge

    Introduction

    In November 2009, popular fashion magazine Allure revealed the “Face of the Future”. Between pages of glistening models with features ranging from freckled faces with full lips to loosely curled afros and almond-shaped eyes, photographer Marilyn Minter gave us not only the changing face of America, but the changing face of American beauty. As the highlight reads: “more than ever before, beauty is reflected in a blend of ethnicities and colors.” The accompanying editorial by fashion journalist Rebecca Mead extolls the “extraordinary” beauty of mixed race people and their potential to change “the fashion and beauty industries.”

    She begins with the growing numbers of mixed race people in the US. With 6.8 million Americans identifying as mixed race in 2000, and nearly half of these being under 18, she says, “young America is starting to look very different from old America, and not just because it has far fewer wrinkles and better muscle tone.” The article goes on to describe each of the models according to her ethnicities, which are given in terms of both nationalities (“Barbadian,” “German,” and “Brazilian) and American ethnic or cultural groups (“African-American,” “Hispanic,” and “Creole”). Mead includes brief quotes from two of the women about their experiences with mixed race identity, particularly around phenotypic ambiguity. She emphasizes the unique looks of these models, saying that “fashion and beauty industries sometimes don’t know what to do with these models, but they had better get used to their like,” because they will soon be—if they aren’t already—the epitome of American beauty…

    …To satiate readers’ need to categorize, the women’s ethnicities are listed in the corner caption of each picture along with the makeup products that they wear. In these representations, their heritages or composite “parts” become nothing more than products that they can put on for a photo shoot, and that the reader might just as easily purchase for herself. This reduction of identities and histories to an optional appendage that one can simply put on and take off at will, or to a commodity that can be bought in stores, reflects current post-racial ideology of the neoliberal individual subject who is supposed to move freely through society unfettered by race, class or gender.

    Problematically, while the article claims to celebrate ‘ethnic’ beauty and ‘difference,’ it still upholds whiteness as dominant, as all of these models have European heritages, and all, as blogger Latoya Peterson critiques, “would easily pass the paper bag test” (2009). This rhetoric of inclusion only reinforces the boundaries of difference by excluding blackness as too other—too far outside the norm to be accepted.

    In the narrative about mixed race bodies that Allure weaves, identity is individualized, privatized and depoliticized. The mixed race subject is included in the institution of beauty, but this comes at the cost of others. Here, inclusion of the mixed race subject not only reifies the dominance of whiteness, but also further otherizes blackness. This inclusion also hinges upon racialized and gendered paradigms of bodily essentialism. While mixed people may be welcomed into the institution of beauty, it is under specific stipulations. Mixed race identity is defined as inherently different from all other racialized groups, as necessarily part-white, as socially and racially flexible, and as inherently beautiful…

    …But what prompts the proliferation of conversations in popular magazines, television, advertising and model agencies, and even scientific inquiry, about the reigning beauty of multiracial women, ultimate cuteness of mixed race kids, and overall attractiveness of “mixed” people? What (other than vanity) prompts us to say that mixed people are the most beautiful? In this project I hope to explore the question: Why are mixed people the most beautiful?—or why does everyone seem to think they are?

    To get at this question I take two routes: I will first examine popular conceptions of beauty and how these have been linked with race, I will bring mixed race bodies into the conversation of beauty standards and ideals, asking: What do people mean when they talk about “beautiful mixed people”? Is it a certain type or combination of racial identities? And if so, how does this image fit into pre-formed ideas about race and beauty?

    For the second leg of my journey, I will take on the question of beauty as something more than skin-deep. Many scholars of beauty have said that the construct and its definition – who it includes and excludes – is linked to not only personality and moral character, but also to racial inferiority and national identity. Here I ask: What is being said about beauty and mixed race? How is this discourse being circulated?

    And finally: Why now? Why mixed race? How does the myth of mixed race beauty fit into current discourse around mixed race identity? How is the concept of ‘beauty’ representative of broader social trends such as citizenship, neoliberal inclusion, and new racial projects concerning multiracial identity?

    This paper combines an interdisciplinary review of theories on beauty, race, gender with a critical mixed race studies lens. Previous scholarship on the history of American beauty standards and ideals lays the groundwork for my exploration of racialized beauty standards. Scholarship in critical mixed race studies and critical race studies are the-foundation for my discussion of the beauty myth as part of a larger social trend around race and mixed race identity. Contemporary cultural texts such as the “Face of the Future” article inform my investigation of current beauty ideals and my discussion of the discourse around the mixed race beauty myth and beauty in general. This project uses commentary from focus groups conducted with students at Macalester College. The findings from these focus groups represent the opinions, ideas and dialogues of and between contemporary subjects who live within this beauty culture. The results from these focus groups situate my work in the experiences and opinions of real people and guide my analysis of the mixed race beauty myth.

    My contribution to the discussion on beauty will be the inclusion of modern-day mixed race subjects. Thus far there has been research on the hypersexualization of mulatto women during slavery, but the racialized sexualization of mixed-race women today has been less explored. I also critically analyze the presence of previously described beauty ideals and types in contemporary culture, testing the theories of previous scholarship and the standards of years past for relevance in our current cultures
    of beauty.

    I place the mixed race beauty myth within a broader conversation about multiraciality. Both of these discourses elevate the mixed race subject in the popular racial imaginary-to the status of super hero. Through analysis of the mixed race beauty myth, I want to contribute to a larger critique of the idea that mixed people will all somehow save the world, simply by existing—or simply by being beautiful.

    I chose this project out of personal interest. As a woman with a mixed race identity, I have heard this statement that “mixed people are the most beautiful” many times. As a woman immersed in a culture that emphasizes the importance of femininity and attractiveness, the question of beauty has concerned me. And as a light-skinned woman of color I have been bombarded with conflicting messages telling me that people who look like me are or aren’t attractive, or that I am, but my darker-skinned sisters cannot be. It is necessary for me to recognize the positionality that I bring to this project, because it doubtless informs the way I approach these questions, their answers, and my entire process…

    Read the entire honors thesis here.

  • Caballeros and Indians: Mexican American Whiteness, Hegemonic Mestizaje, and Ambivalent Indigeneity in Proto-Chicana/o Autobiographical Discourse, 1858–2008

    Caballeros and Indians: Mexican American Whiteness, Hegemonic Mestizaje, and Ambivalent Indigeneity in Proto-Chicana/o Autobiographical Discourse, 1858–2008

    MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
    Volume 38, Issue 1 (March 2013)
    pages 30-49
    DOI: 10.1093/melus/mls010

    B. V. Olguín, Associate Professor of English
    University of Texas, San Antonio

    In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal gringo invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlán from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.
    —Alurista

    I got up close with one of the enemy and after having pulled out lots of arrows he shot into me, I was able to fire a shot into his back, straight through from one side to the other. The Indian fell face down. Upon seeing this, Comelso Hernandez, who was close to me, ran towards the Indian saying “Now I’ll take away your fire!,” but since he was close, the Indian arose suddenly, fired an arrow shot hitting him below the Adam’s Apple, and going all the way through, the arrow stuck—the Indian, who perhaps had used his last bit of energy in this attack, fell dead, on his back—Hernandez, so terribly wounded as he was, dragged himself towards the corpse, took out a battle knife he carried and tried to stick it through his ribs, but it broke—Regardless, with the piece that remained he was able to make a big wound, and at the same time he was cutting towards the heart with his piece of knife, he said, as if the cadaver could hear: “I forgive you brother; I forgive you brother.”
    —Juan Bernal (16-17)

    The evening a diminutive twenty-two-year-old dark brown man with black hair and goatee read “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán” at the National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference in Denver on March 30, 1969 (excerpted as  the first epigraph), Chicana/o indigeneity was transformed into a central trope in Chicana/o literature, historiography, and related social movements. The reader, Alberto Baltazar Urista Heredia—who took the penname Alurista—would become renowned for his Nahuatl glosses, white cotton frock, and calf-length pants characteristic of indigenous dress in southern Mexico. Such neo-indigenous performances became commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s cultural nationalist spectacles that punctuated the political mobilizations collectively known as the Chicano Movement. One half-century after Alurista’s performance and the subsequent reification of Chicana/o indigeneity in a multiplicity…

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • The Meanings of “Race” in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research

    The Meanings of “Race” in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research

    Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics
    Volume 1, Issue 1 (2001)
    pages 33-76

    Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Senior Research Scholar
    Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics
    Stanford University

    Joanna Mountain, Assistant Professor of Anthropological Genetics
    Stanford University

    Barbara A. Koenig, Professor of Biomedical Ethics and of Medicine at the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic;
    Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis;
    Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, Stanford University

    Eliminating the well-documented health disparities found within the United States population is a laudable public policy goal. Social justice demands that we understand the sources of health inequality in order to eliminate them. A central dilemma is: To what extent are health disparities the result of unequal distribution of resources, and thus a consequence of varied socioeconomic status (or blatant racism), and to what extent are inequities in health status the result of inherent characteristics of individuals defined as ethnically or racially different? How we conceptualize and talk about race when we ask these questions has profound moral consequences. Prior to the Human Genome Project (HGP), scientific efforts to understand the nature of biological differences were unsophisticated. The new technologies for genomic analysis will likely transform our thinking about human disease and difference, offering the promise of in-depth studies of disease incidence and its variations across human populations. In her opening remarks at a meeting of the President’s Cancer Panel, which focused on health disparities in cancer treatment in the United States, Dr. Karen Antman noted that racial differences in cancer rates have been reported for decades, “but for the first time, science now has the opportunity to quantify such differences genetically.” Will the light refracted through the prism of genomic knowledge illuminate straightforward explanations of disease etiology, offering simple solutions to health inequalities? Or are there consequences, currently hidden in the shadows, that require our attention?

    The challenge is then to analyze the causes of racism while avoiding the implication that race exists.
    -Steven Miles, 1993

    A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
    -Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” 1841

    Eliminating the well-documented health disparities found within the United States population is a laudable public policy goal. Social justice demands that we understand the sources of health inequality in order to eliminate them. A central dilemma is: To what extent are health disparities the result of unequal distribution of resources, and thus a consequence of varied socioeconomic status (or blatant racism), and to what extent are inequities in health status the result of inherent characteristics of individuals defined as ethnically or racially different? How we conceptualize and talk about race when we ask these questions has profound moral consequences.

    Prior to the Human Genome Project (HGP), scientific efforts to understand the nature of biological differences were unsophisticated. The new technologies for genomic analysis will likely transform our thinking about human disease and difference, offering the promise of in-depth studies of disease incidence and its variations across human populations. In her opening remarks at a meeting of the President’s Cancer Panel, which focused on health disparities in cancer treatment in the United States, Dr. Karen Antman noted that racial differences in cancer rates have been reported for decades, “but for the first time, science now has the opportunity to quantify such differences genetically.” Will the light refracted through the prism of genomic knowledge illuminate straightforward explanations of disease etiology, offering simple solutions to health inequalities? Or are there consequences, currently hidden in the shadows, that require our attention?…

    …Increasing ability to detect genetic mutations linked to disease susceptibility has not been paralleled by therapeutic discoveries. This disjuncture has contributed to the conflict about population-based testing and disagreement about the calculus of the largely unknown risks and benefits to individuals and populations. Knowing one has a BRCA mutation does not mean that one will ultimately develop cancer. Individuals must interpret complex, uncertain information to make sense of their cancer risk, and are often confused as to how to make sense of genetic information. The additional burden of contemplating the ramifications of targeted testing of their community, including the possibility of categorical discrimination and prejudice, is a daunting challenge. The mutations found most commonly among those of Ashkenazi ancestry were identified by chance. Blood stored for other purposes, notably screening for Tay Sachs, a heritable disease, was available for research. Other mutations in the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes are specific to certain groups, generally isolated populations such as those in Iceland or Finland. How will knowledge that common diseases are associated with socially identifiable populations affect the treatment of those individuals? But more importantly, how will an increasingly sophisticated knowledge of molecular genetics affect our understanding of the nature of “difference” among human groups?…

    …In this paper we provide a strong critique of the continued use of race as a legitimate scientific variable. We offer an historical analysis of how the concept of race has changed in the United States and discuss the reification of race in health research. We discuss how genetic technology has been deployed in “proving” racial identity, and describe the consequences of locating human identity in the genes. The implications of the continued use of race in the new genomic medicine—in particular the creation of racialized diseases—is highlighted. We warn about the consequences of a shift toward population-based care, including targeted genetic screening for racially identified “at-risk” groups, including the potential for stigmatization and discrimination. A less commonly identified hazard is the epistemological turn towards genetic reductionism. We suggest that the application of a naive genetic determinism will not only reinforce the idea that discrete human races exist, but will divert attention from the complex environmental, behavioral, and social factors contributing to an excess burden of illness among certain segments of the diverse U.S. population. The intersection of the genomics revolution with the health disparities initiative should serve as a catalyst to a long overdue public policy debate about the appropriate use of the race concept in
    biomedical research and clinical practice…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Seeing Opportunity In A Question: ‘Where Are You Really From?’

    Seeing Opportunity In A Question: ‘Where Are You Really From?’

    Morning Edition
    National Public Radio
    2013-11-11

    Renee Montagne, Host

    Steve Inskeep, Host

    Michele Norris, Host/Special Correspondent

    NPR continues a series of conversations about The Race Card Project, where thousands of people have submitted their thoughts on race and cultural identity in six words. Every so often NPR Host/Special Correspondent Michele Norris will dip into those six-word stories to explore issues surrounding race and cultural identity for Morning Edition.

    “Where are you from?”

    “No, really, where are you from?”

    Those questions about identity and appearance come up again and again in submissions to The Race Card Project. In some cases, Norris tells Morning Edition‘s Steve Inskeep, people say it feels accusatory — like, ‘Do you really belong?’

    It’s also a question that Alex Sugiura, because of his racially ambiguous appearance, can’t seem to escape.

    Sugiura, 27, is the child of a first-generation Japanese immigrant father and a Jewish mother of Eastern European descent. Sugiura’s brother Max looks more identifiably Asian, but when people meet Alex, they’re often not satisfied to hear that he’s from Brooklyn…

    Read the article here. Listen to the story here. Download the audio here. Read the transcript here.