Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Being mixed-race in the age of BLM

    Being mixed-race in the age of BLM

    The New York Daily News
    2021-06-12

    Tanya K. Hernández, Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law; Associate Director & Head of Global and Comparative Law Programs and Initiatives
    Fordham University School of Law, New York, New York


    Protesters march for the sixth consecutive night of protest on September 7, 2020, following the release of video evidence that shows the death of Daniel Prude while in the custody of Rochester Police in Rochester, New York. (MARANIE R. STAAB/AFP via Getty Images)

    Today marks the 54th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court decision that invalidated interracial marriage bans in the United States in 1967. Interracial marriage has been legal across the nation for nearly half a century, but the children of mixed-race marriages and other interracial unions are still subject to many other types of discrimination that their parents and ancestors faced. The persistence of such bias shows that while courts have may have remedied the bias behind interracial marriage bans, but they remain unable to blunt the continued vibrancy of white supremacy in the United States.

    In my book, “Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination,” I found that mixed-race arrestees describe their experiences of racial profiling and police violence in much the same way that single-race identified non-whites do. Thus, like George Floyd, the African-American man killed in 2020, by police officer Derek Chauvin, multiracial people can also experience being viewed as so inherently suspicious that they warrant out-sized interventions based upon their non-white racial appearance…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Ceremony

    Ceremony

    Penguin Random House
    2006-12-26 (originally published in 1977)
    272 Pages
    5-5/8 x 8-7/16
    Paperback ISBN: 9780143104919
    Ebook ISBN: 9781440621826

    Leslie Marmon Silko
    Introduction by Larry McMurtry

    The great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spirit

    More than thirty-five years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition contains a new preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry.

  • Race and Racism in Nineteenth-Century Art: The Ascendency of Robert Duncanson, Edward Bannister, and Edmonia Lewis

    Race and Racism in Nineteenth-Century Art: The Ascendency of Robert Duncanson, Edward Bannister, and Edmonia Lewis

    University Press of Mississippi
    2021-07-15
    282 pages
    30 b&w illustrations
    Hardcover ISBN: 9781496834348
    Paperback ISBN: 9781496834355

    Naurice Frank Woods Jr., Associate Professor of African American Studies
    University of North Carolina, Greensboro

    Foreword by George Dimock, Associate Professor Emeritus of Art
    University of North Carolina, Greensboro

    The extraordinary struggle, achievement, loss, and reclamation of three brilliant African American artists of the 1800s

    Painters Robert Duncanson (ca. 1821–1872) and Edward Bannister (1828–1901) and sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1844–1907) each became accomplished African American artists. But as emerging art makers of color during the antebellum period, they experienced numerous incidents of racism that severely hampered their pursuits of a profession that many in the mainstream considered the highest form of social cultivation. Despite barriers imposed upon them due to their racial inheritance, these artists shared a common cause in demanding acceptance alongside their white contemporaries as capable painters and sculptors on local, regional, and international levels.

    Author Naurice Frank Woods Jr. provides an in-depth examination of the strategies deployed by Duncanson, Bannister, and Lewis that enabled them not only to overcome prevailing race and gender inequality, but also to achieve a measure of success that eventually placed them in the top rank of nineteenth-century American art.

    Unfortunately, the racism that hampered these three artists throughout their careers ultimately denied them their rightful place as significant contributors to the development of American art. Dominant art historians and art critics excluded them in their accounts of the period. In this volume, Woods restores their artistic legacies and redeems their memories, introducing these significant artists to rightful, new audiences.

  • George Floyd Protests Prompted a Reckoning Over Colorism, Afro-Latinx Identity

    George Floyd Protests Prompted a Reckoning Over Colorism, Afro-Latinx Identity

    Teen Vogue
    2021-05-26

    Zoë Watkins

    Racial Reckoning is a series produced by student journalists reflecting on how the national uprisings after the police killing of George Floyd affected their generation. It was produced in collaboration with Dr. Sherri Williams’ Race, Ethnic and Community Reporting class at American University.

    Alé Headley, 24, an Afro Panamanian living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, attended over 20 marches and rallies last summer to protest the death of George Floyd. Headley, who is Black, Afro-Latina, and queer, identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns they/them and ella. They say they were “immediately” driven to join movements demanding justice for Black and brown lives lost to police violence.

    Their decision to get involved was multifaceted and deeply personal: They had witnessed police officers mistreat unhoused people in their neighborhood, thought of their younger brother who regularly endures police harassment, and their own experiences with racial profiling. “It’s disgusting to see how other people are treated, and then experiencing it for yourself,” Headley tells Teen Vogue. “It’s a different level of empathy.”

    While navigating dual identities, many members of Afro-Latinx communities got involved in last summer’s uprisings against systemic racism. Many often found themselves in an uncomfortable tug of war with their identities. As they protested and heard personal stories of racism, some realized that their identification with their Blackness had been muddied throughout childhood, and their dual identities were never allowed to fully shine…

    Read the entire article here.

  • One Drop featuring Dr. Yaba Blay and the Mixed Aunties

    One Drop featuring Dr. Yaba Blay and the Mixed Aunties

    Militantly Mixed Podcast
    2021-04-27

    This is a very special episode of Militantly Mixed. I, along with TaRessa Stovall and Sonia Smith-Kang aka “the Mixed Aunties” sat down to speak with Dr. Yaba Blay, author of One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race about her work on the book and the term “One Drop” as it pertains to Mixed-Black identified people.

    Listen to the podcast (01:05:02) here.

  • Validation of the Multiracial Youth Socialization (MY-Soc) Scale among racially diverse multiracial emerging adults.

    Validation of the Multiracial Youth Socialization (MY-Soc) Scale among racially diverse multiracial emerging adults.

    Journal of Family Psychology
    Published online: 2021-05-31
    DOI: 10.1037/fam0000879

    Annabelle L. Atkin, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar
    T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
    Arizona State University

    Hyung Chol Yoo, Associate Professor of Psychology
    Arizona State University

    Rebecca M. B. White, Associate Professor of Family and Human Development
    Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
    Arizona State University

    Alisia G. T. T. Tran, Assistant Professor in the Counseling and Counseling Psychology Program
    Arizona State University

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

    Multiracial children are the largest demographic group in the United States among individuals under the age of 18 (Pew Research Center, 2015), but their developmental processes are understudied. Parents and caregivers play an important role in preparing youth to navigate racialized society by teaching them to understand what it means to be a member of a racial-ethnic group (Hughes et al., 2006). However, this process is more complex in multiracial families, where youth belong to multiple racial-ethnic groups. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to develop and validate the first measure of racial-ethnic socialization for Multiracial youth, the Multiracial Youth Socialization (MY-Soc) Scale, to assess the unique messages that are communicated in multiracial families regarding topics of race, ethnicity, and culture. Using a sample of 901 Multiracial emerging adults (mage = 22.43), we separately captured the socialization practices of two of the youths’ primary caregivers from the youths’ perspective. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a 62-item scale measuring eight types of socialization: Navigating Multiple Heritages Socialization, Multiracial Identity Socialization, Preparation for Monoracism Socialization, Negative Socialization, Colorblind Socialization, Diversity Appreciation Socialization, Race-Conscious Socialization, and Silent Socialization. The MY-Soc Scale was also supported by validity and reliability tests. This study contributes an important tool for scholars and practitioners to learn which racial-ethnic socialization messages are promotive for Multiracial youth development in different contexts.

    Read or purchase the article here.

  • No mass protests after Honolulu police shoot, kill Black man

    No mass protests after Honolulu police shoot, kill Black man

    ABC News
    2021-06-06

    Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Mogomotsi Magome, Associated Press


    n a 2021 photo provided by Bickerton Law Group representing the family of Lindani Myeni, he is standing on a beach in Waimanalo, Hawaii with his wife and two children. Some Black people in Hawaii say Myeni’s shooting death by Honolulu police is a reminder that Hawaii isn’t the racially harmonious paradise it’s held up to be. (Myeni Family Photo/Bickerton Law Group via AP)

    Honolulu police shot and killed Lindani Myeni, a Black man, three months after he moved to Hawaii with his wife, believing it would be safer place to raise their two Black children

    HONOLULU — Lindsay Myeni and her South African husband moved to Hawaii, where she grew up, believing it would be safer to raise their two Black children here than in another U.S. state.

    Three months after they arrived, Honolulu police shot and killed her husband, 29-year-old Lindani Myeni, who was Black.

    “We never thought anything like this would ever happen there,” Lindsay Myeni, who is white, told The Associated Press in an interview from her husband’s hometown, Empangeni in Kwazulu-Natal province.

    To some, Lindani Myeni’s death and the muted reaction from residents, is a reminder that Hawaii isn’t the racially harmonious paradise it’s held up to be.

    The couple moved to Honolulu from predominately white Denver in January.

    Hawaii, where white people are not the majority and many people identify as having multiple ethnicities, felt right: “We were refreshed to be back to somewhere that is so diverse.”…

    Read the entire article here.

  • ‘Mixed-ish’ Cast Reacts to ABC Cancellation After Two Seasons: “Onward And Upward”

    ‘Mixed-ish’ Cast Reacts to ABC Cancellation After Two Seasons: “Onward And Upward”

    Deadline
    2021-05-14

    Alexandra Del Rosario, TV Reporter


    Kelsey McNeal/ABC

    The actresses behind Mixed-ish‘s Johnson family broke their silence on social media after ABC announced that it will not renew the comedy for a third season.

    Arica Himmel, who stars as the younger version of Tracee Ellis Ross’ Rainbow “Bow” Johnson, first posted her reaction to the news on Instagram. She reminisced on her time on the series, following in Ross’ steps and more.

    “TI want to thank our many loyal fans who joined us each week for the last two years on our journey from the commune to the ‘burbs — it has been an amazing experience and I will miss my TV family more than you can imagine,” she said…

    Read the entire article here.

  • As a ‘white-passing’ Asian American, I feel grief, shame and confusion right now

    As a ‘white-passing’ Asian American, I feel grief, shame and confusion right now

    TODAY
    2021-04-02

    Maura Hohman, Weekend Editor and Reporter


    Melea McCreary and Maura Hohman, a broadcast producer and digital editor for TODAY, share their experiences growing up with Filipino mothers but passing as non-Asian. As Asian Americans across the country are targeted for their appearance, they share their identity crisis. Courtesy Maura Hohman/Melea McCreary/ Fabio Briganti

    Schoolmates never pulled their eyes sideways at me, but one did ask if my mom was my nanny and tried to convince me I was adopted.

    During Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, TODAY is sharing the community’s history, pain, joy and what’s next for the AAPI movement. We will be publishing personal essays, stories, videos and specials throughout the entire month of May.

    I’ll never know exactly how much privilege my face has afforded me, though I’ve often wondered about the magnitude. No stranger has ever yelled a racial slur at me, but at a previous job a client spoke poorly of Filipinos not knowing half my family is from there. Schoolmates never pulled their eyes sideways at me, but one did ask if my mom was my nanny and tried to convince me I was adopted. In the wake of the Atlanta spa shootings that left eight people dead, including six Asian American women, a few friends have texted to see how I’m doing. But over the years, so many friends have said they don’t consider me Asian...

    Read the entire interview here.

  • Aftershocks: A Memoir

    Aftershocks: A Memoir

    Simon & Schuster
    2021-01-12
    320 pages
    Hardcover ISBN-13: 9781982111229
    Paperback ISBN-13: 9781982111236
    eBook ISBN-13: 9781982111243
    Unabridged Audiobook ISBN-13: 9781797108698

    Nadia Owusu

    In the tradition of The Glass Castle, a deeply felt memoir from Whiting Award–winner Nadia Owusu about the push and pull of belonging, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the heart it takes to pull through.

    Young Nadia Owusu followed her father, a United Nations official, from Europe to Africa and back again. Just as she and her family settled into a new home, her father would tell them it was time to say their goodbyes. The instability wrought by Nadia’s nomadic childhood was deepened by family secrets and fractures, both lived and inherited. Her Armenian American mother, who abandoned Nadia when she was two, would periodically reappear, only to vanish again. Her father, a Ghanaian, the great hero of her life, died when she was thirteen. After his passing, Nadia’s stepmother weighed her down with a revelation that was either a bombshell secret or a lie, rife with shaming innuendo.

    With these and other ruptures, Nadia arrived in New York as a young woman feeling stateless, motherless, and uncertain about her future, yet eager to find her own identity. What followed, however, were periods of depression in which she struggled to hold herself and her siblings together.

    Aftershocks is the way she hauled herself from the wreckage of her life’s perpetual quaking, the means by which she has finally come to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one written into existence by her own hand.

    Heralding a dazzling new writer, Aftershocks joins the likes of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and William Styron’s Darkness Visible, and does for race identity what Maggie Nelson does for gender identity in The Argonauts.