Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • The ones who fall in the middle…

    When do I use “we”? In a room full of people I do not know, I always search out the ones who fall in the middle, like me, out of some irrational ideal that we belong together.  I worry that this is the wrong thing for the child of a mixed marriage to feel.  My parents conquered difference, and we would all like to think that sort of accomplishment is something that could be passed down from generation to generation.  That’s why we’re all, in theory, so excited by the idea of miscegenation—because if we mix the races, presumably, we create a new generation of people for whom existing racial categories do not exist.  I don’t think it’s that easy, though.  If you mix black and white, you don’t obliterate those categories; you merely create a third category, a category that demands, for its very existence, an even greater commitment to nuances of racial taxonomy.

    Malcolm Gladwell, “Lost in the Middle,” in Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural, ed. Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn. (New York: Pantheon, 1998), 112.

  • Ideas of racial categories that continue to fragment our ability to imagine humanity…

    Unfortunately, so long as ideas of racial categories continue to fragment our ability to imagine humanity, many minorities have few choices but to cash in on their ‘exotic’ appeal. For Eurasian women, this means accepting all the baggage of deviancy, prostitution and foreignness that is implicit in it. It also means a lifetime of answering the “what are you?” question and being told that they are not their parents’ children.

    Lyn Dickens. “Being a Eurasian Australian,” Yemaya: Sydney University Law Society’s annual interdisciplinary Women’s journal, 2010 (2011): 34-36. http://www.suls.org.au/s/yemaya_2010.pdf.

  • This country is in for hybridization on the greatest scale that the world has ever seen…

    Not only physical but also mental and temperamental incompatibilities may be a consequence of hybridization. For example, one often sees in mulattoes an ambition and push combined with intellectual inadequacy which makes the unhappy hybrid dissatisfied with his lot and a nuisance to others.

    To sum up, then, miscegenation commonly spells disharmony—disharmony of physical, mental and temperamental qualities and this means also disharmony with environment. A hybridized people are a badly put together people and a dissatisfied, restless, ineffective people. One wonders how much of the exceptionally high death rate in middle life in this country is due to such bodily maladjustments; and how much of our crime and insanity is due to mental and temperamental friction.

    This country is in for hybridization on the greatest scale that the world has ever seen.

    Charles B. Davenport, “The Effects of Race Intermingling,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 56, Number 4 (1917): 364-368.

  • 17th Century America and the real multiracial “baby boom”

    Intermarriage bans arose in the late 1600s, when tobacco planters in Virginia needed to shore up their new institution of slavery. In previous decades, before slavery took hold, interracial sex was more prevalent than at any other time in American history. White and black laborers lived and worked side by side and naturally became intimate. Even interracial marriage, though uncommon, was allowed. But as race slavery replaced servitude as the South’s labor force, interracial sex threatened to blur the distinctions between white and black—and thus between free and slave.

    David Greenberg, “White Weddings: The incredible staying power of the laws against interracial marriage,” Slate, June 15, 1999. http://www.slate.com/id/30352/.

  • ‘Mixed Kids Are the Cutest’ Isn’t Cute?

    ‘Mixed Kids Are the Cutest’ Isn’t Cute?

    The Root
    2013-04-08

    Jenée Desmond-Harris, Staff Writer

    “I’m a Caucasian woman with a biracial child (her father is black). I live in a predominantly white community. Why is it that whenever people discover that I have a ‘mixed’ child, they always say things like, ‘Oh, he/she must be so cute/gorgeous/adorable, those kids are always the best looking. You are so lucky.’

    I know they mean well, but it seems off to me, and maybe racist. Do they mean compared to ‘real’ black children? When a German and Italian or an Asian and Jewish person have a child, black people don’t say, ‘Mixed children like yours are always the best looking.’ (Plus, it’s not true—not all black-white biracial kids are the ‘best looking.’)

    Am I being overly sensitive by feeling there’s something off about these comments? If not, what’s the best way to respond?”

    I chose this question for the first installment of Race Manners, The Root’s new advice column on racial etiquette and ethics, because it hits close to home. Like your daughter, I’m biracial. Like you, my white mother has developed an acute sensitivity to the subtle ways prejudice and bigotry pop up in daily life. I should know. She calls me to file what I’ve deemed her “racism reports.”

    And let’s be clear. Americans of all races say bizarre things to and about mixed people, who can inspire some of the most revealing remarks about our black-white baggage. Just think of the public debates about how MSNBC’s Karen Finney, and even President Obama, should be allowed to identify…

    …As Marcia Dawkins, the author of Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity, told me, “The myth that mixed-race offspring are somehow better than nonmixed offspring is an example of ‘hybrid vigor,’ an evolutionary theory which states that the progeny of diverse varieties within a species tend to exhibit better physical and psychological characteristics than either one or both of the parents.”

    And just take a wild guess how this idea has popped up for black people. You got it: In order to demean and oppress African Americans, thought leaders throughout history, including the likes of Thomas Jefferson, have said that black-white mixed offspring are better, more attractive, smarter, etc., than “real” blacks and not as good or attractive or smart as “real” whites, Dawkins explains….

    Read the entire article here.

  • Special Event: An Evening with U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey

    Special Event: An Evening with U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey

    The Newseum
    Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater
    555 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
    Washington, D.C. 20001
    Telephone: 888/NEWSEUM (888/639-7386)
    Tuesday, 2013-04-16, 23:00Z (19:00 EDT Local Time, 16:00 PDT)
    This event will be streamed live on Newseum.org

    The 19th U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, Natasha Trethewey will read selections from her work, followed by a conversation with Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center, about her poetry, her national role, and the place of poetry in society. She is currently the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University.

    Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Miss., on April 26, 1966. She is the author of four poetry collections and a book of creative non-fiction. Her honors include the Pulitzer Prize and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012, she was appointed State Poet Laureate of Mississippi.

    Emory University president James W. Wagner will also pay tribute to the university’s long history with poets and their art, much of which is housed in Emory’s Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library collections.

    Emory alumni board president Isabel Garcia will emcee the evening.

    The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited. For more information, click here.

  • If we accept the definition of Black which we have been given—a definition which historically defined anyone with “one drop of Black blood” as Black—we ignore the existence of multiracial people.

    If we accept the definition of Black which we have been given—a definition which historically defined anyone with “one drop of Black blood” as Black—we ignore the existence of multiracial people. We ignore people whose experiences may be different from those experiences which have been defined as constituting the Black experience—that is, the “essentialized” Black experience. By so essentializing, we assume that the taxonomy of race proposed by nineteenth-century white supremacists—that human beings can be classified into four races and everyone fits neatly into one slot—is a valid one. On the other hand, if we do classify multiracial people as Black, the potential for group solidarity is much greater. “We are all Black,” we say. “You cannot divide us.”

    Trina Grillo, “Anti-Essentialism and Intersectionality: Tools to Dismantle the Master’s House,” Berkeley Women’s Law Journal (Volume 10, 1995).

  • Why isn’t multiculturalism accepted in society nowadays?

    Why isn’t multiculturalism accepted in society nowadays?

    The Voice
    London, England
    2013-01-25

    Kamran Assadi

    Kamran Assadi on why diverse cultural identities in Britain should be embraced not questioned

    I BELIEVE society and the environment you live in can alter your opinions and the way you view life.

    Stereotypes can alter our thinking towards different religions, sexualities and ethnicities amongst other things. I think it is fair to say we’ve all been there and I can only talk about this from my personal experience.

    I am a young British mixed-race father of Montserratian and Iranian heritage. My parents were of mixed religions (Christian and Muslim) and they taught me about both without any prejudice being passed onto me.

    I’m Iranian so people associate me with terrorism. I’m also Caribbean so I get all the Black stereotypes as well. I was a victim of racial profiling whilst travelling to New York. They looked at my full Iranian name and my facial hair, and then took me for questioning in several rooms searching me for signs of terrorism.

    Although I’m a mixed-race father, some people categorise me as black – putting me under the negative thumbprint of being a deadbeat absent dad which isn’t necessarily true. Why subject me to such extreme measures? Why should I be judged by a country’s politics I don’t believe and am not a part of? What does race have to do with being a good dad? My stereotypes are thrust into me like a sharp pronged fork.

    Even I’ve succumbed to society’s notions of preconceived prejudices. As I looked Black and never wanted to complicate things with people who didn’t understand my culture, I just called myself Black. I even changed the pronunciation of my Iranian name to a more British phonetic so people could say it properly. I wrote a poem ‘The Black Boy’ that harked over these issues and overcoming them by being myself and being a positive influence. However as I didn’t know my Iranian family, all I could truly talk about was my Caribbean identity…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Virgil Westdale: Farm Boy, Pilot, Soldier, Inventor, Author, and Gentleman

    Virgil Westdale: Farm Boy, Pilot, Soldier, Inventor, Author, and Gentleman

    Japanese American National Museum
    Stories
    2010-09-09

    Esther Newman

    Virgil Westdale’s exceptional life story might never have been published had he not attended a Halloween dance. Unsure of what to wear, the World War II veteran donned his Army uniform of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, nearly sixty years after issue and still a perfect fit. On the dance floor, he met Stephanie Gerdes, who remarked, “it’s not really a costume, is it?” After many more questions spanning two years, the two collaborated on Westdale’s autobiography, Blue Skies and Thunder: Farm Boy, Pilot, Inventor, TSA Officer, and WWII Soldier of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Westdale has earned accolades in every occupation listed in the book’s lengthy subtitle through determination, talent and a strong work ethic. But his career path took an unforeseen turn because of his heritage. Westdale (born Nishimura) is half Japanese.

    Virgil Westdale was born in 1918 on a farm in Indiana, the fourth of five children in the Nishimura family. Virgil’s father emigrated from Japan as a 16 year-old orphan, arriving first in Hawaii, moving on to San Francisco in 1906 and then to Denver, where he met and married his American wife of English and German heritage. After the birth of their first daughter, the family moved in with Virgil’s maternal grandparents in Toledo, Ohio and then to their grandmother’s 40-acre farm in Indiana. A good harvest of peppermint brought in enough income for the Nishimura’s down payment on a farm of their own in Michigan when Virgil was nine years old. It wasn’t an easy life and the family did without running water and electricity until long after the children were grown…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Performing ‘Race’ and Challenging Racism

    Performing ‘Race’ and Challenging Racism

    One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for her Father’s Racial Approval
    Blog Updates
    2013-04-08

    Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Playwright, Producer, Actress, Educator

    It is an exciting time to be an actor, when the notion of ‘performance’ is taking on new meanings and has the potential to change the way we view the art form. Traditional definitions of ‘performance’ include the act of staging or presenting a play; a rendering of a dramatic role. Now scholar/activists like Judith Butler are exploring a new definition of performance, or ‘performativity’—looking at how we use language and behavior to construct identity.

    In my solo show, One Drop of Love, I get to meld these two understandings of performance. I am an actor who portrays several different characters: my Jamaican/Pan-Africanist father, my Blackfeet–Cherokee-Danish mother, candy and fruit vendors from East and West Africa, Census Workers from the 1790s to the present, racist cops from Cambridge, MA and many others. At the same time, in taking on these roles, I explore the construction of  ‘racial’ identity, and how these identities are created through speech and acts—and not through biology…

    Read the entire article here.