Mixed Race Studies

Results of the 2016 Election

American Sociological Association
Washington, D.C.
2016-06-07

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Duke University, has been elected the 109th President of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Christopher Uggen, University of Minnesota, has been elected Vice President.

Bonilla-Silva and Uggen will assume their respective offices in August 2017, following a year of service as President-elect and Vice President-elect (2016-2017). Bonilla-Silva will chair the 2018 Program Committee that will shape the ASA Annual Meeting program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 11-14, 2018. As ASA President, Bonilla-Silva will be a member of the ASA Council, which governs the association and its policies, and its chair in 2017-2018. He will also be a voting member of the ASA Committee on the Executive Office and Budget (2017-2019) and the 2018-2019 Publications Committee…

Read the entire results here.

Study investigates whether blind people characterize others by race

EurekAlert! The Global Source for Science News
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2015-08-25

American Sociological Association

CHICAGO — Most people who meet a new acquaintance, or merely pass someone on the street, need only a glance to categorize that person as a particular race. But, sociologist Asia Friedman wondered, what can we learn about that automatic visual processing from people who are unable to see?

Friedman, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, set out to explore that question by interviewing 25 individuals who are blind. She will present her findings in a study at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

“The visual process of assigning race is instantaneous, and it’s an example of automatic thinking — it happens below the level of awareness,” Friedman said. “With blind people, the process is much slower as they piece together information about a person over time. Their thinking is deliberative rather than automatic, and even after they’ve categorized someone by race, they’re often not certain that they’re correct.”

In fact, she said, blind people categorize many fewer people by race than do sighted people, who assign a race to virtually everyone they see. For those who are blind, the slower process of assigning race generally takes place only when they have extensive interactions with a person, not with passersby or during casual encounters…

Read the entire press release here.

Passing and Performance in the 21st Century: Black-White Biracial Americans and Passing as Black

American Sociological Association
Annual Meeting 2010
Regular Session: Multi-Racial Classification/Identity
Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Monday, 2010-08-16, 16:30-18:10 EDT (Local Time)
35 pages

Session Organizer: Rebecca C. King-O’Riain, Senior Lecturer of Sociology, National University of Ireland-Maynooth 
Presider: Carolyn A. Liebler, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota

Nikki Khanna Sherwin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Vermont

Drawing on interview data with black-white biracial adults, I examine the considerable agency most have in asserting their racial identities to others. Extending research on “identity work,” I explore the strategies they use to perform race, and the individual and structural-level factors that limit the accessibility and/or effectiveness of some strategies. I further find that how these biracial respondents identify is often contextual – most identify as biracial, but in some contexts, they “pass” as monoracial. Scholars argue that “passing” may be a relic of the past, yet I find that “passing” still occurs today and quite frequently. Most notably, I find a striking reverse pattern of “passing” today – while “passing” during the Jim Crow era involved “passing” as white, I find that these respondents more often report “passing” as black today. Motivations for “passing” are explored, with an emphasis on “passing” as black.

Read the entire paper here.

Understanding Identity Differences among Biracial Siblings

American Sociological Association
Annual Meeting 2010
Regular Session: Multi-Racial Classification/Identity
Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Monday, 2010-08-16, 16:30-18:10 EDT (Local Time)

Session Organizer: Rebecca C. King-O’Riain, Senior Lecturer of Sociology, National University of Ireland-Maynooth 
Presider: Carolyn A. Liebler, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota

Melissa R. Herman, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Dartmouth University

This paper examines identity differences among a sample of 256 biracial siblings. We find that gender, age, and ancestry have modest relationships with identity, but that phenotype, racial context, language use, and social psychological factors have stronger relationships.

For more information, click here.

Fluid or Fixed: Which is Better? Multiracial Identity Consistency and Emotional Well-Being in Adolescence

American Sociological Association
Annual Meeting 2010
Regular Session: Multi-Racial Classification/Identity
Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Monday, 2010-08-16, 16:30-18:10 EDT (Local Time)

Session Organizer: Rebecca C. King-O’Riain, Senior Lecturer of Sociology
National University of Ireland-Maynooth 

Presider: Carolyn A. Liebler, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Minnesota

Ruth H. Burke
University of Pennsylvania

Rory Kramer
University of Pennsylvania

Camille Zubrinsky Charles, Professor of Sociology and the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Social Sciences; Director, The Center for Africana Studies
University of Pennsylvania

Traditional theories of multiracial identity propose that multiracial individuals go through a period of “crisis” in which their racial and ethnic identity is fluid and inconsistent. These theories argue that such fluidity leads to emotional stress. Recent research has shown that this fluidity is more related to socioeconomic status and background and that racial consistency is not a necessary or ideal goal for multiracial individuals. At the same time, others have shown how to measure consistency of identity in survey research such as Add Health but have not yet studied whether or not consistency is related to negative emotional outcomes. In this paper, we expand those measures to include Hispanic ethnic identity in our measure of consistency and test whether or not inconsistency of racial and/or ethnic identity is related to depression. We find that the older, more linear theories of multiraciality are not correct and that fluid identities are not significantly related to higher scores on a standard measure of depression. The paper concludes by discussing how these findings highlight the importance of producing new theories of racial identity that consider fluidity and multidimensionality of racial identity as a natural and neutral part of an individual’s identity.

For more information, click here.

The Marital Patterns of Multiracial People in the United States: A Comparison of Asian/Whites and Black/Whites

American Sociological Association Annual Meeting
Hilton San Francisco
San Francisco, California
2009-08-08
20 pages

Michael Miyawaki
Fordham University

In this paper, I examine and compare the marital patterns of two multiracial groups—Asian/whites and black/whites—in the United States. Examining the marital behavior of multiracial people is of particular importance to understanding their state of assimilation. Furthermore, the race of their spouse has important consequences for the racial classification of their offspring. Because the racial identity and experience of multiracial people differ by racial background (i.e., Asian/white, black/white, etc.), there may be differences in the marital patterns of multiracial subgroups in a marriage market segmented by race. In this study, I limit my analysis to non-Latino Asian/white adults (18 and older) married to non-Latino whites, Asians, and Asian/whites, and non-Latino black/white adults married to non-Latino whites, blacks, and black/whites. To compare the odds of Asian/whites and black/whites marrying whites, their nonwhite counterparts, and their multiracial counterparts, I use multinomial logistic regression. While both Asian/whites and black/whites are most likely to marry whites, results show significant differences between the two groups in terms of their odds of marrying whites, nonwhites, and multiracials. Whereas Asian/whites are more likely than black/whites to marry whites (vs. nonwhites) and multiracials (vs. nonwhites), black/whites are more likely than Asian/whites to marry nonwhites. Thus, results demonstrate that not only is the marriage market segmented by race among monoracials, it is also racially segmented among multiracials.

To read the entire paper, click here.

Implications of Racial Self-Identification, Racial Ancestry, and Racial Context for Depressive Symptoms, Achievement, and Self-Esteem Among Multiracial Adolescents

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
Montreal Convention Center
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2006-08-11
32 pages

Melissa Herman, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Dartmouth University

This paper describes the impact of racial self-identification, racial ancestry, and racial composition of contexts on measures of depressive symptoms, achievement, and self-esteem among 1,417 multiracial youth and 7,310 monoracial youth ages 14-19. Comparisons are made both between multi- and monoracial groups, and within groups of multiracial respondents who self-identify in different single-race categories. Results show that racial ancestry, self-identification, and context are significantly related to these developmental outcomes. For multiracial youth, self-identifying as Black or Hispanic is associated with lower grades while simply having Black ancestry (regardless of self-identification) is not. Net of other factors, neither ancestry nor identification appear to have a significant impact on depressive symptoms among monoracial students but they have a significant impact for multi-racial part-Blacks and part-Hispanics. Racial context showed a significant impact only for neighborhood: the lower percentage of whites in a multiracial youth’s neighborhood, the lower his or her grades.

Read the entire paper here.

The Sociological Significance of President Barack Obama

The American Sociological Association
Mini-Symposium
San Francisco, California
2009-08-08 through 2009-08-09

The historic campaign and election of Barack Obama constitutes a compelling and timely context for examining the program theme. In response, the 2009 ASA Program Committee and ASA President Patricia Hill Collins have organized a mini-symposium, a meeting within the general meeting, which explores how the historic election of Barack Obama might signal a new politics of community in action. The mini-symposium consists of a cluster of sessions that are scheduled throughout the meetings that will examine how the 2008 presidential election engages the conference theme The New Politics of Community.

1. Plenary Session. Why Obama Won (and What that Says About Democracy and Change in America)
2. Presidential Panel. A Defining Moment? Youth, Power and the Obama Phenomenon
3. Presidential Panel. Through the Lens of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Class: The Obama Family and the American Dream
4. Thematic Session. Understanding Democratic Renewal: The Movement to Elect Barack Obama
5. Thematic Session. The Future of Community Organizing During an Obama Presidency
6. Thematic Session. Asian-American Movements, Identities, and Politics: A New Racial Project in the Obama Years?
7. Professional Workshop. The Next Generation of MFP Scholarship in Service to Social Justice
8. Open Forum. Does the Obama Administration Need a Social Science Scholars Council?: A Public Forum

Read the entire description here.