Mixed Race Studies

Reel Representation: Amma Asante’s films adeptly portray multiracial identity

The Daily Bruin
Los Angeles, California
2017-02-09

Olivia Mazzucato

Diversity in film and television came into the spotlight in 2016 with #OscarsSoWhite. A USC study in 2016 found only about a quarter of speaking characters belonged to non-white racial/ethnic groups. In “Reel Representation,” columnist Olivia Mazzucato discusses different issues of race and representation in media as they relate to new movies and TV shows.

The closest I’ve ever felt to seeing myself on screen is when I watched the film “Belle.”

“Belle” tells the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the daughter of an enslaved African woman and a white British officer. She’s brought to England and raised by her uncle, an earl and the Lord Chief Justice, and finds herself facing a choice between two men – a poor vicar’s son, whom she loves, and a naive aristocrat with a bigoted family. Throughout the film, she tries to reconcile her identities, both as an heiress in the British upper class and as a black woman struggling to find her place in a shifting society.

I may not be able to relate directly to Dido’s life, but her struggles with identity are all too familiar to me.

As someone who is biracial – half Italian-American and half Japanese-American – it’s difficult to process my identity, particularly when it comes to seeing myself represented in media. I don’t look like the white female characters I see, nor the few Asian characters that occasionally grace the screen. On some level, I feel like I’ll never truly be represented because my identity is so specific…

Read the entire article here.

Panel to discuss racism and medical issues

The Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2012-02-10

Ariana Ricarte

The topic of racism in health care, genetics and other medical issues will be the central point of discussion at a panel in De Neve Auditorium on Saturday [13:00-15:00 PST].

The panel, called “Race in Medicine: A Dangerous Prescription,” will discuss disparities between people of different races in the health care system and the ways a patient’s ethnicity can affect decisions made by doctors and insurance companies. The event is hosted by UCLA’s Mixed Student Union, a student group founded in 2010 that aims to provide a safe and open environment for people of multiracial and multiethnic heritage, said chairwoman Camila Lacques.

The panel will go over topics such as the role of ethnicity in prescription medicine and bone marrow and stem cell transplants. When it comes to transplants, multiracial people have a more difficult time finding matches because of their unique genetic composition, said panelist Athena Asklipiadis…

[Note by Steven F. Riley: Everyone—except their identical twin—has an “unique genetic composition.”  Race is a social, not biological construction and as such, is not linked to genetics. Please read Dorothy Roberts excellent (and sobering) monograph on race and medicine titled, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century for more information.]

…G. Reginald Daniel, a panelist at Saturday’s event and a sociology professor at UC Santa Barbara, said he plans to focus on the positive and negative images applied to multiracial people, as well as talk about the issue in terms of genetic variety.

“I think people need to step out of mono-racial thinking,” Daniel said. “We need to see the connections we have with each other, whether we like it or not.”…

Read the entire article here.

‘Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families’ traveling exhibit bridges diverse backgrounds

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2011-05-22

Lenika Cruz

Starting this evening, UCLA will act as a home for 20 families, each with a story to tell about being multiracial Americans.

While these families will not be physically present, their photographs and interviews will be, as part of “Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families,” a traveling exhibit that began circulating the country in the early ’90s.

The exhibit came to UCLA from the organization Family Diversity Projects as part of a collaboration between Multiracial Americans of Southern California and UCLA’s Mixed Student Union. An opening reception with a speech from Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kinnery Shah will take place in the Ackerman second floor lounge, after which the exhibit will move to the Kerckhoff Art Gallery until Friday.

The project is the work of Peggy Gillespie and Gigi Kaeser, co-founders of Family Diversity Projects. They interviewed and photographed more than 40 families living in and around Amherst, Mass., who identified as multiracial. One family consisted of a Puerto Rican mother, an African American father and their children, while another family featured Caucasian parents who had adopted children from Peru and China…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed: A Mixed Heritage

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-11-09

Nicholas Greitzer

America has always been considered a melting pot – a melting pot of ideas, of ethnicities, of religions, of experiences and of people.

In the 2000 census, for example, this miscegenation resulted in more than 6.8 million Americans self-identifying as multiracial. While there may not be any similar statistics for UCLA, a look at the enrollment figures for 2009 lists 4.4 percent of students as having an ethnicity of unstated, unknown or other, close to the national percentage in 2000 of 2.4 of those who identify themselves as multiracial.

Second-year international development studies and Chicana/Chicano studies student Camila Lacques falls into that group that cannot be adequately fit into the racial options provided by the U.S. Census Bureau or the University of California undergraduate application.

“People want to put you in a box, but mixed people don’t fit into a box,” said Lacques, who identifies herself as half Mexican, a quarter Irish and a quarter eastern European Jewish.

Lacques’ cultural makeup is not limited to those backgrounds found within her blood, as she was raised in a predominantly black neighborhood and attended an elementary and middle school that was comprised primarily of Korean students…

…In a similar vein, for second-year sociology student Ay’Anna Moody, being multiracial revolves around teaching others that they need to be intellectually curious.

“I needed to know who I was in order for me to move forward, culturally and socially,” said Moody, whose dad is black Creole and whose mom is Scott-Irish, German and black.

While Moody said that Irish traditions such as St. Patrick’s Day held a prominent place in her family, it was the black cultural influence that dominated her household, which she shared with her mother and stepfather…

Read the entire article here.

Letter to the Editor: Multi-ethnic clubs benefit community

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-10-18

Thomas Lopez, Alumnus
University of California, Berkeley

What’s in a name?

Answering that question can be difficult for some multiracial students. So often throughout history, names have been given for us, many of them pejorative, that it becomes difficult for multiracial people to pick just one. I suppose it’s no wonder, then, that when we choose to name ourselves, or the organizations we form, that someone will take an affront to it.

Salim Zymet, in his article “UCLA needs more than just one multiethnic club” (Oct. 12), seems to be simultaneously lamenting the dearth of multiethnic/multiracial organizations as well as the proliferation of others. It is unclear what organizations he may be a member of, if any, although he does make it clear that he “would never fathom joining the Hapa Club because of the word’s association to Asian heritage.”

I have been active in the multiracial community for almost 20 years in various organizations. This community includes multiracial and multiethnic people, interracial couples and trans-racially adoptive families. I believe that the more awareness we raise about the multiracial community, the better society may become.

I may not have the solution to Mr. Zymet’s dilemma, but I can offer up this story. During the early ’90s I was an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. I joined a student group there called the Multicultural Interracial Students Coalition (MISC) or “miscellaneous” for short. A little tongue-in-cheek, I know, but better than the original name Students of Interracial Descent…

Read the entire letter here.

UCLA needs more than just one multiethnic club

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-10-11

Salim Zymet

Only one student group promoting multiracialism is not enough for a campus as diverse as ours

Where are you from?

Answering that question can be difficult for some multiracial students. Perhaps you’re inclined to believe that despite your ethnic background, you’re simply an American, born and raised. Maybe you introduce yourself with all of your ethnic background included. Uncertainty may still plague your ethnic and cultural identity.

Enter the Hapa Club at UCLA. Hapa is a Hawaiian word traditionally meaning someone of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander descent – but the club aims to be a place where all multiracial students can come together. As the only club which represents all mixed ethnic backgrounds, it has large shoes to fill, even more so when you take into account that there are over 70 clubs, fraternities and sororities on campus devoted to various Asian ethnicities. I don’t take issue with the existence of these clubs, merely the staggering volume of them…

…If we are to be part of a truly diverse campus, more multiracial groups are going to have to be part of the solution…

…As an American of Indian, Syrian and Polish descent, I hope that next year’s incoming mixed students can be greeted by a more diverse group of ethnic clubs. As it stands now, if they want to join a club they are forced to either “choose” one of their backgrounds to identify as or join Hapa Club…

Read the entire article here.

Census trend shows mixed-race Americans are more likely to identify with their multiracial background

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-05-18

Brittany Wong, Bruin contributor

When President Barack Obama got to Question No. 9 on the 2010 Census, he did what mixed-race respondents nationwide were asked to do: pare down and define his complex racial background by checking all the boxes he saw fit.

His decision to exclusively check “Black, African Am., or Negro” and the fractured response that followed speaks to the complex nature of being mixed race today, said Kyeyoung Park, an associate professor of sociocultural anthropology at UCLA who teaches a class about race.

A new generation of mixed-race people are coming into their own this decade, and as they do, many are more comfortable self-identifying in a way that encompasses all of their background, Park said…

…Miguel Unzueta, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management who conducted a study that showed that self-identified mixed-race children were better adjusted in school, said he was somewhat surprised by Obama’s decision. Given the president’s discussion of his mixed heritage during the primaries, he said he expected a census answer more in line with his talk on the campaign trail.

But the decision also speaks to the reality that the way Americans talk about race is not always the way they think, he said.

“I think people are more comfortable with having a mixed-race background, but there still isn’t a label that we’re comfortable with in society,” Unzueta said…

Read the entire article here.