Mixed Race Studies

Hispanic Or Latino? That Is The Question

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2009-09-25

Michel Martin, Host

Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 is being celebrated as Hispanic Heritage Month, but the some say the word “Hispanic” should be retired, and would rather be referred to as Latino. Host Michel Martin speaks to four Latinos with varying opinions on the subject — syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, Afro-Latino Activist Roland Roebuck, “Ask a Mexican” columnist Gustavo Arellano and Tell Me More Planning Editor Luis Clemens.

I’m Michel Martin, and this is Tell Me More from NPR News. It’s time for our weekly visit to the Barbershop, where the guys talk about what’s in the news and what’s on their minds. And this week, we’re going for a different kind of shape-up than we usually do, you know, switching it up a little bit.

It’s Hispanic Heritage Month, and to mark the occasion, we’ve decided to represent right here in the Barbershop. So sitting in the chairs for a shape-up this week are syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, who writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune and CNN.com, Gustavo Arellano, who writes the syndicated column “Ask a Mexican,” community activist Roland Roebuck, and NPR editor Luis Clemens, our own. Welcome to you, and dare I say it? Hola…

…MARTIN: All right. And before we jump into other topics, I have to ask, this being Heritage Month, let’s start with the title itself. Whenever, you know, I have to choose, I always have this little moment, you know, why Hispanic versus Latino Heritage Month? Does it matter? Gustavo, I’m going to start with you because this is actually something you’ve written about and thought about a lot. So Hispanic versus Latino, why? Which?

Mr. ARELLANO: Which one? Honestly for me, it’s whatever people want to call themselves, whatever makes them more comfortable. Some people don’t like either of the labels. They want to call themselves Chicano or Boricua, or whatever their particular labels may be.

The reason why it’s called Hispanic Heritage Month is because it comes from the federal government deciding that hey, guess what? We’re all Hispanics, and this happened – the urban myth is that Richard Nixon was the godfather of Hispanics. That’s what Richard Rodriguez, the noted author said, but it was actually done during the Ford administration. And literally, it was done in the back room of some government hall where they took a poll. Should we call these people Latinos or Hispanic?

So Hispanic won. So in that case, that’s why I don’t like the term Hispanic. I don’t like the government telling me what I should call myself. I’d prefer Latino. But again, if you want to call yourself Hispanic, then God bless you. Or Dios bless you, right?

MARTIN: Okay, why do you prefer Latino?

Ms. ARELLANO: Just because it’s more out of, you know, out of eliminating the other part that I don’t like. So I don’t – I mean, I don’t like Hispanic only for that term, so I’ll use Latino. But me personally, I call myself Naranjedal(ph), a child of, you know, an orange-picker because I come from Orange County, California, and my grandparents were orange-pickers. So that’s what I would call myself, and that’s where – whenever I go across the country, that’s what I tell people I call myself. But, of course, only a very limited amount of people can call themselves that. So if I’m going to express brotherhood with the fellow people that were colonized by the Spaniards or the Portuguese, then I’ll just – I decide to call myself Latino.

MARTIN: Okay. Roland, what about you?

Mr. ROEBUCK: Well, this month should be called White Hispanic Heritage Month, because it allows an opportunity for white Hispanic to display their wares, and it also heightens the invisibility of Afro-Latinos that are seldom given a chance to participate in these national holidays. So we are invisible during the year, more so during White Hispanic Heritage Month.

MARTIN: Why do you say that? And for those who can’t – you consider yourself Afro-Latino.

Mr. ROEBUCK: Yes, yes. But just look at the events. Ever since Celia Cruz died, Roberto Clemente is not around, people are scrambling to find Afro-Latinos to be recognized because they concentrate on two areas.

MARTIN: Now, you prefer Latino, as opposed to – you don’t say Afro-Hispanic.

Mr. ROEBUCK: No. I say – if I’m going to use the Latino, it would be Afro-Latino because I want to acknowledge my Africanness, and I also want to recognize my cultural background, which is Puerto Rican. But I have to use both.

For me, Hispanic refers to white, Spanish-speaking individuals. So the whiter you are, the more inclined you will be to identify yourself as Hispanic. And this is prevalent throughout the Southern region of the United States. If you ask the average person on Columbia Road, do you consider yourself Hispanic? No. They will use a geographic identification…

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

After Tiananmen Square, New Lives On A New Continent

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2014-06-04

Michel Martin, Host

After the democracy protests were crushed in 1989, many thought China would turn inward. Instead, a million Chinese citizens moved to Africa. Howard French discusses his book China’s Second Continent.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I’m Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We’re going to start the program today by taking note of a difficult moment in history. Twenty-five years ago today, the Chinese army attacked demonstrators who had been occupying Tiananmen Square, protesting for more democracy and freedom. The crackdown brought international condemnation. Some observers believed it would lead the communist country to become increasingly inward-looking and isolated. It turned out that did not happen. Today, China stands as a major global power, and one part of the world in which it clearly rivals the U.S. as an influence on politics and the economy is Africa. Thousands of Chinese companies have established themselves in Africa over the last two decades. China-Africa trade has surged from $10 billion in 2000 to $200 billion last year, far surpassing the U.S. and any European country. China’s top leaders make multiple trips to the continent every year. But, as author Howard French tells us in his new book, just as important as those high-level visits are the people who are rarely discussed. And they are the million or so Chinese expatriates who aren’t just passing through, but are staying and moving into all walks of life. That’s who the former New York Times bureau chief spent time with as he prepared his latest book, “China’s Second Continent: How A Million Migrants Are Building A New Empire In Africa.” And Howard French is with us now. Welcome back to the program. Thanks so much for joining us.

HOWARD FRENCH: It’s great to be with you again…

…MARTIN: If you’re just joining us, I’m speaking with Howard French. We’re talking about his new book, “China’s Second Continent: How A Million Migrants Are Building A New Empire In Africa.” The former New York Times bureau chief conducted interviews in Mandarin, French and Portuguese, among other languages, to, kind of, get to the ground level of how China is influencing the continent. One of the characters that struck a chord with me was Hao Shengli, whom you met in Mozambique. Tell us a little bit about his story, if you would. I was struck by the fact that he wanted his sons to marry local women, but I didn’t get the sense that this was a love-match he was seeking, here.

FRENCH: Hao was interesting because, unlike most of the people I profile, he was not a working-class person. He had started up several businesses in China that had done reasonably well. He had some savings. He set off to the Middle East – tried to do business there. He failed. He comes back to China. And he goes to a trade fair and meets some people in Guangzhou who tell him that there’s all kinds of opportunity in Africa. And so he then begins to fixate on Africa. And he ends up in Mozambique on the theory that, as a Portuguese speaking country, they’ll be very few Chinese people there. He spoke no Portuguese, but he figured, at least, he wouldn’t have any cutthroat Chinese competitors. And so he goes to Mozambique. He doesn’t do well in the capital. He discovers, to his disgust, that there are a lot of Chinese people there, in fact. And so he sets off for the countryside. And he ends up finagling his way into buying a very nice piece of irrigated, very rich farmland. And he gets into these relationships with the local people. And their relationship becomes ever more testy, and so he’s worrying. Even though he’s got a long-term lease, he’s wondering if the villagers won’t find a way to contest it, or the local government will take it back from him. And he settles upon a scheme, which absolutely astounded me, of bringing his teenage sons from China to settle there with him – and to have children by local women, in whose names he could place the property and control it indirectly through these people, who, as Mozambican citizens, would legally have the right to own land forever. And so that’s the scene that I stumble upon in this rural place.

MARTIN: It was interesting to me how much racism you personally encountered over the course of your travels. I mean, just the kind of day-to-day, casual reminders of distance that is certainly not polite in this country anymore. I’m thinking about when you went to this hotel in Liberia. And then you went to this room to drop off your things and wash up, and there was no towel there. And then when you told your host this, he summoned a young Chinese man who worked for him and told him to fetch me one. He says, we don’t usually give them out because most Chinese bring their own. They wouldn’t want to use one that a black person might have used. I mean, put this in some context for me. I mean, do you think that this is, kind of, growing pains, and that at some point will people have moved beyond that? What’s your sense?

FRENCH: Everywhere I went, the local Chinese person referred to the people, in whose midst they had come to settle, as black people. You know, they would say, the blacks, the blacks, the blacks, the blacks. They wouldn’t say the Ghanaians, or the Tanzanians, or the Zambians, or the this or the that. It was just, the blacks. And this refusal, or reluctance, to allow any kind of finer identity – to render them totally anonymous as just simply black, as if that was the only pertinent detail about them, was very telling for me. That whether or not this is a passing phase, I can’t really say. But for the time being, the Africans are just, essentially, serving as a backdrop for Chinese processes – somebody that will be useful for them – or a place that will be useful for them for the time being along the way, as they proceed up the ladder of hierarchies, if you will, of civilizations of nations…

Listen to the interview here. Download the interview here.

‘Belle’: Romance, Race And Slavery With Jane Austen Style

National Public Radio
Tell Me More
2014-05-29

Michel Martin, Host

British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw was brought up on Jane Austen adaptations. “You know, the Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle was something I watched on a weekly basis with my mum at home in Oxfordshire,” she tells NPR’s Michel Martin.

But as the biracial actress completed her training at Britain’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, she watched her peers win roles in “the Downton Abbeys of this world” and realized those period dramas weren’t calling her. It made Mbatha-Raw ask: “Why can’t I be in something like this?”

Now she is. Mbatha-Raw plays the title character in Belle, a film based on the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an enslaved African woman. When she is a child, Dido’s father entrusts her to his uncle, one of the most powerful men in the country.

“She goes on this massive journey to become a woman who has the courage to stand up for who she is and what she believes in,” Mbatha-Raw says…

Read the entire article here. Listen to the interview here (00:12:53). Read the transcript here. Download the audio here.

Who Gets To Decide Who Is Native American?

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2012-08-09

Michel Martin, Host

Rob Capriccioso, Washington Bureau Chief
Indian Country Today Media Network

Tiya Miles, Professor of American Culture, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Native American Studies
University of Michigan

A controversy about identity has erupted in the race for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. News outlets revealed Democrat Elizabeth Warren claimed Cherokee ancestry during her academic career, and critics say Warren isn’t providing enough documentation to prove her identity. Host Michel Martin discusses just who is Native American.

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

Morgan Freeman: No Black President For U.S. Yet

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2012-07-06

Michel Martin, Host

Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman joined Tell Me More host Michel Martin to discuss his new movie, The Magic of Belle Isle. But the prolific actor, famous for his roles in films such as The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby and The Dark Knight, also had a lot to say about politics. He was especially interested in talking about President Obama, and why Freeman thinks he should not be called America’s first black president.

“First thing that always pops into my head regarding our president is that all of the people who are setting up this barrier for him … they just conveniently forget that Barack had a mama, and she was white — very white American, Kansas, middle of America,” Freeman said. “There was no argument about who he is or what he is. America’s first black president hasn’t arisen yet. He’s not America’s first black president — he’s America’s first mixed-race president.”

Many of Freeman’s films explore important chapters of African-American history: Amistad was about the trans-Atlantic slave trade; Driving Miss Daisy was set in the civil rights era; and Glory centered on an all-black regiment in the Civil War.

Freeman says he has been disappointed by what he considers unfair treatment of Obama by his political opponents.

“He is being purposely, purposely thwarted by the Republican Party, who started out at the beginning of his tenure by saying, ‘We are going to do whatever is necessary to make sure that he’s only going to serve one term,’ ” he said. “That means they will not cooperate with him on anything. So to say he’s ineffective is a misappropriation of the facts.”…

Listen to the interview here. Download the interview here.

Summer Blend Book Club Wraps Up

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2011-08-25

Michel Martin, Host

This series began in June with the help of Heidi Durrow, author and co-founder of the “Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival.” All summer long, Tell Me More has been covering books about the multicultural experience in America. Durrow checks back in with host Michel Martin to discuss the novels in the program’s Summer Blend Book Club.

MICHEL MARTIN, host: As we said earlier, our Summer Blend book series has taken us deep into the experience of the emerging story of mixed-race Americans.

We decided to end where we began, with a conversation with author Heidi Durrow. She is the author of the bestseller “The Girl Who Fell From the Sky.” She cofounded the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival, and she helped us kick off our series back in June. And she joins us once again from NPR West.

Heidi, welcome back. Thanks so much for joining us, and thank you for helping us with the series.

HEIDI DURROW: Thanks for having me back….

Read the transcript here.  Listen to the interview (00:06:30) here, download it here.

Multiracial Teens Launch A ‘Latte Rebellion’

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2011-07-15

Michel Martin, Host

“You’re half Chinese and half European, I’m half Indian, a quarter Mexican and a quarter Irish. We’re mixed up. We’re not really one or the other ethnically. We’re like human lattes.”

So explains Asha, the main character in Sarah Jamila Stevenson’s debut novel, The Latte Rebellion.

To raise money for a class trip she and her friends began as selling a few T-shirts and labeled the effort the Latte Rebellion. But the movement soon became something much larger than they could have anticipated.

Seen through the eyes of adolescents, Asha and her friends tackle the complexities of identifying as multiracial during adolescence, when identifying as anything seems like a challenge.

“At the time I was writing it … there were still some news stories about South Asians who were getting harassed and insulted, and even assaulted,” Stevenson said in an interview with Tell Me More host Michel Martin. “And because I’m part South Asian myself, it really hit close to home. It had me worried about my relatives who live in the United States. So I felt pretty strongly about working that into my book somewhere.”…

Read the transcript here.  Listen to the interview here.

A Mixed Race Take On What It Means To Be ‘Free’

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2011-06-24

NPR Staff

A lonely young New Yorker finds a puppy while jogging. A middle class couple tries navigating the treacherous waters of admission to a sought-after preschool. A new mother grows jealous of the chic and thin mom living across the hall.

It’s all stuff you may have seen before—but not quite. At least not if Danzy Senna has anything to say about it.

These are all characters in Senna’s new collection of short fiction, titled You Are Free. The stories start with the familiar, but soon take subtle turns to reveal racial and other tensions lurking not too far below the surface.

Senna herself is mixed race. Her father is half African-American and half Mexican, while her mother is Irish and English. Growing up in Boston, Senna was raised to self-identify as black.

“I think growing up black or growing up biracial is something that’s part of your daily language and your daily awareness of the world you’re living in,” she tells NPR’s Michel Martin.

But she doesn’t see her work being about race or mixed race. Instead, Senna uses race as the background of her fiction, as a way to understand the culture and characters…

Read the entire story here.
Read the transcript of the interview here.
Listen to the interview here (00:13:32).

Growing Up Mixed, Blended In The New American Family

National Public Radio
Tell Me More
2011-03-29

Michel Martin, Host

New census figures show that the number of mixed-race Americans has grown by nearly 50 percent in the last ten years. And that rise in number is most pronounced in the South. Census data also reveals that 17 percent of kids in the U.S live in blended families. In Tell Me More’s weekly parenting conversation, host Michel Martin explores the experiences of mixed-race and blended families. Weighing in on the discussion is Suzy Richardson, founder of the website, MixedandHappy.com, Karyn Langhorne Folan, author of Don’t Bring Home A White Boy: And Other Notions That Keep Black Women from Dating Out and NPR editor Davar Ardalan.

Read the transcript here. Listen to the story here (00:17:41).

New NAACP Leader Looks Ahead

National Public Radio
Tell Me More
2008-05-20

Michel Martin, Host

Benjamin Jealous is the new president of the NAACP. Jealous, a former news executive and lifelong human rights activist, discusses his new post and the ever-changing role of the NAACP in the civil rights movement.

MICHEL MARTIN, host:

I’m Michel Martin, and this is Tell Me More from NPR News. In a moment, the Mocha Moms on going green as a family. They’ll talk about ways to get started. And things never to say to Asian-American colleagues. We start our series on how to be mindful of the sensibilities of others in our increasingly diverse workplaces.

But first, one of the country’s oldest civil rights organizations gets a new leader. The NAACP chose a new president on Saturday, 35-year-old human rights activists Benjamin Todd Jealous. He will be the youngest president ever in the history of the 99-year-old civil rights organization. His election comes after the organization tries to recover from a period of internal strife to engage a new generation of members and to refocus its mission. Ben Jealous joins us now to talk about his new post and hopefully a little bit about himself. Welcome to the program. Congratulations.

Mr. BEN JEALOUS (President, NAACP): Thank you. Thank you. It’s great to be here.

MARTIN: You’ve had a couple of days to take it all in. Can you describe what it means to lead this historic organization founded by giants like W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells Barnett.

Mr. JEALOUS: Those two are a big deal to me. I come out of the black press, that’s how I learned how to do what I did for Amnesty [International], and so it’s extremely humbling. You know, at the same time, as a parent of a 2-and-a-half-year-old girl, I’m extremely impatient and want to focus on the now, you know, want to focus on the schoolhouse-to-jailhouse pipeline and on making sure that this great association is as important in the 21st century as it was in the last century…

…MARTIN: Your profile is a bit different from past leaders in a number of respects—I mean, the fact that you are not a minister or a politician. One other interesting thing about you is that you are also biracial, as is Barak Obama, as is the lieutenant Governor [Anthony G. Brown] of Maryland, as is the mayor [Adrian Fenty] of Washington.

Mr. JEALOUS: Can I, can I make a small correction there?

MARTIN: Of course.

Mr. JEALOUS: I’m black. You know, the only thing that we have, you know, the only definition that’s out there on the books, if you will, are state laws, and my family is from Virginia. When I was born it said, the law said that you had to be 1/32nd, excuse me, if you were at least 1/32nd of African descent, you were black, end of story. White was an exclusive definition, black was an inclusive definition. I do have biracial parentage but quite frankly…

MARTIN: You don’t consider yourself biracial.

Mr. JEALOUS: No, I mean, I don’t understand it, I mean the… my grandmother’s much fairer than I am, has straight hair. You know, the reality is that, you know, our family, like most families were sort of created in the Jeffersonian model. You know, we were raped on Virginia plantations, and you know, all of those kids were black.

MARTIN: But your parents weren’t? I mean, that’s not your parents.

Mr. JEALOUS: Yeah, right but what I’m saying is that…

MARTIN: What I’m curious about though is that, is there something, is there an important cultural moment here, or not?

Mr. JEALOUS: No, I mean you know, yeah it is significant, I think the most significant thing about my parents is that you know, a year after their marriage was illegal, it was made legal because of the work of the NAACP and the Legal Defense Fund.

You know, my parents—when they were married in Washington, D.C., in 1966, they had to be married there because they couldn’t get married where they lived in Baltimore. When they drove back for the party in Baltimore, people pulled off the side of the road, took off their hat because they thought it was a funeral procession passing, because there was a Cadillac in front of a bunch of cars with their lights on.

So, you know, and my father was disowned not by his two brothers or his mom, but by the entire rest of his family. And his family was in Salem in 1636, and they’re a big family. And they disowned him, not because they didn’t believe that he loved my mom. You know, his great uncle, I mean my great uncle drove out, sat down with them, said we believe that you love this woman, but you know I’m a man, I know a man can love many women, and you need to fall out of love quick or you’re going to be out of this family.

So, you know, the notion biracial I just think is blunt and crude and ahistorical, and to say biracial parentage, of course. I completely, you know, I’ve done more research on my father’s history, I think, on all the white cousins that I’m in touch with, and the ones who didn’t disown us were much in touch with, I love very much, if you know somebody named Jealous it’s probably one of them…

Read the entire transcript here.  Listen to the episode here (00:17:13).