Mixed Race Studies

Interwoven Lives: Indigenous Mothers of Salish Coast Communities

Washington State University Press
2019
310 pages
Illustrations / maps / notes / bibliography / index
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-87422-364-4
eBook ISBN: 978-0-87422-389-7

Candace Wellman

In this companion work to Peace Weavers, her previous book on Puget Sound’s cross-cultural marriages, award-winning author Candace Wellman depicts the lives of four additional intermarried indigenous women who influenced mid-1800s settlement in the Bellingham Bay area. She describes each wife’s native culture, details ancestral history and traits for both spouses, and traces descendants’ destinies, highlighting the families’ contributions to new communities.

• Finalist, 2020 Willa Literary Award, scholarly nonfiction
• 2020 Washington State Historical Society WOW selection

Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast through Cross-Cultural Marriages

Washington State University Press
2017
290 pages
Illustrations / maps / notes / bibliography / index
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-87422-346-0

Candace Wellman

Peace-weaving marriages between Salish families and pioneer men played a crucial role in mid-1800s regional settlement. Author Candace Wellman illuminates this hidden history and shatters stereotypes surrounding these relationships. The four exceptional women she profiles left a lasting legacy in their Puget Sound communities.

Strategic cross-cultural marriages between Coast and Interior Salish families and pioneer men played a crucial role in mid-1800s regional settlement and spared Puget Sound’s upper corner from tragic conflicts. Accounts of the husbands exist in a variety of records, but the native wives’ contributions remained unacknowledged. Combining primary and secondary sources, genealogy, and family memories, author Candace Wellman illuminates this hidden history and shatters stereotypes surrounding these relationships. The four women she profiles exhibited exceptional endurance, strength, and adaptability. They ran successful farms and businesses and acted as cultural interpreters and mediators. Although each story is unique, collectively they and other intermarried individuals helped found Puget Sound communities and left a lasting legacy. They were peace weavers.

The Cayton Legacy: An African American Family

Washington State University Press
2002
272 pages
6″ x 9″
Photographs, notes, bibliography, index
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-87422-251-7

Richard S. Hobbs

The evolution of a remarkable African American family—the Caytons—is a brilliantly told tale set primarily in Seattle and Chicago. The Caytons lived a true American saga, illuminating the black and white experience in the United States and the troubled, tortuous course of race relations.

Several generations of the Horace and Susie Cayton family spanned the period from the Civil War to the present. They were a distinguished family, conscious of their historical heritage and distinct identity. The Caytons sought to define themselves in relation to their family traditions and to society as a whole. In the process, they attained financial success and influence both nationally and regionally. They published newspapers, authored books and articles, held public office, worked for civil and human rights, and established relationships with major black and white community and cultural leaders in America.

They also faced racial discrimination and duress, business and professional failures, and even poverty. And, some struggled against the personal challenges of alcoholism, depression, and drug addiction. Yet the force of the family legacy—of being “a Cayton”— impelled most of them to make significant contributions.

They speak to us with deep insight about our society—sharpening our understanding of the past, and enhancing our sense of individual and collective identity in the modern age.

Addressing Issues of Biracial Asian Americans

Reflections on Shattered Windows: Promises and Prospects for Asian American Studies
Washington State University Press
1988
Chapter 15, pages 111-116

Edited by: G. Y. Okihiro, S. Hune, A. A. Hansen, and J. M. Liu

Stephen L. Murphy-Shigematsu

Revising the Asian American Studies curriculum

One of the more dramatic changes in the post-World War II Asian American population is the increase in those of biracial ancestry. Over the past forty years large numbers of Asian women have married Americans and come to the United States. [n 1] During this period, too, thousands of Asian American men and women have married outside their ethnic group. [n 2] The burgeoning population of biracial youth that has resulted from these developments, represents a significant change in the face of Asian America.

In the light of the above situation, one of the challenges confronting Asian American Studies is to adapt and revise a curriculum created in the early 1970s that was designed primarily for American born Chinese and Japanese. It has become necessary to redesign courses to better accommodate the needs, interests, and backgrounds of the more diverse group of Asian Americans who are presently underrepresented in the curriculum, and increasingly in Asian American Studies classes and in the general population. Those of biracial ancestry are one emerging group whose experiences and needs must be addressed in curriculum development…

Read the entire chapter here.