{"id":16093,"date":"2011-09-06T02:00:49","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T02:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=16093"},"modified":"2016-04-01T16:16:23","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T16:16:23","slug":"mixed-race-britain-mixed-britannia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=16093","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Race Britain \u2013 Mixed Britannia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed Race Britain \u2013 Mixed Britannia<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

BBC Press Office: Press Packs<\/a>
\n2011-09-05<\/p>\n

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In this three-part series George Alagiah<\/a> explores the remarkable and untold story of Britain’s mixed-race community and examines through the decades how mixed race has become one of the country’s fastest growing ethnic groups. Most of all, the films tell a tale of love, of couples coming together to fight prejudice and create a new society.<\/p>\n

The first film (1910-1939)<\/a> [Air Date:\u00a02011-10-06, 20:00Z]<\/strong> discovers the love between merchant seamen and liberated female workers and witnesses the riots in British port cities<\/a> as returning white soldiers find local girls in relationships with other men. George hears about the eugenics research examining mixed-race children<\/a> and learns how Britain avoided the race laws and race hatred of fascism that scarred other countries in Europe.<\/p>\n

The second film (1940-1965) sees the Second World War<\/a> creating a miniature baby boom of \u201cbrown babies\u201d born to local British women and African American GIs<\/a>, and tells the tragic story of the British-Chinese children in Liverpool<\/a> who lost their Chinese seamen fathers<\/a>. With the post-war mass immigration, mixed couples, once rare and exotic, were becoming more common and society finally witnessed the first interracial kiss on British television.<\/p>\n

In the Seventies a new wave of immigration was settling in Britain, the National Front<\/a> was on the march and mixed-race families faced violence on the street (film three, 1965-2011). George learns about the debates surrounding mixed race adoption and hears about a 21st story love-story as the couple struggle to overcome the cultural prejudice from the community.<\/p>\n

Notes from Steven F. Riley.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For some early 20th century background material on the topics covered in Mixed Britannia<\/em>, see:<\/p>\n