{"id":42148,"date":"2015-08-08T00:33:50","date_gmt":"2015-08-08T00:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=42148"},"modified":"2015-11-08T15:04:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-08T15:04:31","slug":"book-review-a-chosen-exile-a-history-of-racial-passing-in-american-life-by-allyson-hobbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=42148","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: “A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life” by Allyson Hobbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Book Review: “A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life” by Allyson Hobbs<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>
\n2015-05-15<\/p>\n

Adele Oliveira<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life<\/a><\/em> by Allyson Hobbs, Harvard University Press, 382 pages<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the first chapter of The Souls of Black Folk<\/a><\/em>, W.E.B. Du Bois\u2019<\/a> 1903 treatise<\/a> on race, he famously refers to the \u201cveil\u201d that separated black and white America. Du Bois writes about what becoming aware of the veil means: \u201cIt is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness<\/a>, this sense of always looking at one\u2019s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one\u2019s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness \u2014 an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Du Bois is referring to individuals who are recognizably black, the difficulty of maneuvering dual identities was particularly potent for racially ambiguous Americans \u2014 and especially those who chose to \u201cpass\u201d as white, either temporarily or permanently. The complicated practice of passing<\/a> is the subject of Stanford history professor Allyson Hobbs\u2019<\/a> book, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life<\/a><\/em>. In the book, Hobbs traces the history of passing from the 18th century until roughly the end of the civil rights movement, examining the choice to pass and its consequences…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Review: “A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life” by Allyson Hobbs The Santa Fe New Mexican 2015-05-15 Adele Oliveira A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life by Allyson Hobbs, Harvard University Press, 382 pages In the first chapter of The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,459,8,6462,20],"tags":[20637,9812,20636,20635],"class_list":["post-42148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-history","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-adele-oliveira","tag-allyson-hobbs","tag-santa-fe-new-mexican","tag-the-santa-fe-new-mexican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43808,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42148\/revisions\/43808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}