{"id":42511,"date":"2015-09-01T19:47:21","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T19:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=42511"},"modified":"2016-12-02T23:15:44","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T23:15:44","slug":"mixed-messages-the-role-of-the-multiracial-character-in-childrens-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=42511","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Messages: The Role of the Multiracial Character in Children\u2019s Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed Messages: The Role of the Multiracial Character in Children\u2019s Literature<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

theracetoread: Children\u2019s Literature and Issues of Race<\/a>
\n2015-08-20<\/p>\n

Karen Sands-O\u2019Connor<\/strong><\/a>, Professor
\nEnglish Department
\nBuffalo State, The State University of New York, Buffalo, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

In 19th and early 20th century children\u2019s literature, the multiracial character generally evoked one of two responses: fear, or pity. Tom Sawyer\u2019s<\/a><\/em> Injun Joe<\/a>, for example, was much feared by Tom and his gang, Tom even having nightmares about the character coming to get him. In Caddie Woodlawn<\/em><\/a>, the children of an Indian mother and white father are \u201chalf savage\u201d and the recipient of Caddie\u2019s attempts to \u201ccivilize\u201d them by paying for new clothes. Other examples can be found in British Empire literature\u2014the \u201cugly mulatto<\/a>\u201d being a stock character of fear in books by G.A. Henty<\/a>, H. Rider Haggard<\/a>, and others; and the pitiable female \u201chalf-breed\u201d or \u201cmulatto\u201d who cannot ultimately be saved by the white hero also figures in the works of these authors.<\/p>\n

After World War II<\/a>, as civil rights in the US and changing immigration patterns in Britain meant increasing, often hostile, interaction between racial groups, the multiracial character in children\u2019s literature nearly disappeared for a time. But a generation later, many things had changed. More and more children were born who had parents of different races, but it was unclear where they would fit in to a post-civil rights society. Both American and British authors produced books dealing with this issue, but for this blog, I\u2019m just going to look at two from Britain: Anthony Masters\u2019 Streetwise<\/em> (London: Methuen, 1987), and Jacqueline Roy\u2019s Soul Daddy<\/em> (London: Collins, 1990)…<\/p>\n

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

Mixed Messages: The Role of the Multiracial Character in Children\u2019s Literature theracetoread: Children\u2019s Literature and Issues of Race 2015-08-20 Karen Sands-O\u2019Connor, Professor English Department Buffalo State, The State University of New York, Buffalo, New York In 19th and early 20th century children\u2019s literature, the multiracial character generally evoked one of two responses: fear, or pity. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,10,20],"tags":[20888,20889,568,20883,20882],"class_list":["post-42511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-uk","category-usa","tag-anthony-masters","tag-jacqueline-roy","tag-karen-sands-oconnor","tag-theracetoread","tag-theracetoread-childrens-literature-and-issues-of-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42511","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=42511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42512,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42511\/revisions\/42512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}