{"id":44862,"date":"2015-12-29T02:43:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T02:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44862"},"modified":"2015-12-29T02:43:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T02:43:28","slug":"allyson-hobbs-a-chosen-exile-a-history-of-racial-passing-in-american-life-smith-pryor-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44862","title":{"rendered":"Allyson Hobbs. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. [Smith-Pryor Review]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1093\/ahr\/120.5.1903\" target=\"_blank\">Allyson Hobbs. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. [Smith-Pryor Review]<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ahr.oxfordjournals.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">The American Historical Review<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ahr.oxfordjournals.org\/content\/120\/5.toc\" target=\"_blank\">Volume 120, Issue 5, December 2015<\/a><br \/>\npages 1903-1904<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1093\/ahr\/120.5.1903\" target=\"_blank\">10.1093\/ahr\/120.5.1903<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.edu\/history\/profile\/elizabeth-smith-pryor\" target=\"_blank\">Elizabeth M. Smith-Pryor<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of History<br \/>\n<em>Kent State University, Kent, Ohio<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.allysonhobbs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Allyson Hobbs<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=36295\" target=\"_blank\"><em>A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life<\/em><\/a>. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014. Pp. 382. $29.95.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=36295\" target=\"_blank\"><em>A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allysonhobbs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Allyson Hobbs<\/a> provides a well-written and sweeping overview of the phenomenon of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\">passing<\/a> from the colonial era through the present. With five chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue Hobbs charts a \u201clongue duree\u201d (27) of passing as white, while tracing its connections to changing meanings of race and racial identity in America. Drawn to the topic through her own family stories of long lost relatives, Hobbs contends too many historians and literary scholars only view passing as an act that leads to the benefits of whiteness. Instead, Hobbs suggests we cannot fully understand passing without \u201creckoning with loss, alienation, and isolation that accompanied, and often outweighed, its rewards\u201d (6). For, Hobbs argues, \u201cthe core issue of passing\u201d is not becoming white but losing a black identity (18). Consequently, she suggests the study of passing allows us to see how people live and experience \u201crace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hobbs\u2019s study relies on the&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read or purchase the review <a href=\"http:\/\/ahr.oxfordjournals.org\/content\/120\/5\/1903.full.pdf+html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Allyson Hobbs. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. [Smith-Pryor Review] The American Historical Review Volume 120, Issue 5, December 2015 pages 1903-1904 DOI: 10.1093\/ahr\/120.5.1903 Elizabeth M. Smith-Pryor, Associate Professor of History Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Allyson Hobbs. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. Cambridge, [&hellip;]<\/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":[9812,1629,1194,3695,751],"class_list":["post-44862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-history","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-allyson-hobbs","tag-american-historical-review","tag-elizabeth-m-smith-pryor","tag-elizabeth-smith-pryor","tag-the-american-historical-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44862","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=44862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44863,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44862\/revisions\/44863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}