{"id":55182,"date":"2017-11-17T01:36:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T01:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55182"},"modified":"2017-11-17T02:06:58","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T02:06:58","slug":"the-census-always-boxed-us-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55182","title":{"rendered":"The Census Always Boxed Us Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Census Always Boxed Us Out<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Narratively: Human Stories, Boldly Told<\/a>
\n2017-10-30<\/p>\n

E. Dolores Johnson<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nIllustration by Xia Gordon<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

For most of our history, the U.S. government treated biracial Americans as if we didn\u2019t even exist, but my family has stories to tell.<\/em><\/p>\n

In June, 1967, I walked across the quad of Howard University, a light-skinned, 19-year-old sophomore. It was Black Power<\/a> days, when I was on fire to learn the black history America<\/a> had largely ignored. On that wide walkway, I ran into a boy from class who broke into a toothy smile, stuck out his much darker hand and shook mine vigorously, laughing like he had no sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations for what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor not being a bastard anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d I said, snatching my hand away. \u201cI was born legit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo you weren\u2019t,\u201d he said. The day before, the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Loving v. Virginia<\/em><\/a> had overturned laws in 16 states outlawing interracial marriage, and he assumed that this meant my parents\u2019 marriage was finally legal. In fact, my parents were married in New York<\/a>, where their union was officially sanctioned, but the Loving<\/em> decision was still a watershed \u2014 the start of a long journey to learn the truth about my mixed family\u2019s place in America\u2019s racial landscape…<\/p>\n

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

For most of our history, the U.S. government treated biracial Americans as if we didn\u2019t even exist, but my family has stories to tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,33,125,8,20],"tags":[12489,27655,20002],"class_list":["post-55182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-census","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-e-dolores-johnson","tag-narrative-ly","tag-narratively"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55182","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=55182"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55184,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55182\/revisions\/55184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}