{"id":60549,"date":"2021-02-10T16:24:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T16:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=60549"},"modified":"2021-02-10T16:24:40","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T16:24:40","slug":"understanding-the-legacy-of-nella-larsens-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=60549","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Legacy of Nella Larsen\u2019s Passing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Understanding the Legacy of Nella Larsen\u2019s <\/strong><\/em>Passing<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Mary Sue<\/a>
\n2021-02-04<\/p>\n

Princess Weekes<\/strong><\/a>, Assistant Editor<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Right now on the Sundance circuit<\/a> is the Rebecca Hall<\/a>-directed film Passing<\/em><\/a>, starring Tessa Thompson<\/a> and Ruth Negga<\/a>. It is an adaptation of the Harlem Renaissance<\/a> classic Passing<\/em><\/a> by Nella Larsen<\/a>. Embedded into the text is a rich powerful narrative about the Black American experience and the lengths people go to survive in America<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nella Larsen was both in 1890s Chicago<\/a> as the daughter of a mixed-race Afro-Caribbean man and a white Danish immigrant woman. Larsen didn\u2019t grow up with her father and in 1891 the Great Migration<\/a> hasn\u2019t happened yet, so the Black population was less than 2%. After her mother remarried, they moved to a mostly white neighborhood filled with German and Scandinavian immigrants. As a result, Larsen did not grow up in the usual world of Black Americanness. Or Blackness period…<\/p>\n

…While it would be easy to dismiss Passing<\/em> as a typical \u201ctragical mulatto\u201d story<\/a>, I have always felt that it was more Larsen reflecting on the ultimate tragedy of those who have passed.<\/p>\n

In A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing<\/em><\/a> in American Life by Allyson Hobbs<\/a>, the author explains that this is a narrative of loss. \u201cI started to realize that writing this history of passing is really writing a history of loss,\u201d Hobbs told NPR<\/a>….<\/p>\n

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

Understanding the Legacy of Nella Larsen\u2019s Passing The Mary Sue 2021-02-04 Princess Weekes, Assistant Editor Right now on the Sundance circuit is the Rebecca Hall-directed film Passing, starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. It is an adaptation of the Harlem Renaissance classic Passing by Nella Larsen. Embedded into the text is a rich powerful narrative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[9812,87,31310,28879,827,19672,31309],"class_list":["post-60549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-allyson-hobbs","tag-nella-larsen","tag-princess-weekes","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-ruth-negga","tag-tessa-thompson","tag-the-mary-sue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60549","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=60549"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60551,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60549\/revisions\/60551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}