Mixed Race Studies

Cecilia Valdés or El Angel Hill: A Novel of Nineteenth-Century Cuba

Oxford University Press
2005-09-29 (originally published in 1882)
544 Pages
5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches
Paperback ISBN: 9780195143959

Cirilo Villaverde (1812-1894)

Edited by:

Sibylle Fischer, Associate Professor of Spanish, Portuguese, and Comparative Literature
New York University

Translated by:

Helen Lane (1921-2004)

Cecilia Valdés is arguably the most important novel of 19th century Cuba. Originally published in New York City in 1882, Cirilo Villaverde’s novel has fascinated readers inside and outside Cuba since the late 19th century. In this new English translation, a vast landscape emerges of the moral, political, and sexual depravity caused by slavery and colonialism. Set in the Havana of the 1830s, the novel introduces us to Cecilia, a beautiful light-skinned mulatta, who is being pursued by the son of a Spanish slave trader, named Leonardo. Unbeknownst to the two, they are the children of the same father. Eventually Cecilia gives in to Leonardo’s advances; she becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. When Leonardo, who gets bored with Cecilia after a while, agrees to marry a white upper class woman, Cecilia vows revenge. A mulatto friend and suitor of hers kills Leonardo, and Cecilia is thrown into prison as an accessory to the crime.

For the contemporary reader Helen Lane’s masterful translation of Cecilia Valdés opens a new window into the intricate problems of race relations in Cuba and the Caribbean. There are the elite social circles of European and New World Whites, the rich culture of the free people of color, the class to which Cecilia herself belonged, and then the slaves, divided among themselves between those who were born in Africa and those who were born in the New World, and those who worked on the sugar plantation and those who worked in the households of the rich people in Havana. Cecilia Valdés thus presents a vast portrait of sexual, social, and racial oppression, and the lived experience of Spanish colonialism in Cuba.

An Extraordinary Union: The Loyal League #1

Kensington Books
320 pages
2017-03-28
Paperback ISBN: 9781496707444
ePub ISBN: 9781496707451

Alyssa Cole

• An Entertainment Weekly TOP 10 ROMANCE BOOKS OF THE YEAR
• A Bookpage TOP PICK
• A Kirkus BEST BOOKS OF 2017
• A Vulture TOP 10 ROMANCE BOOKS OF 2017
• A Publishers Weekly BEST BOOKS OF 2017
• A Booklist TOP 10 ROMANCE FICTION 2017

As the Civil War rages between the states, a courageous pair of spies plunge fearlessly into a maelstrom of ignorance, deceit, and danger, combining their unique skills to alter the course of history and break the chains of the past…

Elle Burns is a former slave with a passion for justice and an eidetic memory. Trading in her life of freedom in Massachusetts, she returns to the indignity of slavery in the South—to spy for the Union Army.

Malcolm McCall is a detective for Pinkerton’s Secret Service. Subterfuge is his calling, but he’s facing his deadliest mission yet—risking his life to infiltrate a Rebel enclave in Virginia.

Two undercover agents who share a common cause—and an undeniable attraction—Malcolm and Elle join forces when they discover a plot that could turn the tide of the war in the Confederacy’s favor. Caught in a tightening web of wartime intrigue, and fighting a fiery and forbidden love, Malcolm and Elle must make their boldest move to preserve the Union at any cost—even if it means losing each other…

Exploration of white British and South East Asian mixed identity

University of Leeds
2019-04-02

Jesse Robson
School of Sociology and Social Policy

I am currently a third year student at the University of Leeds and I am finishing my dissertation on the White British, South East Asian mixed race experience.

My research is focused on identity, racism and representation of white British, South East mixed race individuals. It is a small scale research project aimed at highlighting and exploring the lived experience of mixed race Britons.

Participants must be white British and identify with one of these countries: Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

To participate in the survey, please click here.

Emoji gods approve skin-tone options for couples of color

The Associated Press
2019-03-08

Leanne Itale

This undated illustration provided by Tinder/Emojination shows new variations of interracial emoji couples. In the world of emojis, interracial couples had virtually no options in terms of skin tone. But the emoji gods, otherwise known as the Unicode Consortium, recently rectified that, approving 71 new variations. Using six skin tones already available for one-person emojis, vendors such as Apple, Google and Microsoft will now be able to offer couples of color. Additions are expected later this year. (Tinder/Emojination via AP)

NEW YORK — In 1664, Maryland passed the first British colonial law banning marriage between whites and slaves. An 1883 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that state prohibitions on interracial marriage don’t violate the Fourteenth Amendment held for more than 80 years.

While such impediments to marriage were dismantled over time, there are still hurdles, however small, to overcome. Here, in 2019, interracial couples have a small victory to celebrate: The approval of 71 new variations of emoji for couples of color.

Capping a yearlong project thought up by, of all people, the folks at the swipe-right dating app Tinder, the emoji gods (known as the Unicode Consortium) recently approved the additions in characters technically referred to as people “holding hands.” A new “gender-inclusive” couple emoji was also approved among 230 new characters.

Until now, emoji of two or more people on various platforms and devices have been available only in the default yellow. While the Unicode Consortium, where Google, Microsoft and Apple have voting seats, signed off on the skin-tone additions, companies will decide for themselves starting later this year whether to add them and how they will look.

Jenny Campbell, the chief marketing officer for Tinder, isn’t worried about distribution after the company mounted a campaign and petition drive in support of the technical proposal it submitted to Unicode…

Read the entire article here.

Kingsblood Royal

Modern Library Classics (an imprint of Penguin Randomhouse)
2001-04-10 (originally published in 1947)
352 Pages
5-3/16 x 8
Paperback ISBN: 9780375756863

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

Introduction by:
Charles Johnson, Professor Emeritus
University of Washington

A neglected tour de force by the first American to win the Nobel Prize in literature, Kingsblood Royal is a stirring and wickedly funny portrait of a man who resigns from the white race. When Neil Kingsblood a typical middle-American banker with a comfortable life makes the shocking discovery that he has African-American blood, the odyssey that ensues creates an unforgettable portrayal of two Americas, one black, one white.

As timely as when it was first published in 1947, one need only open today’s newspaper to see the same issues passionately being discussed between blacks and whites that we find in Kingsblood Royal, says Charles Johnson. Perhaps only now can we fully appreciate Sinclair Lewis’s astonishing achievement.

“My mother understood she was raising two black children to be black women,” [Kamala] Harris said in the interview, a line she has often used to settle questions on the subject. Shyamala Gopalan Harris encouraged her daughter to go to Howard [University], a school her mother knew well, having guest lectured there and having friends on the faculty.

“There was nothing unnatural or in conflict about it at all,” Harris said. “There were a lot of kids at Howard who had a background where one parent was maybe from the Philippines and the other might be from Nairobi,” she added. “Howard encompasses the [African] diaspora.”

Evan Halper, “A political awakening: How Howard University shaped Kamala Harris’ identity,” The Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2019. https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-kamala-harris-howard-university-20190319-story.html.

A political awakening: How Howard University shaped Kamala Harris’ identity

The Los Angeles Times
2019-03-19

Evan Halper

Kamala Harris, right, protests South African apartheid with classmate Gwen Whitfield on the National Mall in November 1982. (Photo courtesy of Kamala Harris)

The war on drugs had erupted, apartheid was raging, Jesse Jackson would soon make the campus a staging ground for his inaugural presidential bid. Running for student office in 1982 at Howard University — the school that nurtured Thurgood Marshall, Toni Morrison and Stokely Carmichael — was no joke.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has been known to break the ice with voters by proclaiming the freshman-year campaign in which she won a seat on the Liberal Arts Student Council her toughest political race. Those who were at the university with her are not so sure she is kidding.

It was at Howard that the senator’s political identity began to take shape. Thirty-three years after she graduated in 1986, the university in the nation’s capital, one of the country’s most prominent historically black institutions, also serves as a touchstone in a campaign in which political opponents have questioned the authenticity of her black identity.

“I reference often my days at Howard to help people understand they should not make assumptions about who black people are,” Harris said in a recent interview…

Read the entire article here.

My First School Talk On Raising Mixed Kids

Sharon Chang: author | photographer | activist
2019-03-21

Sharon H. Chang

I gave the first, dedicated talk I’ve ever given on raising Mixed Race children in Seattle, Tuesday, March 5: “Raising Mixed Kids: Multiracial Identity & Development.”…

Teaching a rallying cry to K-2 students earlier this week. Omg look at these beautiful babies and all the hope/possibility they represent. Equity work can be so depressing. But this? GIVING ME LIFE. pic.twitter.com/4SnbDBna9H

— Sharon H Chang (@sharonhchang) March 22, 2019

Read the entire article here.

Mixed Up: ‘Racism made me feel sub-human. I used to pretend to be anything but black’

METRO.co.uk
2019-03-20

Natalie Morris, Senior lifestyle Writer

(Picture by Jerry Syder for Metro.co.uk)

Welcome to Mixed Up, a series that aims to elevate the under-heard narratives of mixed-race people…

…Billie Dee Gianfrancesco is half white and half black Caribbean.

She spent her childhood hating and denying her blackness, until a total breakdown in her mid 20s forced her to reassess her identity.

‘My mother was born in Hackney in London, my grandmother was a part of the Windrush generation and came to London from Dominica to be an NHS nurse,’ Billie tells Metro.co.uk.

‘We aren’t sure who my grandfather is or where he came from, but DNA tests show that he was black and that he probably came from somewhere in the Caribbean.

‘My father is white Australian, and I was born in Sydney. My parents divorced when I was five and I moved to Norfolk in the UK in 1998 when I was eight, with my mother, Italian-Australian step-dad, and younger sister.

‘I spent my entire life, up until the last few years, really struggling with my identity.’…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed Up: ‘I have been accepted by black people and distanced by white people’

METRO.co.uk
2019-03-13

Natalie Morris, Senior lifestyle Writer

(Picture by Jerry Syder for Metro.co.uk)

…Elliott Reid is an osteopath with English and Jamaican heritage. He doesn’t believe in the concept of race – he sees it as nothing more than a social construct.

‘Specifically, I descend from the Maroons, the freedom fighters of Jamaica who resided in the eastern mountains of the island,’ explains Elliott.

‘My family names are chiselled into the Emancipation War Monument in Sam Sharpe Square in Montego bay; a monument to all those who fought in the greatest fight for freedom in the British Caribbean, as 60,000 Africans fought the English on Christmas Day, 1831…

Read the entire article here.