Mixed Race Studies

Abuse of Modernity: Japanese Biological Determinism and Identity Management in Colonial Korea

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review
Number 10, March 2014
26 pages

Mark Caprio
Rikkyo University, Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan

Medical researcher Kubo Takeshi’s contributions to professional publications, such as Chōsen igakkai zasshi (The Korean medical journal), and more popular magazines, such as Chōsen oyobi Manshū (Korea and Manchuria), reflected many of the prejudicial attitudes that Japanese held toward Koreans during the first decade of colonial rule. His scholarship was based on biological determinist thinking, an approach developed by eighteenth-century European medical researchers to establish race, class, and gender hierarchies. For Kubo this approach provided a means for exploiting scientific inquiry to establish and manage Japanese superiority over Korean subjects in a more stable manner than one based on more malleable cultural differences. A people could adjust its customs or mannerisms to amalgamate with a suzerain culture but could not do so with hereditarily determined features, such as blood type or cranium size, shape, or weight. Practitioners, however, often linked the physical with the cultural by arguing that a people’s physical structure was a product of its cultural heritage. The subjectivity injected into this seemingly objective research methodology abused the lay community’s blind trust in modern science in two ways. First, it employed this inquiry to verify biased observations, rather than to uncover new truths; second, it altered the approach, rather than the conclusions, when this inquiry demonstrated the desired truths to be inaccurate. Biological determinism proved useful in substantiating a Japanese-Korean colonial relationship that acknowledged historically similar origins while arguing for the historically different evolutions of the two peoples.

Read the entire article here.

Michael David Kwan, Things That Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China, reviewed by Yuxin Ma

International Journal of China Studies
Volume 4, Number 1, April 2013
pages 169-171

Yuxin Ma, Associate Professor of East Asian History
University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky

Michael David Kwan, Things That Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China, Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc., 2000, reprinted 2012, 240 pp. + xvi.

Telling stories of wartime China from the perspective of a Eurasian boy, Kwan’s memoir reconstructs a lost China where unforeseen wars and revolution, international politics, and economic disorders in the 1930s and 1940s changed people’s life courses as they carried on their patriotic struggle for survival. The 2012 new edition adds a preface by the author’s son on his father’s late years in China since 1980s, which presents the author’s life story in a Chinese emotion yeluo guigen – fallen leaves return to the root of the tree. The book provides fascinating details on the lives of a Chinese family with a British housewife, their interactions with other Westerners, Eurasians, and Chinese folks. Kwan focused on how turbulent changes in China affected his coming- of-age, his family members and their friends. Through the inquisitive eyes of a biracial child in search for his identity at home, within the small Western community, and in Chinese society at large, Kwan presented the contradictions, brutality and ruptures in wartime China with fresh and humane touches.

The first eight chapters described the sheltered and privileged life of David’s childhood. Born in Japanese occupied Harbin in 1934 as the youngest son to an influential railway administrator who worked underground for the Nationalist government, Kwan’s Swiss biological mother jilted him, and he called his father’s new British wife Ellen as Mother. Under his father’s tutelage, David had lived with Anglo-Chinese friends in British Concession in Tienjin, developed friendship with a tenant farmer who engaged in guerilla activities in Beidaihe, and enjoyed the life of the Western community at the Legation Quarter in Beijing which isolated them from “war, disease, poverty and starvation.” (p. 56) David was not immune to the suffering of ordinary Chinese through shared experiences of Japanese bombing, gunfight, and martial law, and interactions through shopping, sightseeing, and vacation breaks. First tutored by Chinese teachers then attended the International School, David grew up bicultural with the knowledge his father was a secret agent for the Nationalist government in Chungking. After the Pearl Harbor Incident, Japanese sealed the Legation Quarter and closed the International School. David attended a Chinese school briefly where he suffered from excruciating racism and bullying…

Read the entire review here.

The Influences Affecting and the Influential Effects of Multiracials: Multiracialism and Stratification

Sociology Compass
Volume 8, Issue 1 (January 2014)
pages 63-77
DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12100

Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina

Early research on multiracials documents the existence of a newly emergent population, those who identify with more than one race or what is commonly now known as multiracials. Contemporary research on multiracialism has a new focus on the stratification that multiracials experience and how multiracials may be influencing a new racial hierarchy. This paper discusses some of the primary issues of multiracialism and stratification including colorism, the racial hierarchy, social class, gender and sexual orientation, and multiracial as a celebrity-like status. As the multiracial population grows, so must the field of multiracialism grows to include critical issues and questions regarding stratification.

Read the entire article here.

Witnesses to History: Children’s Views of Race and the 2008 United States Presidential Election

Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy
Volume 13, Issue 1 (December 2013)
pages 186–210
DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2012.01303.x

Meagan M. Patterson, Associate Professor of Psychology
University of Kansas

Erin Pahlke, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington

Rebecca S. Bigler, Professor of Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies
University of Texas, Austin

The 2008 presidential election presented a unique opportunity to examine children’s attention to racial issues in politics. We conducted interviews with 6- to 11-year-old children (70 boys, 60 girls; 29 African Americans, 58 European Americans, 43 Latinos) within 3 weeks prior to and after the election. Interview questions concerned knowledge, preferences, and perceptions of others’ attitudes concerning the election, views of the implications of the election for race relations, and personal aspirations to become president. Results indicated that children were highly knowledgeable about Obama’s status as the first African American president. Most children felt positively about the presence of an African American candidate for president, although a few children showed clear racial prejudice. Overall, children expected others to show racial ingroup preferences but simultaneously endorsed the optimistic view that Obama’s race was a slight asset in his bid for the presidency. Older children were somewhat more likely to view Obama’s race as negatively impacting his chances of being elected than younger children. African American and Latino children were more interested in becoming president than European American children; aspiration rates did not change from pre- to post-election.

Read or purchase the article here.

Validity of Infant Race/Ethnicity from Birth Certificates in the Context of U.S. Demographic Change

Health Services Research
Volume 49, Issue 1 (February 2014)
pages 249–267
DOI: 10.1111/1475-6773.12083

Lisa Reyes Mason, Assistant Professor of Social Work
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Yunju Nam, Associate Professor of Social Work
State University of New York, Buffalo

Youngmi Kim, Assistant Professor of Social Work
Virginia Commonwealth University

Objective

To compare infant race/ethnicity based on birth certificates with parent report of infant race/ethnicity in a survey.

Data Sources

The 2007 Oklahoma birth certificates and SEED for Oklahoma Kids baseline survey.

Study Design

Using sensitivity scores and positive predictive values, we examined consistency of infant race/ethnicity across two data sources (N = 2,663).

Data Collection/Extraction Methods

We compared conventional measures of infant race/ethnicity from birth certificate and survey data. We also tested alternative measures that allow biracial classification, determined from parental information on the infant’s birth certificate or parental survey report.

Principal Findings

Sensitivity of conventional measures is highest for whites and African Americans and lowest for Hispanics; positive predictive value is highest for Hispanics and African Americans and lowest for American Indians. Alternative measures improve values among whites but yield mostly low values among minority and biracial groups.

Conclusions

Health disparities research should consider the source and validity of infant race/ethnicity data when creating sampling frames or designing studies that target infants by race/ethnicity. The common practice of assigning the maternal race/ethnicity as infant race/ethnicity should continue to be challenged.

Read or purchase the article here.

Complicating Race or Reproducing Whiteness? Heidi Durrow and The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

Gino Michael Pellegrini: Education, Race, Multiraciality, Class & Solidarity
2014-04-13

Gino Michael Pellegrini, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English
Pierce College, Woodland Hills, California

[This is an excerpt from a paper (currently being revised) that I presented last month at the 2014 MELUS Conference in Oklahoma City.]

[…] Heidi Durrow is also the latest member of the mixed-experience generation to achieve widespread recognition following the publication of her deeply autobiographical first novel. The Girl Who Fell From the Sky was published in 2010 after winning the 2008 PEN/Bellwether Prize for a first novel that addresses social justice issues. It became a national bestseller in 2011, and is now available in French, Dutch, Danish, and Portuguese. This is a remarkable accomplishment for a book that was repeatedly rejected by the traditional publishing industry.

For those who are unfamiliar, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky recounts the racialization, alienation, coming of age, and coming to multiracial consciousness of Durrow’s fictional intermediary, Rachel Morse. Rachel is the sole survivor of a heartbreaking tragedy: her Danish mother Nella jumps from a rooftop in Chicago with all her biracial children. After recovering, Rachel is sent to live with her paternal grandmother who lives in a predominantly black neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. Her alcoholic father, an airman stationed overseas, has disappeared from her life. The year is 1982. Rachel is seen as a light-skinned black girl by her new family and by the surrounding community. From the 5th grade onward, she identifies herself as black, but is still ridiculed for talking white; she is both resented and desired for her good hair and blue eyes. In short, Durrow’s novel recounts from multiple perspectives how Rachel comes to understand the tragedy that claimed her mother and siblings, and in the process reclaim her Danish cultural memory, becoming Afro-Viking like Durrow…

Read the entire article here.

Pilot Episode

The Source Weekly
Bend, Oregon
2014-03-20

Brianna Brey

Jason Graham (The Source Weekly)

The Lot’s new open mic calls on Bend’s creative types

“Calling ALL local musicians, artist and hacks,” reads the event listing for Bend’s newest open mic night, an free-for-all gathering on Wednesday nights at The Lot. “Sing a tune, read a poem, do a dance, tell a story, present your art…be creative. Here is an opportunity to share your soul.”

Soul sharing is the M.O. for local poet, musician, painter and generally ubiquitous artist MOsley WOtta, a.k.a. Jason Graham, the host of the weekly event. Open mics have the stigma of a musician’s domain, but Graham emphasized the “openness” of this particular event, encouraging all types of creativity, not just the singer/songwriter.

“As much as I love the musical open mics and the poetry slams, I’m trying to see what all we can get,” explained Graham. “It’s sort of like a workout. We already have the massive pectoral muscles that are the singer/songwriters. We want to keep that part strong, but work the other parts of it, too.”

This Wednesday, March 19, will mark the third week of the open mic and already Graham said the event is attracting the diverse talents of Bend. Silly and serious, the event is a platform for the community to test its collective material…

Read the entire article here.

Immigrants Stir New Life Into São Paulo’s Gritty Old Center

The New York Times
2014-04-14

Simon Romero, Brazil Bureau Chief

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — For obvious reasons, many Paulistanos still consider this megacity’s decrepit old center a no-go zone.

Carjacking and kidnapping gangs prey on motorists at stoplights. Squatters control dozens of graffiti-splattered apartment buildings. Sinewy addicts roam through the streets smoking crack cocaine in broad daylight.

But slip into Jean Katumba’s cramped Internet cafe and a different picture emerges.

“They call this place ugly, but I see its beauty,” said Mr. Katumba, 37, who arrived from the Democratic Republic of Congo just 11 months ago.

Trained as an engineer in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, he earns a living here in Baixada do Glicério, a crime-ridden district, renting computers to customers speaking a variety of languages, from Haitian Creole to Colombian-accented Spanish and the Lingala of his homeland.

“São Paulo means a great thing to me: opportunity,” he said.

An array of similar ventures started by immigrants is flourishing amid the grit of São Paulo’s old center, reflecting shifts in global immigration patterns. Reinforcing São Paulo’s status as Brazil’s premier global city, Asians, largely from China, Africans and Spanish-speaking Latin Americans are flowing in…

…São Paulo’s new immigration surge stands in contrast to previous waves. After the overthrow of Emperor Dom Pedro II in 1889, Brazil’s first Constitution as a republic promoted a policy of “branqueamento,” or whitening, of Brazilian society through European immigration, while prohibiting immigration from Africa and Asia, according to scholars…

Read the entire article here.

Will Today’s Hispanics Be Tomorrow’s Whites?

Slate
2014-04-15

Jamelle Bouie, staff writer covering politics, policy, and race

How Hispanics perceive themselves may shape the future of race in America.

The Trayvon Martin shooting was hardly in the national consciousness before fault lines emerged around the case. Was Martin as innocent as he seemed? Did Zimmerman fear for his life? Did Martin provoke the incident? Was Zimmerman a racist?

Perhaps most controversial among all of these was the question of identity. Yes, Trayvon Martin was black, but is Zimmerman white? For Martin’s sympathizers, the answer was yes. For Zimmerman’s, the answers ranged from “it doesn’t matter” to he “is actually a Hispanic nonracist person who acted in self-defense.”…

…According to Pew—and echoing the results in the last census—the United States is just a few decades away from its demographic inflection point. Come 2050, only 47 percent of Americans will call themselves white, while the majority will belong to a minority group. Blacks will remain steady at 13 percent of the population, while Asians will grow to 8 percent. Hispanics, on the other hand, will explode to 28 percent of all U.S. population, up from 19 percent in 2010. Immigration is driving this “demographic makeover,” specifically the “40 million immigrants who have arrived since 1965, about half of them Hispanics and nearly three-in-ten Asians.”

But the thing to remember about the Hispanic category, for instance, is that it contains a wide range of colors and ethnicities. In the United States, Hispanics (or more broadly Latinos) include Afro-Brazilians, dark-skinned Puerto Ricans, indigenous Mexicans, Venezuelan mestizos, and European Argentinians, among others.

To say that America will become a majority-minority country is to erase these distinctions and assume that, for now and forever, Latinos will remain a third race, situated next to “non-Hispanic blacks” and “non-Hispanic whites.” But, as the Zimmerman controversy illustrates, it’s not that simple…

Read the entire article here.

I Was Racially Profiled in My Own Driveway

The Atlantic
2014-04-14

Doug Glanville

A retired Major League Baseball player explains how he’s trying to turn an upsetting encounter with the police into an opportunity for dialogue.

It was an otherwise ordinary snow day in Hartford, Connecticut, and I was laughing as I headed outside to shovel my driveway. I’d spent the morning scrambling around, trying to stay ahead of my three children’s rising housebound energy, and once my shovel hit the snow, I thought about how my wife had been urging me to buy a snowblower. I hadn’t felt an urgent need. Whenever it got ridiculously blizzard-like, I hired a snow removal service. And on many occasions, I came outside to find that our next door neighbor had already cleared my driveway for me.

Never mind that our neighbor was an empty-nester in his late 60s with a replaced hip, and I was a former professional ballplayer in his early 40s. I kept telling myself I had to permanently flip the script and clear his driveway. But not today. I had to focus on making sure we could get our car out for school the next morning. My wife was at a Black History Month event with our older two kids. The snow had finally stopped coming down and this was my mid-afternoon window of opportunity.

Just as I was good-naturedly turning all this over in my mind, my smile disappeared.

A police officer from West Hartford had pulled up across the street, exited his vehicle, and begun walking in my direction. I noted the strangeness of his being in Hartford—an entirely separate town with its own police force—so I thought he needed help. He approached me with purpose, and then, without any introduction or explanation he asked, “So, you trying to make a few extra bucks, shoveling people’s driveways around here?”

All of my homeowner confidence suddenly seemed like an illusion…

…As offended as I’d been, the worst part was trying to explain the incident to my kids. When I called my wife to tell her what had happened, she was on her way home from the Black History Month event, and my son heard her end of the conversation. Right away, he wanted to know whether I’d been arrested. My 4-year-old daughter couldn’t understand why a police officer would “hurt Daddy’s feelings.” I didn’t want to make my children fear the police. I also wasn’t ready to talk to them about stop-and-frisk policies, or the value judgments people put on race.

Until that moment, skin colors had been little more than adjectives to my kids. Some members of our family have bronze or latte skin; others are caramel-colored or dark brown. Our eldest and “lightest-skinned” daughter had at times matter-of-factly described her brother and me as “brown” and herself as “white.” But that night, my wife made it painfully simple. “We are black,” she explained. “All of us.”…

Read the entire article here.