Mixed Race Studies

Blacks, Black Indians, Afromexicans: the Dynamics of Race, Nation, and Identity in a Mexican Moreno Community (Guerrero)

American Ethnologist
Volume 27, Issue 4, November 2000
pages 898–626
DOI: 10.1525/ae.2000.27.4.898

Laura A. Lewis, Professor of Anthropology
James Madison University

In this article, I explore identity formation in Mexico from the perspective of residents of San Nicolás Tolentino, a village located on the Costa Chica, a historically black region of the southern Pacific Coast of Guerrero. Outsiders characterize San Nicolás’s residents as black, but in Mexico, national ideologies, anthropologies, and histories have traditionally worked to exclude or ignore blackness. Instead, the Spanish and Indian mestizo has been constituted as the quintessential Mexican, even as the Mexican past is tied to a romanticized and ideologically powerful Indian foundation. Ethnographic evidence suggests that San Nicolás’s “black” residents in fact see themselves as morenos, a term that signifies their common descent with Indians, whom they consider to be central to Mexicanness. As morenos interweave their identities, experiences, and descent with Indians, they also anchor themselves through Indians to the nation. These identity issues are complicated by the recent introduction to the coast of Africanness in the context of new national and scholarly projects reformulating the components of a new Mexican multicultural identity. In part, local morenos see Africanness as an outside imposition that conflicts with their sense of themselves as Mexican while it reinforces their political and economic marginality.

Read or purchase the article here.

Japanese-Canadian Identity Issues: One Big Hapa Family Screening with Jeff Chiba Stearns

University of Toronto, St. George
Hart House
2012-03-21, 18:30-20:30 EDT (Local Time)

According to recent statistics, the rate of mixed marriages among Japanese-Canadians is at 70% with intermarriage at 95%. Why? Jeff Chiba Stearns attempts to address this phenomena and more with his award-winning documentary, One Big Hapa Family. The combination live-action/animated film is a joint presentation between Hart House’s Conscious Activism Doc series and the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival. Screening and artist talk followed by Q&A with introductory remarks by Aram Collier, Reel Asian Film Festival Programming Director. Wed., March 21 at 6:30 pm in the Music Room at Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle, University of Toronto (St. George Campus). FREE.

Jeff Chiba Stearns is an award-winning Canadian independent filmmaker, writer and illustrator whose work incorporates animation, documentary, and experimental filmmaking. Stearns founded his Kelowna, BC-based company Meditating Bunny Inc. in 2001. He frequently addresses the issues of mixed race identity in his films, and has published articles and spoken around the world on issues of cultural awareness, Hapa and the animation process.

Hart House is a living laboratory of social, artistic, cultural and recreational experiences where all voices, rhythms and traditions converge. As the vibrant home for the education of the mind, body and spirit envisioned by its founders, Hart House encourages and supports activities that provide spaces for awakening the capacity for self-knowledge and self-expression.

For more information, click here.

Using the Mixed-Race Category to Expose the Persistence of Anti-Black Racism: A Response to Thomas Chatterton Williams

2012-03-17

Mark S. James, Fulbright Scholar
Horlivka State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages

This article [Thomas Chatterton Williams, “As Black as We Wish to Be,” New York Times (March 16, 2012)] stipulates that people of mixed-race parentage do indeed experience advantages that those who are perceived to be monoracially black do not, yet argues that these people should deny this advantage because of an “ethical obligation” to identify as (monoracially) “black,” as if numbers alone tells the whole story of racial discrimination. It seems to me that it is precisely because many mixed-race individuals experience advantages that many “pure” black people do not that we can most effectively use the mixed-race category as a way of exposing the persistence of anti-black racism.

As we have seen with Obama, though he did not get the majority of white votes, one can argue that it was precisely his being part white that made quite a few white voters feel comfortable with voting for him. This was why he spoke about his white family early and often. It is highly unlikely that these voters would have felt similarly about a “pure” African American, let alone voted for him (or her). This is perhaps why we did not see the “Bradley effect.” Enough white people voted for him to enable the overwhelming majorities of minority votes to decide the election. Yet when he won, many of these same white people (and others) took this as proof of a “post-racial America.” Suddenly, it was cooler to highlight his “blackness” as evidence of “how far we’ve come.” I believe that some people—and not a trivial number at that—voted for him because of his “whiteness,” and then celebrated his election because of his “blackness.” Therefore, to the extent that we focus on Obama’s “blackness” to the exclusion of how “whiteness” and white privilege functioned in his election, we fail to come to terms with how anti-black racism works today.

It seems to me that Chatterton Williams has it exactly backward. As mixed race people continue to multiply and take advantage of opportunities that may not be available to those who continue to suffer from social and institutional anti-black racism, it makes little sense for him to insist on a “pure” black designation. If he says, “I’m black,” what’s to keep someone from saying, “Well then how can racism still exist? You’re clearly a highly educated black man living in Paris, married to a white woman, and that fact, as you put it, raises few eyebrows. What more do you all want, Negro?”

If, on the other hand, he can argue that it was precisely his proximity and access, however incomplete, to white privilege in terms of colorism, access to schools denied those who did not live in a (presumably mostly white) New Jersey suburb, etc., he can more effectively draw attention to how anti-black racism continues to function and even thrive in an environment where a “black” (but not really *wink, wink*) man can be president. It is conceivable that less privileged African Americans (those without access to white privilege) may be faring even worse under Obama than they did under W [George W. Bush] or Clinton. In my view, it is precisely because so many Americans are now looking for Obama to betray a bias towards black people that he cannot afford to even consider some policies that could specifically target the effects of anti-black racism that a “white” president could. To the chagrin of Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, et al., he has had to avoid race in a way other presidents before him did not have to, had they been so inclined.

In short, by identifying as “purely black,” Chatterton Williams’s essay seems more like self-congratulation masquerading as progressive politics. Chatterton Williams proudly proclaiming, “I’m one of them” in 2012 does not have anything like the same impact as it did for Ellison in the shadow of Jim Crow segregation. When Ellison did it, he was exposing those efforts to cast him as the “exceptional Negro” and therefore not like other “Negros” who “deserved” or “earned” their poor treatment. His saying, “I am one of them” raised the real question of, “Well, how many Ellisons are there that just don’t have a chance because of the explicitly anti-black racism that has been in practice since the founding of this country?” It was a spur to push for more civil rights for all African Americans. When Chatterton Williams does it in a post Civil Rights environment where so many are looking for proof that America has done quite enough on this score, they are more likely to say, “Yes, yes, YES!!! I accept that you are one of them! Therefore, we need do no more!”

^©2012, Mark S. James

Identity Politics and the New Genetics: Re/Creating Categories of Difference and Belonging

Berghahn Books
January 2012
226 pages
tables & figs, bibliog., index
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-85745-253-5

Edited by:

Katharina Schramm, Senior Lecturer of Social Anthropology
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg

David Skinner, Reader in Sociology
Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom

Richard Rottenburg, Professor Social Anthropology
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg

Racial and ethnic categories have appeared in recent scientific work in novel ways and in relation to a variety of disciplines: medicine, forensics, population genetics and also developments in popular genealogy. Once again, biology is foregrounded in the discussion of human identity. Of particular importance is the preoccupation with origins and personal discovery and the increasing use of racial and ethnic categories in social policy. This new genetic knowledge, expressed in technology and practice, has the potential to disrupt how race and ethnicity are debated, managed and lived. As such, this volume investigates the ways in which existing social categories are both maintained and transformed at the intersection of the natural (sciences) and the cultural (politics). The contributors include medical researchers, anthropologists, historians of science and sociologists of race relations; together, they explore the new and challenging landscape where biology becomes the stuff of identity.

Contents

• List of Illustrations and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Ideas in Motion: Making Sense of Identity After DNA; Katharina Schramm, David Skinner, Richard Rottenburg
• Chapter 1. ‘Race’ as a Social Construction in Genetics; Andrew Smart, Richard Tutton, Paul Martin, George Ellison
• Chapter 2. Mobile Identities and Fixed Categories: Forensic DNA and the Politics of Racialised Data; David Skinner
• Chapter 3. Race, Kinship and the Ambivalence of Identity; Peter Wade
• Chapter 4. Identity, DNA, and the State in Post-Dictatorship Argentina; Noa Vaisman
• Chapter 5. ‘Do You Have Celtic, Jewish, Germanic Roots?’ – Applied Swiss History Before and After DNA; Marianne Sommer
• Chapter 6. Irish DNA: Making Connections and Making Distinctions in Y-Chromosome Surname Studies; Catherine Nash
• Chapter 7. Genomics en route: Ancestry, Heritage, and the Politics of Identity Across the Black Atlantic; Katharina Schramm
• Chapter 8. Biotechnological Cults of Affliction? Race, Rationality, and Enchantment in Personal Genomic Histories; Stephan Palmié
• Notes on Contributors
• Bibliography
• Index

St. Patrick’s Day holds mixed emotions for some

The Boston Globe
2012-03-17

Martine Powers, Globe Staff

Ryan McCollum knows that on St. Patrick’s Day, he cuts an unusual figure.

All in green, a traditional Irish Claddagh ring on his finger and a houndstooth flat cap on his head, everything about his attire screams “Irish and proud.’’

But McCollum, 33, is also black. His father, a Navy man from Springfield, married an Irish-American girl from Downeast Maine.

He knows his appearance does not fit the bill of a stereotypical Irishman—most assume he’s black, or maybe Latino—but since childhood, his mother mandated that his Irish pride run fierce.

Ryan McCollum, a political consultant and owner of RMC Strategies, is part Irish.

“Growing up, I knew I was Irish,: said McCollum, of Springfield, “even if the rest of the world didn’t know I was Irish.”

As the American population has grown increasingly mixed-race in recent decades, some descendants of Irish immigrants are claiming a multiracial heritage, though they may differ in appearance from their red-haired, freckled ancestors. For them, the joys of embracing Irish roots are complicated by the challenges of being multiracial.

“I always feel this deep kinship with Irish people in Boston,” said Kelly Bates, a mixed-race Irish-American who lives in Roslindale. “But I don’t always feel like they have this kinship with me.”…

…Paul J. McNamara, president of the 275-year-old Charitable Irish Society, said he does not believe that any of the organization’s 400 current members are multiracial, but the group welcomes membership applications from anyone interested in promoting Irish history and culture…

…While Irish and African-American communities worked and lived in close proximity in the decades after America’s founding—both groups were stigmatized by English landowners—they grew antagonistic toward one another at the end of the 19th century, said Marie E. Daly, library director at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. In the last century, the communities have butted heads over labor rights, housing, and public school desegregation.

Bates said she is just as proud to be African-American as she is proud to be Irish. After all, she said, the sound of bagpipes and African drums both give her chills. But she sometimes worries about expressing pride in her Irish roots. As much as Irish is a national origin, she said, it also identifies her as white. She does not want others to think she has distanced herself from her black identity…

Read the entire article here.

As Black as We Wish to Be

The New York Times
2012-03-16

Thomas Chatterton Williams

My first encounter with my own blackness occurred in the checkout line at the grocery store. I was horsing around with my older brother, as bored children sometimes do. My blond-haired, blue-eyed mother, exasperated and trying hard to count out her cash and coupons in peace, wheeled around furiously and commanded us both to be still. When she finished scolding us, an older white woman standing nearby leaned over and whispered sympathetically: “It must be so tough adopting those kids from the ghetto.”

The thought that two tawny-skinned bundles of stress with Afros could have emerged from my mother’s womb never crossed the lady’s mind. That was in the early 1980s, when the sight of interracial families like mine was still an oddity, even in a New Jersey suburb within commuting distance from Manhattan. What strikes me most today is that despite how insulting the woman’s remark was, we could nonetheless all agree on one thing: my brother and I were black…

…Until the year 2000, the census didn’t even recognize citizens as belonging to more than one racial group. And yet, so rapid has the change been that just 10 years later, when Barack Obama marked the “Black, African Am., or Negro,” box on his 2010 census form, many people wondered why he left it at that.

If today we’ve become freer to concoct our own identities, to check the “white” box or write in “multiracial” on the form, the question then forces itself upon us: are there better or worse choices to be made?

I believe there are. Mixed-race blacks have an ethical obligation to identify as black — and interracial couples share a similar moral imperative to inculcate certain ideas of black heritage and racial identity in their mixed-race children, regardless of how they look…

…As the example of President Obama demonstrates par excellence, the black community can and does benefit directly from the contributions and continued allegiance of its mixed-race members, and it benefits in ways that far outweigh the private joys of freer self-expression…

Read the entire article here.

Being mixed: Who claims a biracial identity?

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology
Volume 18, Number 1 (January 2012)
pages 91-96
DOI: 10.1037/a0026845

Sarah S. M. Townsend, Visiting Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations and Postdoctoral Fellow
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Stephanie A. Fryberg, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Faculty in American Indian Studies
University of Arizona

Clara L. Wilkins, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Wesleyan University

Hazel Rose Markus, Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University

What factors determine whether mixed-race individuals claim a biracial identity or a monoracial identity? Two studies examine how two status-related factors—race and social class—influence identity choice. While a majority of mixed-race participants identified as biracial in both studies, those who were members of groups with higher status in American society were more likely than those who were members of groups with lower status to claim a biracial identity. Specifically, (a) Asian/White individuals were more likely than Black/White or Latino/White individuals to identify as biracial and (b) mixed-race people from middle-class backgrounds were more likely than those from working-class backgrounds to identify as biracial. These results suggest that claiming a biracial identity is a choice that is more available to those with higher status.

Read or purchase the article here.

Black identity in biracial Black/White people: A comparison of Jacqueline who refuses to be exclusively Black and Adolphus who wishes he were.

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology
Volume 7, Number 2 (May 2001)
page 182-196
DOI: 10.1037//1099-9809.7.2.182

Angela R. Gillem
Arcadia University

Laura Renee Cohn
Arcadia University

Cambria Thorne
Arcadia University

Two biracial college freshmen (17 and 19 yrs old), both of whom identify as Black, were chosen from a larger sample of participants in a qualitative study of biracial identity development to exemplify the differences in the paths that 2 biracial individuals could take to achieve racial identity resolution. Through the case study method, the authors describe the course and progression of racial identity development (RID) in these 2 individuals and discuss some key themes in their lives that have contributed to the development of their RID. The purposes are fourfold: to describe, nonclinical subjective experiences of being biracial in the US, to explore the differences in the paths that 2 biracial individuals can take to achieve what looks superficially like similar Black racial identity resolution, to demonstrate how identifying as Black can have different meanings and consequences for 2 biracial people, and to contribute to the differentiation of Black RID from biracial Black/White RID. The authors raise questions about the generalizability of monoracial Black and ethnic identity theories to biracial individuals.

Read the entire article here.

Re-searching Metis identity: My Metis Family story

University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon
April 2010
200 pages

Tara J. Turner

A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Psychology University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

This research explores Metis identity through the use of a Metis family story. The participants of  this Metis family were my father and his two sisters and his two brothers. As children, they lost  both their parents at the same time in a car accident. After the death of their parents my participants all encountered the child welfare system, through adoption, orphanage, and foster care. Through adoption, the two youngest participants were separated from their siblings, and any knowledge of their Metis heritage, until they were adults. Individual interviews were conducted with each participant to gather their life stories. Two additional gatherings of the participants were completed in order to share individual and family stories. The second and final gathering was conducted as a talking circle. A culturally congruent qualitative research process was created with the use of stories, ceremonies, and the strengthening of family relationships. Analysis was completed with the use of Aboriginal storytelling guidelines. The themes examined through my family’s story include trauma, the child welfare system, and Metis identity. A significant piece of the research process was the creation of a “Metis psychological homeland” (Richardson, 2004, p. 56), a psychological space of both healing and affirming Aboriginal identity. This dissertation is an example of how research can be completed in a way that does not perpetuate the mistrust between Aboriginal people and researchers, and that works to improve this relationship.

Read the entire thesis here.

Between black and white: Rethinking Coloured identity

African Identities
Volume 1, Issue 2 (2003)
pages 253-280
DOI: 10.1080/1472584032000173139

Pal Ahluwalia, Pro Vice Chancellor of Education, Arts and Social Sciences
University of South Australia

Abebe Zegeye
Goldsmiths College, University of London

Identity who we are, where we come from, what we are is difficult to maintain … we are the ‘other’, an opposite, a flaw in the geometry of resettlement, an exodus. (Said 1986: 16 17)

The photographs

Stephen Greenblatt offers two models for the exhibition of works of art resonance and wonder. Resonance, he argues, equates with the ‘power of the displayed object to reach out beyond its formal boundaries to a larger world, to evoke in the viewer the complex, dynamic cultural forces from which it has emerged and for which it may be taken by a viewer to stand’ (Greenblatt 1991: 42). Clearly a work of art that evokes such resonance creates its own context albeit that it is far removed from its original site. In contrast, by wonder, he means, ‘the power of the displayed object to stop the viewer in his or her tracks, to convey an arresting sense of uniqueness, to evoke an exalted attention’ (ibid.).

Greenblatt argues that what has increasingly happened in the practice of mounting exhibitions is the triumph of resonance over wonder. For an exhibition to have maximum impact, he argues (ibid.: 54), it is important that there should be ‘a strong initial appeal to wonder, a wonder that then leads to the desire for resonance, for it is generally easier in our culture to pass from wonder to resonance than from resonance to wonder’. It is in this context that we urge readers to make acquaintance with Chris Ledochowski’s photographs. First and foremost, they are works of art that evoke wonder. These works of art, however, are deeply resonant with the racial quagmire that has dominated and continues to dominate   South Africa’s culture, history and politics…

Read or purchase the article here.