Mixed Race Studies

The development of memory for own- and other-race faces

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Volume 98, Issue 4 (December 2007)
pages 233–242
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2007.08.004

Gail S. Goodman
Department of Psychology
University of California, Davis
University of Oslo

Liat Sayfan
Department of Psychology
University of California, Davis

Jennifer S. Lee
Department of Psychology
Cabrillo College, Aptos, California

Marianne Sandhei
University of Oslo

Anita Walle-Olsen
University of Oslo

Svein Magnussen
University of Oslo

Kathy Pezdek
Department of Psychology
Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California

Patricia Arredondo
Department of Psychology
California State University, Los Angeles

This study demonstrates that experience and development interact to influence the ‘‘cross-race effect.’’ In a multination study (n = 245), Caucasian children and adults of European ancestry living in the United States, Norway, or South Africa, as well as biracial (Caucasian–African American) children and adults living in the United States, were tested for recognition of Asian, African, and Caucasian faces. Regardless of national or biracial background, 8- to 10-year-olds, 12- to 14-year-olds, and adults recognized own-race faces more accurately than other-race faces, and did so to a similar extent, whereas 5- to 7-year-olds recognized all face types equally well. This same developmental pattern emerged for biracial children and adults. Thus, early meaningful exposure did not substantially alter the developmental trajectory. During young childhood, developmental influences on face processing operate on a system sufficiently plastic to preclude, under certain conditions, the cross-race effect.

Read the entire article here.

Some Observations on Identity Problems in Children of Negro-White Marriages

Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease
Volume 146, Issue 3 (March 1968)
pages 249-256

Joseph D. Teicher (1912-2000)
University of Southern California School of Medicine

The Los Angeles County General Hospital population includes every case, and, inevitably, many Negro-white families present themselves for service at the hospital’s Child Psychiatry Unit. The problems of the children in these families are directly related to the fact that one parent is Negro and the other Caucasian. Such comments as “Any white woman who marries a Negro man is sick!” and “The children are always a mess!” are common, and yet no systematic research has been done in this area. As some of the unit’s staff began to explore the special problems of the children of Negro-white marriages, they became interested in refining the methods of studying these interracial families. The report that follows presents, in brief, a statement of the problem, a review of the literature, three case histories and a description of the study now in progress.

Read or purchase the article here.

Are Mixed-Race Children Better Adjusted?

Time Magazine
2009-02-21

John Cloud

Americans like answers in black and white, a cultural trait we confirmed last year when the biracial man running for President was routinely called “black”.

The flattening of Barack Obama’s complex racial background shouldn’t have been surprising. Many multiracial historical figures in the U.S. have been reduced (or have reduced themselves) to a single aspect of their racial identities: Booker T. Washington, Tina Turner, and Greg Louganis are three examples. This phenomenon isn’t entirely pernicious; it is at least partly rooted in our concern that growing up with a fractured identity is hard on kids. The psychologist J. D. Teicher summarized this view in a 1968 paper: “Although the burden of the Negro child is recognized as a heavy one, that of the Negro-White child is seen to be even heavier.”

But new research says this old, problematized view of multiracial identity is outdated. In fact, a new paper in the Journal of Social Issues shows that multiracial adolescents who identify proudly as multiracial fare as well as—and, in many cases, better than—kids who identify with a single group, even if that group is considered high-status (like, say, Asians or whites). This finding was surprising because psychologists have argued for years that mixed-race kids will be better adjusted if they pick a single race as their own…

…In short, multiracial kids seem to create their own definitions for fitting in, and they show more psychological flexibility than those mixed-race kids who feel bound to one choice or another…

Read the entire article here.

Facts for Families: Multiracial Children

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Number 71, October 1999
2 pages

Multiracial children are one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. The number of mixed-race families in America is steadily increasing, due to a rise in interracial marriages and relationships, as well as an increase in transracial and international adoptions. Publicity surrounding prominent Americans of mixed cultural heritage, such as athletes, actors, musicians, and politicians, has highlighted the issues of multicultural individuals and challenged long-standing views of race. However, despite some changes in laws and evolving social attitudes, multiracial children still face significant challenges.

Read the fact sheet here.

The “Multiracial” Option: Social Group Identity and Changing Patterns of Racial Categorization

American Politics Research
Volume 39, Number 1 (January 2011)
pages 176-204
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X10378845

Natalie Masuoka, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Tufts University

This article focuses on a new and growing trend in the United States: multiracial (or mixed race) identification. Multiracial self-identification forces us to consider that the norms of racial identification are shifting in which Americans perceive greater individual agency in how they choose to racially identify compared to the choices offered in the past. Given this, is the willingness to identify as multiracial a proxy for changing political attitudes about American race relation? Using a unique data set that includes multiple measures of racial identification, this article examines the individual-level determinants that predict who is willing to self-identify as multiracial and the political consequences of this identity. This research demonstrates the complexity of racial identification today as well as the need to reconsider how race is measured in public opinion surveys. Most importantly, the data demonstrate that those who self-identify as multiracial hold different racial attitudes than those who do not.

Read or purchase the article here.

Applying Self-Discrepancy Theory to Biracial Identity and Adjustment: A Proposed Study

Social-Personality Brown Bag Series
University of California, Davis
Location: Young 166
2010-11-08, 12:10-13:30 PST (Local Time)

Lauren Berger

Research suggests that biracials may have poorer mental health than monoracials and a recent meta-analysis (Shih & Sanchez, 2005) cites a lack of research testing potential mediators of the link between biracial identity and adjustment. The proposed study aims to examine Higgin’s Self-Discrepancy Theory (1987, 1989) model of vulnerability as one such mediator of the relationship. Discrepancies between self-state representations have been found to be related to different kinds of emotional distress and self-esteem.  We hypothesize that both internal and external (dis-confirming feedback from others) identity discrepancies will be related to lower levels of biracial adjustment. The extent to which the individual is comfortable with conflicting messages will also be examined as a moderator. Some aspects of the study are not yet finalized and feedback/comments would be much appreciated!

University of Vermont study examines biracial identity

Burlington Free Press
2010-12-28

Tim Johnson, Free Press Staff Writer

Even though he was born of a white mother and an African father, Barack Obama is commonly referred to as the first black president. That’s a sign, sociologists say, that America’s “one-drop rule”—a vestige of the United States’ segregationist past—is still with us.

Under the one-drop rule, a person with even minimal African ancestry (one drop of black blood) was considered black. In the Jim Crow South, such people were denied the rights and opportunities accorded to—unless they had sufficiently light skin and Caucasian features to conceal their African ancestry and “pass” themselves off as white.

Racial “passing” still takes place today, University of Vermont sociologist Nikki Khanna reports in a new study, but in different ways. Light-skinned people with African ancestry might pass themselves off as white or as black, depending on the situation. And biracial people with one white parent and one black parent are more likely for various reasons to identify themselves as black and even to conceal their white ancestry, Khanna said…

A person’s racial identity is determined not just by society; it also can be self-defined. Even people who regard themselves as biracial often are inclined to pass themselves off as monoracial, Khanna reports in an article, co-written with Cathryn Johnson of Emory University, published recently in Social Psychology Quarterly…

..The fact that “biracial” and “multiracial” have entered common American parlance suggests that the “one-drop rule” might be weakening, Khanna said. The U.S. census, beginning in 2000, allowed respondents to choose more than one race.

Still, the widespread perception that people with one black parent are black has its roots in a historically racist attitude that “one drop of black blood made one black, but one drop of white blood did not make one white,” as Khanna and Johnson put it.

Khanna, daughter of an Indian father and a white mother, grew interested in interracial studies in graduate school. She said she noticed that research was lacking on the offspring of interracial couples…

Read the entire article here.

Cultural Activities, Identities, and Mental Health Among Urban American Indians with Mixed Racial/Ethnic Ancestries

Race and Social Problems
Volume 2, Number 2 (2010)
pages 101-114
DOI: 10.1007/s12552-010-9028-9

Yoshitaka Iwasaki, Professor of Rehabilitation Sciences and Social Work
Temple University

Namorah Gayle Byrd, Assistant Professor, Developmental English
Gloucester County College, New Jersey

Focus groups were conducted to appreciate the voices of Urban American Indians (UAI) who have mixed ancestries residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Participants (15 women and 10 men, 19–83 years of age) with a variety of Native ancestries coming from different nations (i.e., blackfeet, blackminkwa, Cherokee, Creek, Delaware, Lakota, Powhatan, Seminole, and Shawnee) reported to also have a Non-Native racial/ethnic ancestry such as African/black, Hispanic, and/or Caucasian/white. Specifically, this study provided evidence about (a) the complexity and challenge of being “mixed” UAI (e.g., “living a culture” as opposed to blood quantum in determining a personal identity) (b) the linkage of cultural identities to mental health (c) contributions of cultural activities to identities and mental health (e.g., therapeutic and healing functions of cultural activities), and (d) very limited urban Native-oriented mental health service (e.g., visions for Native American-centered mental health clinic in an urban setting). Building on those UAI’s voices, this paper provides a context for the need of a culturally respectful transformation of urban mental health system by highlighting the clinical significance of cultural identity and mental health promotion for UAI.

Read or purchase the article here.

Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out

Inanna Publications
November 2010
250 pages
ISBN-10: 1926708148
ISBN-13: 978-1-926708-14-0

Edited by

Adebe De Rango-Adem (Adebe D. A.)

Andrea Thompson

This anthology of poetry, spoken word, fiction, creative non-fiction, spoken word texts, as well as black and white artwork and photography, explores the question of how mixed-race women in North America identify in the twenty-first century. Contributions engage, document, and/or explore the experiences of being mixed-race, by placing interraciality as the center, rather than periphery, of analysis. The anthology also serves as a place to learn about the social experiences, attitudes, and feelings of others, and what racial identity has come to mean today.

Adebe De Rango-Adem recently completed a research writing fellowship at the Applied Research Center in New York, where she wrote for ColorLines, America’s primary magazine on race politics. She has served as Assistant Editor for the literary journal Existere, and is a founding member of s.t.e.p.u.p.—a poetry collective dedicated to helping young writers develop their spoken word skills. Her poetry has been featured in journals such as Canadian Woman Studies, The Claremont Review, Canadian Literature, and cv2. She won the Toronto Poetry Competition in 2005 to become Toronto’s first Junior Poet Laureate, and is the author of a chapbook entitled Sea Change (2007). Her debut poetry collection, Ex Nihilo, will be published in early 2010.

Andrea Thompson is a performance poet who has been featured on film, radio, and television, with her work published in magazines and anthologies across Canada. Her debut collection, Eating the Seed (2000), has been featured on reading lists at the University of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art and Design, and her spoken word CD, One, was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award in 2005. A pioneer of slam poetry in Canada, Thompson has also hosted Heart of a Poet on Bravo tv, CiTr Radio’s spoken word show, Hearsay. In 2008, she toured her Spoken Word/Play Mating Rituals of the Urban Cougar across the country, and in 2009 was the Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

Table of Contents (Thanks to Nicole Asong Nfonoyim)

• Acknowledgements
• Preface – Carol Camper
• Introduction – Adebe DeRango-Adem and Andrea Thompson1
• RULES/ROLES
  • Enigma – Andrea Thompson
  • Blond- Natasha Trethewey
  • Mixed- Sandra Kasturi
  • pick one – Chistine Sy and Aja
  • My Sista, Mi Hermana – Phoenix Rising
  • little half-black-breed – Tasha Beeds
  • “White Mask” – Jordan Clarke
  • “Nothing is just black or white” – Jordan Clarke
  • Roll Call – Kirya Traber
  • What Am I? – Marijane Castillo
  • Casting Call: Looking for White Girls and Latinas – D.Cole Ossandon
  • Conversations of Confrontation – Natasha Morris
  • “why i don’t say i’m white”- Alexis Kienlen
  • “Confession #8” – Mica Lee Anders
  • “Other Female” – Mica Lee Anders
  • “MMA and MLA” – Mica Lee Anders
  • The Pieces/Peace(is) in Me – monica rosas
  • Generation Gap (Hawaiian Style) – ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui
  • The Incident that Never Happened – Ann Phillips
  • In the Dark – Anajli Enjeti-Sydow
  • ananse vs. anasi (2007) – Rea McNamara
  • Contamination-  Amber Jamilla Musser
  • A Mixed Journey From the Outside In – Liberty Hultberg
  • What Are You? – Kali Fajardo-Anstine
  • One Being Brown – Tru Leverette
  • One for Everyday of the Week – Michelle Lopez Mulllins
  • Savage Stasis – Gena Chang-Campbell
  • The Half-Breed’s Guide to Answering the Question – M. C. Shumaker
  • My Definition – Kay’la Fraser
  • Pop Quiz – Erin Kobayashi
• ROOTS/ROUTES
  • Melanomial – Sonnet L’Abbe
  • half-breed – Jonina Kirton
  • “Inca/Jew” – Margo Rivera-Weiss
  • Open Letter – Adebe DeRango Adem
  • Prism Woman – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • Southern Gothic – Natasha Trethewey
  • The Drinking Gourd- Miranda Martini
  • Reflection – Jonina Kirton
  • “Untitled” White Sequence – Cassie Mulheron
  • “Untitled” Black Sequence – Cassie Mulheron
  • Mapping Identities – Gail Prasad
  • Whose Child Are You? – Amy Pimentel
  • From the Tree – Lisa Marie Rollins
  • My sister’s hair – ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui
  • I, too, hear the dreams – Peta Gaye-Nash
  • Learning to Love Me – Michelle Jean-Paul
  • A Conversation among Friends – Nicole Salter
  • The Combination of the Two – Rachel Afi Quinn
  • “Loving Series: Elena Rubin” – Laura Kina
  • On the Train – Naomi Angel
  • Coloured – Sheila Addiscott
  • Of Two Worlds – Christina Brobby
  • What is my Culture? – Karen Hill
  • mo’oku’auhau (Genealogy) – ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui
  • Siouxjewgermanscotblack [cultural software instructions] – Robin M. Chandler
  • “Loving Series: Shoshanna Weinberger” – Laura Kina
  • A Hairy Situation – Saedhlinn B. Stweart-Laing
  • “Pot Vida” – Margo Rivera-Weiss
  • Songs Feet Can Get – Rage Hezekiah
  • Opposite of Fence – Lisa Marie Rollins
  • Applique – Lisa Marie Rollins
  • Blanqueamiento – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • The Land – Farideh de Bossett
  • Native Speaker: Daring to Name Ourselves – Nicole Asong Nfonoyim
• REVELATIONS
  • Colour Lesson I – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • Concealed Things – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • Serendipity – Priscila Uppal
  • “Ultramarine” – Margo Rivera-Weiss
  • before i was this – Katherena Vermette
  • Firebelly – Andrea Thompson
  • From Chopsticks to Meatloaf and Back Again – Jasmine Moy
  • My Power – Sonnet L’Abbe
  • Whitewashed – Kathryn McMillan
  • Actually, I’m Black – Marcelite Failla
  • “Self” – Lisa Walker
  • Grey (A Bi-racial Poem) – Sonya Littlejohn
  • Nubia’s Dream – Mica Valdez
  • both sides – Jonina Kirton
  • Mulatto Nation – Marika Schwandt
  • Colour Lesson II – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • racially queer femme – Kimberly Dree Hudson
  • mypeople – Ruha Benjamin
  • My Life in Pieces – Jennifer Adese
  • Burden of Proof: From Colon-Eyes to Kaleidoscope – Angela Dosalmas
  • Recipe for mixing – Tomie Hahn
  • Metamorphosis – Gena Chang-Campbell
  • The Land Knows – Shandra Spears Bombay
  • Land in Place: Mapping the Grandmother – Joanne Arnott
  • “I am the leaf, you are the leaf” – Lisa Walker
  • Language and the Ethics of Mixed Race – Debra Thompson
  • Hybrid Identity and Writing of Presence – Jackie Wang
• Contributors Notes

Recent Studies on Biracial Identity and Hypodescent to be Discussed on Mixed Chicks Chat (Pre-recorded)

Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #186 – Discussion on Recent Studies on Biracial Identity and Hypodescent
When: Tuesday, 2010-12-28, 22:00Z (17:00 EDT, 16:00 CDT, 14:00 PDT)

In this pre-recorded episode recent studies by Harvard Ph.D. student, Arnold K. Ho (“Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals”) and University of Vermont Assistant Professor Nikki Khanna (“Passing as Black: Racial Identity Work among Biracial Americans”) will be discussed.

Listen to the episode here.  Download the episode here.