Mixed Race Studies

The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier

SAGE Publications
1995
512 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9780803970595

Edited by Maria P. P. Root

In her bold new edited volume, The Multiracial Experience, Maria P. P. Root challenges current theoretical and political conceptualizations of race by examining the experience of mixed-race individuals. Articulating questions that will form the basis for future discussions of race and identity, the contributors tackle concepts such as redefining ethnicity when race is less central to the definition and how a multiracial model might dismantle our negative construction of race. Researchers and practitioners in ethnic studies, anthropology, education, law, psychology, nursing, social work, and sociology add personal insights in chapter-opening vignettes while providing integral critical viewpoints. Sure to stimulate thinking and discussion, the contributors focus on the most contemporary racial issues, including the racial classification system from the U.S. Census to the schools; the differences between race, ethnicity, and colorism; gender and sexuality in a multicultural context; ethnic identity and identity formation; transracial adoption; and the future of race relations in the United States. The Multiracial Experience opens up the dialogue to rethink and redefine race and social relations in this country. This volume provides discussions key to all professionals, practitioners, researchers, and students in multicultural issues, ethnic relations, sociology, education, psychology, management, and public health.

Table of Contents

The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as a Significant Frontier in Race Relations – Maria P. P. Root

PART ONE: HUMAN RIGHTS

• A Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People –  Maria P. P. Root
• Government Classification of Multiracial/Multiethnic People – Carlos A. Fernandez
• The Real World – Susan R. Graham
• Multiracial Identity in a Color-Conscious World – Deborah A. Ramirez
• Transracial Adoptions: In Whose Best Interest? – Ruth G. McRoy and Christine C. Iijima Hall
• Voices from the Movement: Approaches to Multiraciality – Cynthia L. Nakashima

PART TWO: IDENTITY

• Hidden Agendas, Identity Theories, and Multiracial People –  Michael C. Thornton
• Black and White Identity in the New Millenium: Unsevering the Ties That Bind – G. Reginald Daniel
• On Being and Not-Being Black and Jewish – Naomi Zack
• An `Other’ Way of Life: The Empowerment of Alterity in the Interracial Individual – Jan R. Weisman

PART THREE: BLENDING AND FLEXIBILITY

• LatiNegra Lillian: Mental Health Issues of African –  Lillian Comas-Diaz
• Race as Process: Reassessing the `What Are You?’ Encounters of Biracial Individuals – Teresa Kay Williams
• Piecing Together the Puzzle: Self-Concept and Group Identity in Biracial Black/White Youth – Lynda D. Field
• Changing Face, Changing Race: The Remaking of Race in the Japanese American and African American Communities – Rebecca Chiyoko King and Kimberly McClain DaCosta
• Without a Template: The Biracial Korean/White Experience – Brian Chol Soo Standen

PART FOUR: GENDER AND SEXUAL IDENTITY

• In the Margins of Sex and Race: Difference, Marginality, and Flexibility – George Kitahara Kich
• (Un)Natural Boundaries: Mixed Race, Gender, and Sexuality – Karen Maeda Allman
• Heterosexual Alliances: The Romantic Management of Racial Identity-  Francine Winddance Twine
• Ambiguous Bodies: Locating Black/White Women in Cultural Representations – Caroline A. Streeter

PART FIVE: MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

• Making the Invisible Visible: The Growth of Community Network Organizations – Nancy G. Brown and Ramona E. Douglass
• Challenging Race and Racism: A Framework for Educators – Ronald David Glass and Kendra R. Wallace
• Being Different Together in the University Classroom: Multiracial Identity as Transgressive Education – Teresa Kay Williams et al
• Multicultural Education – Francis Wardle

PART SIX: THE NEW MILLENIUM

• 2001: A Race Odyssey – Christine C. Iijima Hall

Danzas Nacionalistas: The representation of history through folkloric dance in Venezuela

Critique of Anthropology
(2002)
Vol. 22, No. 3
pages 257-282
DOI: 10.1177/0308275X02022003758

Iveris Luz Martínez
Johns Hopkins University

In this article I argue that the nation is not only invented or imagined, but depends on activities and practices in order to be invented and imagined. Here, the focus is on dance in Venezuela, where a number of groups use what they call `folkloric dance’ to construct and depict the national `culture’. This article considers the case of Danzas Típicas Maracaibo (DTM), a dance company founded in 1976 under the auspices of the government of the state of Zulia in Venezuela. DTM presented a carefully crafted and selective stylized repertoire of `folk’ dances from throughout the country. These re-created dances are called danzas nacionalistas, although the dances are often interchangeably referred to as `folkloric’. They are used to make statements about ethnic and cultural authenticity, and in their own way contribute to the discourse of mestizaje. In Venezuela, as in much of Latin America, there is entwined in nationalist rhetoric the idea of `race’ and cultural mixing, or mestizaje. Here, mestizaje does not only or necessarily imply a `racial’ mixing or a mixing of `blood’, but it also refers to `culture’. History, and discourses of the past generally, are especially implicated in these activities and representations.

Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican demography approximates the present-day ancestry of Mestizos throughout the territory of Mexico

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 139 Issue 3
Pages 284 – 294
Published Online: 2009-01-12

Rodrigo Rubi-Castellanos
Instituto de Investigación en Genética Molecular, Centro Universitario de la Ciénega, (CUCiénega-UdeG), Ocotlán, Jalisco, México

Gabriela Martínez-Cortés
Instituto de Investigación en Genética Molecular, Centro Universitario de la Ciénega, (CUCiénega-UdeG), Ocotlán, Jalisco, México

José Francisco Muñoz-Valle
Instituto de Investigación en Reumatología y del Sistema Músculo-Esquelético, Centro Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud (CUCS-UdeG), Guadalajara, Jalisco, México

Antonio González-Martín
Departamento de Zoología y Antropología Física, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), 28040 Madrid, Spain

Ricardo M. Cerda-Flores
Departamento de Genética de Poblaciones y Bioinformática, Centro de Investigación Biomédica del Noreste (CIBN-IMSS), Monterrey, Nuevo León, México

Manuel Anaya-Palafox
Laboratorio de Genética Forense, Instituto Jalisciense de Ciencias Forenses (IJCF), Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, México

Héctor Rangel-Villalobos
Instituto de Investigación en Genética Molecular, Centro Universitario de la Ciénega, (CUCiénega-UdeG), Ocotlán, Jalisco, México

Rodrigo Rubi-Castellanos and Héctor Rangel-Villalobos contributed equally to this work.

Over the last 500 years, admixture among Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans, principally, has come to shape the present-day gene pool of Mexicans, particularly Mestizos, who represent about 93% of the total Mexican population. In this work, we analyze the genetic data of 13 combined DNA index system-short tandem repeats (CODIS-STRs) in 1,984 unrelated Mestizos representing 10 population samples from different regions of Mexico, namely North, West, Central, and Southeast. The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) test demonstrated low but significant differentiation among Mestizos from different regions (F_ST = 0.34%; P = 0.0000). Although the spatial analysis of molecular variance (SAMOVA) predicted clustering Mestizo populations into four well-delimited groups, the main differentiation was observed between Northwest when compared with Central and Southeast regions. In addition, we included analysis of individuals of Amerindian (Purepechas), European (Huelva, Spain), and African (Fang) origin. Thus, STRUCTURE analysis was performed identifying three well-differentiated ancestral populations (k = 3). STRUCTURE results and admixture estimations by means of LEADMIX software in Mestizo populations demonstrated genetic heterogeneity or asymmetric admixture throughout Mexico, displaying an increasing North-to-South gradient of Amerindian ancestry, and vice versa regarding the European component. Interestingly, this distribution of Amerindian ancestry roughly reflects pre-Hispanic Native-population density, particularly toward the Mesoamerican area. The forensic, epidemiological, and evolutionary implications of these findings are discussed herein.

“If Races Don’t Exist, Then Why Am I White?”: The Race Concept Within Contemporary Forensic Anthropology

Focus Anthropology: A Publication of Undergraduate Research
Issue VIII: 2009
Kenyon University
20 pages

M. Todd Gross
Western Michigan University

It is fundamental for human beings to ask why and how things happen. Looking across the globe it is clear that this human tendency to explore our world manifests itself in a multitude of ways and in response to a variety of experiences. Among those who partake in the exploration of our world, some think the most honest way to answer the questions of “why” and “how” are through science. Broadly speaking, science is stated as analysis based upon observations made of an objective, observable reality. Since it involves the exploration of an objective reality, the accuracy of the labels and terms used to describe that reality are of utmost importance. In this paper, various issues will be examined in the biological and social sciences to show that the use of the race concept for Homo sapiens by forensic anthropologists is inaccurate and is both biologically and socially irresponsible. Available to forensic anthropologists are more responsible alternatives for assessing human skeletal remains, such as matching various morphological characteristics to those individuals found on missing person reports.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
Race as Biology? 1
Race as Culture 3
Race in Forensic Anthropology 6
Misperceptions of Race in Forensic Anthropology 10
Alternatives to “Racial” Assessment of Human Skeletal Remains 13
Keeping Things in Perspective 15
Conclusion 15
Bibliography 16

Read the entire article here.

La Mulata: Cuba’s National Symbol

Focus Anthropology: A Publication of Undergraduate Research
Issue IV: 2004-2005
20 pages

Tamara Kneese
Kenyon College

This essay provides a discourse analysis of la mulata as an ambivalent symbol of Cuban national identity. In many ways, la mulata is representative of Cuba’s sexual, racial, and economic hierarchies. On the one hand, la mulata is a living emblem of Cuba’s histories with imperialism and slavery, mirroring Cuba’s exploitation by white male foreigners. On the other hand, la mulata is portrayed as a manifestation of Cuba’s tenacity and diversity, particularly during the Special Period when jineteras, who were often characterized as mulatas, drew tourists and capital to Cuba.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Sugar, Sex, and Marriage
U.S. Tourism, Part I
U.S. Tourism Part II –The Special Period
Images of the Mulata in Brazil and in Cuban-American Consciousness
Conclusions
Appendix
References
Abstract

Read the entire article here.

Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation

University of North Carolina Press
April 2010
368 pages
6.125 x 9.25
12 illus., 3 tables, 5 genealogical charts, 3 maps, appends., notes, index
Cloth ISBN:  978-0-8078-3368-1
Paper ISBN:  978-0-8078-7111-9

Malinda Maynor Lowery, Assistant Professor of History
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Awards & Distinctions

• 2010 Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award
• 2010 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

With more than 50,000 enrolled members, North Carolina‘s Lumbee Indians are the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi River. Malinda Maynor Lowery, a Lumbee herself, describes how, between Reconstruction and the 1950s, the Lumbee crafted and maintained a distinct identity in an era defined by racial segregation in the South and paternalistic policies for Indians throughout the nation. They did so against the backdrop of some of the central issues in American history, including race, class, politics, and citizenship.

Lowery argues that “Indian” is a dynamic identity that, for outsiders, sometimes hinged on the presence of “Indian blood” (for federal New Deal policy makers) and sometimes on the absence of “black blood” (for southern white segregationists). Lumbee people themselves have constructed their identity in layers that tie together kin and place, race and class, tribe and nation; however, Indians have not always agreed on how to weave this fabric into a whole. Using photographs, letters, genealogy, federal and state records, and first-person family history, Lowery narrates this compelling conversation between insiders and outsiders, demonstrating how the Lumbee People challenged the boundaries of Indian, southern, and American identities

Table of Contents

• Preface: Telling Our Own Stories
• Acknowledgments
• A Note on Terms
• Introduction: Coming Together
• 1 ADAPTING TO SEGREGATION
• 2 MAKING HOME AND MAKING LEADERS
• 3 TAKING SIDES
• 4 CONFRONTING THE NEW DEAL
• 5 Pembroke Farms: Gaining Economic Autonomy
• 6 MEASURING IDENTITY
• 7 RECOGNIZING THE LUMBEE
• Conclusion: Creating a Lumbee and Tuscarora Future
• Appendix
• Notes
• Index

Race in the Making: Cognition, Culture, and the Child’s Construction of Human Kinds

The MIT Press
May 1996
243 pages
19 illus.
Cloth ISBN-13: 978-0-262-08247-1
Paper ISBN-13: 978-0-262-58172-1

Lawrence A. Hirschfeld, Professor of Anthropology & Psychology
Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts

Race in the Making provides a new understanding of how people conceptualize social categories and shows why this knowledge is so readily recruited to create and maintain systems of unequal power.

Hirschfeld argues that knowledge of race is not derived from observations of physical difference nor does it develop in the same way as knowledge of other social categories. Instead, his central claim is that racial thinking is the product of a special-purpose cognitive competence for understanding and representing human kinds. The book also challenges the conventional wisdom that race is purely a social construction by demonstrating that a common set of abstract principles underlies all systems of racial thinking, whatever other historical and cultural specificities may be associated with them.

Starting from the commonplace observation that race is a category of both power and the mind, Race in the Making directly tackles this issue. Through a sustained exploration of continuity and change in the child’s notion of race and across historical variations in the race concept, Hirschfeld shows that a singular commonsense theory about human kinds constrains the way racial thinking changes, whether in historical time or during childhood.

After surveying the literature on the development of a cultural psychology of race, Hirschfeld presents original studies that examine children’s (and occasionally adults’) representations of race. He sketches how a jointly cultural and psychological approach to race might proceed, showing how this approach yields new insights into the emergence and elaboration of racial thinking.

Table of Contents

Race Bending: “Mixed” Youth Practicing Strategic Racialization in California

Anthropology & Education Quarterly
Volume 35 Issue 1 (March 2004)
Pages 30-52
DOI: 10.1525/aeq.2004.35.1.30

Mica Pollock, Associate Professor of Education
Harvard University

As more U.S. youth claim “mixed” heritages, some adults are proposing to erase race words altogether from the nation’s inequality analysis. Yet such proposals, as detailed ethnography shows, ignore the complex realities of continuing racialized practice. At an urban California high school in the 1990s, “mixed” youth strategically employed simple “race” categories to describe themselves and inequality orders, even as they regularly challenged these very labels’ accuracy. In so “bending” race categories, these youth modeled a practical and theoretical strategy crucial for dealing thoughtfully with race in 21st century America.

Read or purchase the article here.

The Inheritability of Identity: Children’s Understanding of the Cultural Biology of Race

Child Development
Volume 66 Issue 5 (October 1995)
Pages 1418 – 1437
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1995.tb00943.x

Lawrence A. Hirschfeld, Professor, Anthropology & Psychology
Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts

4 experiments explored adult and grade school children’s beliefs about inheritability of identity, particularly the “one-drop rule” that defines children of mixed-race parents as belonging to the racial category of the minority parent. In Study 1, 8- and 12-year-olds (N=32) and adults (N=43) were asked the category membership of mixed-race children and the degree to which they resembled each parent. Study 2 investigated whether the same-aged children (N=36) and adults (N=18) expected mixed-race children to have white, black, or intermediate features. Study 3 explored children’s (N=46) expectations about the inheritability of the same properties in animals. Older children, like adults, were found to believe that mixed-race children have black racial features. Adults additionally believe that such children inherit the categorical identity of the minority parent. Study 4 repeated the same tasks with black and white children (N=39) attending an integrated school. Unlike children attending a predominantly white school, children in the integrated school (regardless of race) expect mixed-race children to have intermediate racial features.

Maya Ethnolinguistic Identity: Violence, Cultural Rights, and Modernity in Highland Guatemala

University of Arizona Press
2010
192 pages
6.0 x 9.0
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8165-2767-0

Brigittine M. French, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Grinnell College

In this valuable book, ethnographer and anthropologist Brigittine French mobilizes new critical-theoretical perspectives in linguistic anthropology, applying them to the politically charged context of contemporary Guatemala. Beginning with an examination of the “nationalist project” that has been ongoing since the end of the colonial period, French interrogates the “Guatemalan/indigenous binary.” In Guatemala, “Ladino” refers to the Spanish-speaking minority of the population, who are of mixed European, usually Spanish, and indigenous ancestry; “Indian” is understood to mean the majority of Guatemala’s population, who speak one of the twenty-one languages in the Maya linguistic groups of the country, although levels of bilingualism are very high among most Maya communities. As French shows, the Guatemalan state has actively promoted a racialized, essentialized notion of “Indians” as an undifferentiated, inherently inferior group that has stood stubbornly in the way of national progress, unity, and development—which are, implicitly, the goals of “true Guatemalans” (that is, Ladinos).

French shows, with useful examples, how constructions of language and collective identity are in fact strategies undertaken to serve the goals of institutions (including the government, the military, the educational system, and the church) and social actors (including linguists, scholars, and activists). But by incorporating in-depth fieldwork with groups that speak Kaqchikel and K’iche’ along with analyses of Spanish-language discourses, Maya Ethnolinguistic Identity also shows how some individuals in urban, bilingual Indian communities have disrupted the essentializing projects of multiculturalism. And by focusing on ideologies of language, the author is able to explicitly link linguistic forms and functions with larger issues of consciousness, gender politics, social positions, and the forging of hegemonic power relations.

Read an excerpt here.