Mixed Race Studies

Shades of Gray

American Jewish Life Magazine
January/February 2007

E. B. Solomont

Lacey Schwartz had the typical middle-class Jewish upbringing in upstate New York. Until her 18th birthday when her mom told her she was the product of an affair with a black man. Now Lacey is making a documentary about her newfound life as a black Jew.

The problem was the boxes on her college application. The ones where you check white or black. Lacey Schwartz didn’t know which to check, so she sent a picture instead, which led the school administrators to enroll her as a black student, one who inexplicably had two white Jewish parents. That’s how she made it 18 years before blowing the lid off the family secret: That her mother had an affair with a black man, that she was the product of their union.

In a certain sense, the boxes still haunt a 30-year-old Lacey — now a Harvard-educated lawyer and successful film producer in New York City. American culture seeks to compartmentalize people, she tells me during a discussion of her work-in-progress documentary about black Jews in America…

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VIS409 Mixed Race Women’s Memoirs

Antioch University Midwest
Winter 2010

This course is designed as a multidisciplinary exploration of race, gender, and identity utilizing oral and written narratives of Black-white mixed race women from the mid-nineteenth century to the present as source material. Drawing from elements of cultural studies, African American studies, American studies, and women’s studies, students will construct critical and historical contexts for self-identity and perceptions of that identity in women of interracial descent.

An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege (review)

Libraries & the Cultural Record
Volume 45, Number 3, 2010
E-ISSN: 1932-9555
Print ISSN: 1932-4855
pages 375-377

Nena Couch, Curator and Professor of Theater
Ohio State University

The life of the librarian seldom is acknowledged beyond the confines of the community in which she or he is active; therefore, Heidi Ardizzone’s biography of Belle da Costa Greene, librarian to J. Pierpont Morgan and first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library, should be a welcome publication. Greene was a widely respected and successful librarian who made significant contributions to the development and refinement of Morgan’s collection until his death and continued her work with his son John “Jack” Pierpont Morgan, Jr. She was actively involved in the establishment of the Morgan Library as a public institution. Her work had national and international impact and as such is worthy of a full-length biography. Enhancing her story is her testing of boundaries: she was a woman in what was a man’s field, and she was of mixed race passing as white. However, Ardizzone’s primary interests are not in Greene’s significant professional accomplishments—although they are touched upon in An Illuminated Life—but in “Belle’s social life and experiences” (10) and in speculation about a woman…

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Understanding the Identity Choices of Multiracial and Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women Living in Germany: Identifying a Model of Strategies and Resources for Empowerment

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
October 2006
179 pages

Dominique Michel-Peres

This grounded theory study investigated the identity choices of highly achieving multiracial and multicultural Afro-European and Black immigrant women living in Germany and the role these choices played in their personal constructs of coping and self-empowerment. 10 openended narrative interviews, field observations formed the data base; whereby the field observations where used to affirm or disaffirm evolving hypothesis. The historical, social, and cultural context in which these women live is reviewed, and key terms such as racism and discrimination are clarified. The individual racial identity choice and coping strategies were analyzed, and a theoretical model was developed describing the a) causal conditions that influence and form racial identity choices, b) phenomena that resulted from these causal conditions, c) the contextual attributes that influenced type of strategy developed, d) intervening condition that have an impact on the type of strategy developed, e) the strategies themselves, and f) the consequences of those strategies. The components of the theoretical model are first described and then illustrated by narrative excerpts.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Abstract
Introduction

1. Conceptual Point of Departure
1.1. Bi- / Multi-isms and the Precariousness of Recognition
1.2. Racist Construction in Europe
1.2.1. European expansion and exploration:-its role in shaping images of Africans and of “races”
1.2.2. The stage is set: socio-historical and socio-cultural props
1.2.2.1 Social Darwinism and German colonialism
1.2.2.2. Internalized Colonialism
1.3. Representations and Projections
1.3.1 Postwar Germany’s Black children
1.3.2. Non-white minorities and the German educational system
1.4. Summary

2. Racism and Discrimination
2.1. Racism, Discrimination and Subjectivity
2.1.1. Defining racism
2.1.2 What is racism? Identity Choices of Multiracial & Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women in Germany
2.1.2.1. Axiom 1: Racism does not implicate the existence of races
2.1.2.2. Axiom 2: Racism implies the existence of social hierarchies
2.1.2.3. Axiom 3 Racism requires influence in social structuring processes
2.2. Racism and Racial Discrimination’s New Attire
2.2.1. Central Frames in Racism
2.2.1.1. Abstract liberalism
2.2.1.2. Abstract liberalism and its role in cultural racism
2.2.1.3. Cultural racism and self-fulfilling prophecies
2.2.1.4. Symbolic Racism Excurse: Germany’s discourse on immigration
2.3. Racial Discrimination : Subjectivity and Psychological Impact
2.3.1. The Psychological Impact of Perceived Racial Discrimination
2.4. Summary

3. Identity Construction, Patchwork Identities and the Stigmatized Self
3.1. Identity Construction and Patchwork Identities: Who am I?
3.1.1. Patchworks of Racial and Ethnic choices
3.2. Multicultural-Multiracial- Who am I?
3.2.1. Models of ethnic and racial identity development
3.2.1.1. Visible racial and ethnic group models (V-REG)
3.2.1.1.1. Cross’s Theory of Black Identity Development Identity Choices of Multiracial & Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women in Germany
3.2.1.1.2. Helm’s model of White Identity Development
3.2.1.1.3. Multiracial identity development models
3.2.1.2. Salience model: Ethnic Identity Development Theory
3.2.2. Implications for Afro-Europeans and immigrants
3.3. Cultural Differences and the Salience of Ethnic and Racial Identity and Oppositional Identity
3.3.1. Voluntary and involuntary minorities
3.3.2. Oppositional identity and the burden of “acting White”
3.3.3. Accommodation without assimilation
3.3.4. Personal and group attributions to racism and discrimination
3.4. Racial and Ethnic Identity’s Role in the Self-Esteem of Minorities
3.4.1. Self-esteem
3.5. Social Identity and Stigmatized Identities
3.5.1. Social identity and stigmatized identities
3.5.1.1. Coping with attribution ambiguity
3.5.1.2. Maintaining a sense of Self independent of the “spoiled collective identity”
3.5.1.3. Ethnicity, race, gender and other socially defined groups as developmental contexts
3.6. Summary

4. Identity Choices in Multiple Contexts: Concepts, Properties and Dimensions
4.1. Methodology
4.1.1. Participants
4.1.2. Procedure
4.1.2.1. The narrative interview: Identity Choices of Multiracial & Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women in Germany
4.1.2.2. The interviewing process
4.1.2.3. The interview
4.1.2.4. Underlying ethnographic aspects: field notes and observations
4.2. Verification of Concepts and Categories
4.2.1. Verification
4.2.1.1. Quality verification

5. Analysis and Results
5.1. Sources of Influence
5.1.1. Direct and indirect dispositional and situational sources of influence
5.1.1.1. Dispositional factor
5.1.1.2. Situational factors
5.1.2. Higher categories
5.1.2.1. Coping strategies
5.1.2.2. Personal characteristics
5.1.2.3. Social identity: content and salience
5.1.2.4. Threats
5.1.2.5. Opportunities
5.1.3. Core Category, phenomena, and consequences
5.1.3.1. Core category as causal condition
5.1.3.2. Phenomenon resulting from racial socialization parental racial-beliefs
5.1.3.3. Context in which coping strategies develop Identity Choices of Multiracial & Multicultural Afro-European and Black Women in Germany
5.1.3.4. Intervening conditions influencing coping strategies
5.1.3.5. Consequences of strategies against powerlessness, helplessness and victimization
5.2. Multicultural-Multiracial Narratives: Excerpts from two lives
5.2.1. Jennifer’s story
5.2.1.1. Explicitness of experienced discrimination and perception
5.2.1.2. Racial salience
5.2.1.3. Sense of self
5.2.2. Angela’s story
5.2.2.1. Attribution ambiguity
5.2.2.2. Parent’s experiences with racism and racial discrimination
5.2.2.3. Internalized racism and race salience

6. Discussion: Implications for Multicultural Counselling and Empowerment
6.1. Focus on Primary Socialization Issues and Subjectivity
6.1.2. Focus on strengths and assets

References

List of Tables

1. Ratio of German to Foreighn Students According to School Track in the Year 2002 in Germany
2. Discourse on Immigration as Represented in two Major German Publications
3. Summary of Salient Points in Poston and Kich Multiracial Identity Development Model
4. Table 4 Participants Ethnic Backgrounds
5. Dispositional and Situational, Direct and Indirect Factors

List of Figures

1. Conceptual framework: The embeddedness of identity
2. Identity construction as patch-working
3. Descriptive model of the relationship between ego identity and Nigrescence
4. Factor Model of Multiracial Identity
5. Paradoxes found in self-esteem research
6. Research results on the detrimental effects of membership in devalued Social-groups
7. Summary of research results on social-group membership and its Consequences
8. Results of research on the factors affecting social identity development and how they interact
9. In-group and out-group identification in relation to expectations and Aspirations; group vs. individual based strategies; and attribution style
10. The results of axial coding: Higher categories and their respective subcategories
11. Theoretical model for understanding idenitity and strategy choices of multiracial and multicultural women

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“What are you?” Biracial Perceptions of Persistent Identity Questions when Bodily Appearances signify Race

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association
Sheraton New York
New York, New York
2005-05-26 through 2005-05-30
23 pages

Erica Butcher
Ohio State University

This qualitative study examines the perceptions of Biracial females persistently questioned about their identity when bodily appearance suggests race. The participants frequently approached by random strangers and questioned about their race, articulate how they interpret identity questions. The “What are you?” phenomenon that they routinely experience, is understudied in the fields of interpersonal communication, sociology and psychology. Social Legitimacy is considered in relation to acceptance of racial identities when bodily appearance is not consistent with expectations. The participants experiences suggest that many people still rely on appearance as a signifier of race despite the growing multiracial population in the U.S. This study raises questions for future research that should consider how changing demographics in the U.S. might influence perceptions of bodily appearance in conjuncture with the construct of race.

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Mixed-race women’s experiences cannot be separated from the history of race and gender politics and contemporary racial debates. The history of hybridity is one in which bodies of mixed-race people have been observed, theorized about, and used as evidence in racial power debates, but their individual experiences are often disregarded. Women of mixed heritage, mixed white and “of color,” are caught in these politically charged, race-based controversies. Given general heteronormative assumptions, as women, and thus as people who can potentially bear offspring and who are expected to assume primary responsibility for raising children in a patriarchal culture, mixed-race women occupy a particularly charged social position. No matter what path a mixed-race woman chooses, she can be perceived as a traitor to both whites and people of color—a traitor to either side of her family, a traitor to equity, a traitor to cultural preservation, and a traitor to cultural purity.

Silvia Cristina Bettez. “Mixed-Race Women and Epistemologies of Belonging,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 2010, Volume 31, Number 1, pages 142-165.

The Social Position of White and “Half-Caste” Women in Colored Groupings in Britain

American Sociological Review
Volume 16, Number 6 (December 1951)
pages 796-802

Sydney F. Collins
University of Edinburgh

Sociological studies of colored minority groups in Britain have so far been undertaken only on a limited scale. But the ever-widening interest being shown in the social problems to which they give rise is indicative of the need for more research in this field. Little’s study of Negroes in Cardiff is perhaps the most comprehensive and best known published work on British colored minorities. A few minor studies by others are also confined mainly to Negro groups. The Moslem section remains still to be explored.

Colored groups have settled in a number of British ports and vary in the size of their population from a few thousand, as in Cardiff and Liverpool, to less than two hundred, as in Hull and North Shields. The circumstances determining their origin and development are similar in all cases. They were settled by colored seamen, most of whom married English women, and large increases in their population were stimulated by two world wars. Racial tension has sometimes arisen as a result of social pressure from a larger community, but in some instances the colored immigrants, in retaining those cultural elements which are alien to English society, have of themselves created social barriers. Colored persons of the Moslem religion are typical examples.

Two primary factors, race and religion, are basic to the two types of colored groupings often found as separate entities in the same locality. This paper is based on a sociological study, made recently in Tyneside, of two colored groups which for convenience will be called Moslem and Negro though the terms are not exclusive. For instance, a small proportion of the Moslems have certain negroid features. For a conclusive statement on the social position of women in colored groups, comparative
studies of a larger number of colored communities in Britain would be necessary. However, the assessment of their social position in these two groups may be taken with few modifications as applicable to colored groups in general in this country. The social position of white and half-caste women in these groups will be assessed in terms of their rights and obligations relative to other members of the group. Their position will be considered in two dimensions: firstly, from the point of view of their status relative to that of men; and secondly, with respect to the status and esteem scale of the total group.

The two groupings here concerned have both settled in the Tyneside region. The Moslem community is composed of a population of about 1,000 persons, concentrated near the dock area. It has a core of settlement of some sixty families living in modern semi-detached houses of two or three bedrooms to each family, constructed by the Municipal Authorities to house Moslems. The rest of the colored population reside in an area approximate to this core, occupying…

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Dreaming with the Ancestors: Black Seminole Women in Texas and Mexico

University of Oklahoma Press
December 2010
400 pages
30 B&W Illus., 2 Maps
6.125″ x 9.25″
Hardcover ISBN: 9780806140537

Shirley Boteler Mock, Research Fellow
Mesoamerican Archaeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin

Explores a unique and eclectic culture rooted in African traditions

Indian freedmen and their descendants have garnered much public and scholarly attention, but women’s roles have largely been absent from that discussion. Now a scholar who gained an insider’s perspective into the Black Seminole community in Texas and Mexico offers a rare and vivid picture of these women and their contributions. In Dreaming with the Ancestors, Shirley Boteler Mock explores the role that Black Seminole women have played in shaping and perpetuating a culture born of African roots and shaped by southeastern Native American and Mexican influences.

Mock reveals a unique maroon culture, forged from an eclectic mixture of religious beliefs and social practices. At its core is an amalgam of African-derived traditions kept alive by women. The author interweaves documentary research with extensive interviews she conducted with leading Black Seminole women to uncover their remarkable history. She tells how these women nourished their families and held fast to their Afro-Seminole language—even as they fled slavery, endured relocation, and eventually sought new lives in new lands. Of key importance were the “warrior women”—keepers of dreams and visions that bring to life age-old African customs.

Featuring more than thirty illustrations and maps, including historic photographs never before published, Dreaming with the Ancestors combines scholarly analysis with human interest to open a new window on both African American and American Indian history and culture.

Familial Ethnic Socialization Among Adolescents of Latino and European Descent: Do Latina Mothers Exert the Most Influence?

Journal of Family Issues
Volume 27, Number 2 (February 2006)
Pages 184-207
DOI: 10.1177/0192513X05279987

Andrea G. González
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor, Associate Professor, School of Social and Family Dynamics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Arizona State University

Mayra Y. Bámaca-Colbert, Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
Pennsylvania State University

This article examines gender and family composition differences in 98 biethnic adolescents’ reports of familial ethnic socialization and ethnic identity. Using analysis of variance, four groups (i.e., adolescent males with Latina mothers and European American fathers, adolescent females with Latina mothers and European American fathers, adolescent males with European American mothers and Latino fathers, and adolescent females with European American mothers and Latino fathers) are compared on the above measures. Results indicate that sons of Latina mothers reported the highest levels of familial ethnic socialization. No significant differences emerge between groups on a measure of ethnic identity.

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Fluidity without Postmodernism: Michelle Cliff and the “Tragic Mulatta” Tradition

African American Review
Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1998)
pages 673-689

Suzanne Bost, Associate Professor of English
Loyola University

I am writing the story of my life as a statue… I wish they had carved me from the onyx of Elizabeth Catlett.  Or molded me from the dark clay of Augusta Savage.  Or cut me from mahogany or cast me in bronze.  I wish I were dark plaster like Meta Warrick Fuller’s Talking Skull.  But I appear more as Edmonia Lewis’s Hagar—wringing her hands in the wilderness—white marble figure of no homeland—her striations caught within.  (Cliff, Land 85)

In “The Laughing Mulatto (Formerly a Statue) Speaks,” Michelle Cliff invokes past stereotypes of the mulatto and the sculptors who remolded them. From Edmonia Lewis (1844-1909)—the half-black, half-Chippewasculpor who gained international fame with the help of abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Lydia Maria Child—to Augusta Savage (1892-1962)—the Harlem Renaissance artists who sculpted busts of W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, and Marcus Garvey—black artists have been reconstructing images of African Americans.  The speaker of “The Laughing Mulatto” identifies with racial “betweeenness,” yet she also subverts racist conventions that privilege the whiteness within biracial African Americans. She wishes that her skin were darker: onyx, mahogany, or bronze, not white marble (Cliff, Land 85).  Her wish implicitly compares race to workable materials, as if racial identity were something that could be chiseled and molded by an artist…

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