Mixed Race Studies

Mixed Messages, Mixed Memories, Mixed Ethnicity: Mnemonic Heritage and Constructing Identity Through Mixed Parentage

New Zealand Sociology
Volume 25, Number 1 (2010)
pages 75-99

Zarine L. Rocha, Research Scholar in the Department of Sociology
National University of Singapore

This article explores the concept of mixed ethnic identity from a social memory-based perspective. Drawing on the personal testimonies of individuals of mixed ethnic heritage in New Zealand, the UK, Australia and Canada, the complex influence of collective memory on the construction of a mixed ethnic identity is drawn out, highlighting the contradictions and reconciliations negotiated by those who feel a strong sense of belonging to two groups, with potentially contrasting stories and memories. Participants express their feelings of belonging in multiple ways, showing how appreciation of heritage and internalization of family memories do not have to be equal nor experienced in the same way for both sides of the family. Rather, the unpredictable way in which collective memory shapes mixed ethnic identity indicates that each collectivity can have its own way of being understood for the individual, without reducing or denying its importance.

…The lingering idea of marginalization and internal conflict is particularly interesting from the memory perspective. Do individuals of mixed heritage experience internal conflict due to the different experiences and mnemonic heritages of their parents? Is it possible to reconcile “mixed memories”? Vivero and Jenkins (1999, p. 12) describe the “cultural homelessness” of mixed heritage, indicating that the lack of a coherent memory framework can lead to psychological distress: “Culturally homeless individuals may have the intense feeling and longing to ‘go home’; however, they cannot, because they have never had a cultural home… they cannot rely on memories of having had a cultural home”. In contrast, a number of recent studies have found that individuals of mixed descent have multiple and positive senses of identity, identifying to different extents with both sides of their heritage (Binning, et al., 2009; Root, 1992; Stephan & Stephan, 1989; Ward, 2006).

The reconciliation of mixed memories is illuminated by [Homi] Bhabha’s concept of a “third space” of hybridity, which illustrates new forms of identity and belonging where different cultures collide and collude (Ang, 1999, p. 558; Bhabha, 1994). In contrast to historical discourses of “hybrids” as the mingling of biologically separate “races”, this antiessentialist understanding of identity can instead highlight different forms of cultural recombination, whether based in ancestry or interaction (Bolatagici, 2004, p. 75; Gomes, 2007; Parker & Song, 2001, p. 4). Hybridity thus emphasises the fluidity and multiplicity of mixed ethnic identity, as constructed through memory and experience – suggesting that “cultural homelessness” may not be a lack of a home, but rather “…belonging at one and the same time to several ‘homes’ (and to no one particular ‘home’)” (Hall, 1992, p. 310)…

Read the entire article here.

The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the US Population: Emerging American Identities

Population and Development Review
Volume 35, Issue 1 (March 2009)
pages 1-51
DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2009.00260.x

Anthony Daniel Perez, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Charles Hirschman, Boeing International Professor of Sociology
Department of Sociology and Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
University of Washington, Seattle

Images and interpretations of the past, present, and future of the American racial and ethnic landscape are contradictory. Many accounts focus on the increasing diversity that results from immigration and differential natural increase as well as the proliferation of racial and ethnic categories in census data. Less attention has been paid to the formation and erosion of racial and ethnic identities produced by intermarriage and ethnic blending. The framers and custodians of census racial classifications assume a “geographic origins” definition of race and ethnicity, but the de facto measures in censuses and social surveys rely on folk categories that vary over time and are influenced by administrative practices and sociopolitical movements. We illustrate these issues through an in-depth examination of the racial and ethnic reporting by whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics in the 2000 census. The emerging pattern, labeled here as the “Americanization” of racial and ethnic identities, and most evident for whites and blacks, is of simplified racial identities with little acknowledgment of complex ancestries. National origin is the predominant mode of reporting racial and ethnic identities among Asians and Hispanics, especially first-generation immigrants. The future of racial and ethnic identities is unknowable, but continued high levels of immigration, intermarriage, and social mobility are likely to blur contemporary divisions and boundaries.

…America was a multiethnic and multicultural society from the outset. The original American colonies were formed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as frontier societies composed of multiple founding populations (Klein 2004: Ch. 2). First among these were the indigenous peoples of North America, who were gradually displaced or absorbed by the more numerous European settlers and indentured servants from various parts of the world. Africans were imported primarily as slave labor from the Caribbean and West Africa, although some arrived as indentured servants on terms similar to whites. In the middle decades of the seventeenth century, some blacks became free settlers, but by the close of the seventeenth century, slavery and African heritage became nearly synonymous (Fredrickson 1981). With unbalanced sex ratios in frontier settings, large populations of mixed ancestry soon emerged, particularly in Southern colonies (Davis 1991). While some unions were the result of intermarriage or consensual liaisons, there was also widespread sexual exploitation of black women by white slave owners (Fredrickson 1981: Ch. 3).

The ethnic and racial landscape became even more complex during the nineteenth century. Continental expansion added lands that had been home to Native Americans and peoples of mixed indigenous and Spanish origin, and successive waves of immigration from Europe and Asia fueled the rapid growth of an increasingly diverse population. Tracking the mixed and un-mixed descendants from these many threads is a theoretical possibility, but not one that can be easily accomplished with historical or contemporary data. The problem is that the differential rates of settlement, natural increase, and intermarriage (or sexual unions) that produced progeny of mixed ancestry are largely unknown. Small differences in assumptions about the relative magnitudes of these processes can lead to greatly different estimates of the ancestral origins of the contemporary American population.

An even greater obstacle to describing the ethnic makeup of the American people is the assumption that most people are able and willing to accurately report the origins of their parents, grandparents, and more distant ancestors. In many cases, knowledge of ancestral origins is passed along in families or communities, but in some cases these narratives are suppressed or simply lost to history. As a result, the racial and ethnic composition recorded in censuses, surveys, and administrative records reflects a large degree of subjectivity and even speculation, in addition to actual patterns of genealogical descent. Methodological studies of census questions about race and ethnicity, for instance, show that responses are affected, often remarkably so, by the format of questions, the listed choices, and the examples included in questionnaire instructions (Farley 1991; Hirschman, Alba, and Farley 2000)…

Read an excerpt of this article here.
Read or purchase the entire article here.

Biracial Utahns seeking identity

Deseret News
Salt Lake City, Utah
2005-03-12

Elaine Jarvik

They’re biracial — equally Polynesian and white. But most prefer to think of themselves as Polynesian, says University of Utah graduate student Kawika Allen, who recently studied 84 Polynesian-Caucasian Utahns.

Allen, who grew up with an Hawaiian mother and a Caucasian father, presented his findings Friday at the ninth annual Pacific Islander Awareness Week at the University of Utah…

…Growing up in Utah, Allen’s Polynesian friends sometimes thought he wasn’t Polynesian enough, and he wasn’t sure if he fit in his father’s white world either. That angst later led to a master’s thesis on biracial identity among Utah’s biracial Polynesians, who now number more than 3,000.

Although previous research of other biracial Americans found that children tend to identify more with the same-sex parent, regardless of ethnicity, Allen found that among Polynesian-Caucasian Utahns, children tended to identify more with the Polynesian parent, regardless of gender.

He also found that biracial Polynesians were more likely to receive negative messages about being biracial if their fathers, rather than mothers, were Polynesian…

Read the entire article here.

Unmixing for Race Making in Brazil

American Journal of Sociology
Volume 114, Number 3 (November 2008)
pages 577–614
DOI: 10.1086/592859

Stanley R. Bailey, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

This article analyzes race-targeted policy in Brazil as both a political stake and a powerful instrument in an unfolding classificatory struggle over the definition of racial boundaries.  The Brazilian state traditionally embraced mixed-race classification, but is adopting racial quotas employing a black/white scheme.  To explore potential consequences of that turn for beneficiary identification and boundary formation, the author analyzes attitudinal survey data on race-targeted policy and racial classification in multiple formats, including classification in comparison to photographs. The results show that almost half of the mixed-race sample, when constrained to dichotomous classification, opts for whiteness, a majority rejects mixed-race individuals for quotas, and the mention of quotas for blacks in a split-ballot experiment nearly doubles the percentage choosing that racial category.  Theories of how states make race emphasize the use of official categories to legislate exclusion.  In contrast, analysis of the Brazilian case illuminates how states may also make race through policies of official inclusion.

At the federal university in Brazil’s capital city, Brasília, a special committee was constituted in 2004 to evaluate the application file photographs of self-classified negros (read “blacks” or “Afro-Brazilians”) applying to the university via a new racial quota system. An anthropologist, a sociologist, a student representative, and three negro movement actors make up that committee, and their identities are kept sub secreto (Maio and Santos 2005). If the committee does not consider a candidate to be a negro or negra, then he or she is disqualified. The applicant can, however, appeal the decision and appear in person before the committee to contest his or her racial classification (Universidade de Brasília 2004). The State University of Mato Grosso do Sul has also adopted the use of photographs and a verification committee for a racial quota system (UEMS 2004). At that institution, the committee is made up of two university representatives and three negro movement actors (Corrêa 2003).

This unusual modus operandi highlights a period of instability in racial categories, associated with a novel phase in the political struggle for identity and inclusion by the Brazilian negro movement. Through a multifaceted process, but without disruptive protest or mass mobilizations, the movement has successfully pressured state actors to mandate negro inclusion in higher education and to encode that legislation with language emic to the movement. The label negro is not an official census term; the Brazilian state has for well over a century used a ternary, or three-category, format to represent the black-white color continuum that includes an intermediate or mixed-race category. In contrast, negro is part of a dichotomous racial scheme, counterposed to white, whose novelty in official contexts leads to the thorny issue of defining its boundaries. Nonetheless, some 30 Brazilian public universities have already adopted race-targeted policies (Ribeiro 2007).  Moreover, legislation is now before the national congress mandating that all federal universities adopt racial quotas…

…The Brazilian census has used the categories branco (white), pardo (brown or mulatto), preto (black), and amarelo (yellow or Asian descent) since 1940 and added the indígena (indigenous) category in the 1991 census. According to its 2000 census, Brazil’s racial or color composition is 54% white, 39% mulatto, 6% black, 0.5% yellow, and 0.4% indigenous. The correspondence of Brazilian census terms with a color continuum is often contrasted with the U.S. use of ancestry for classifying its population (Nogueira 1985). In the United States, ancestry has been historically understood via the rule of hypodescent (Davis 1991). According to that rule’s logic, for any person of mixed ancestry that includes some ponderable African extraction, all other ancestries are generally obviated.

In Brazil, the mulatto and black census categories are considered by negro movement actors, as well as by many scholars, to comprise persons of some discernible degree of African ancestry, whom they view as members of a negro racial group (Guimara˜es 2001; Ribeiro 2007). Prominent negro politician, movement actor, and scholar Abdias do Nascimento clarifies this specific vision of ancestry, color, and race in Brazil:

Official Brazilian census data use two color categories for African descendants: preto (literally, “black”) for the dark-skinned and pardo (roughly, mulatto and mestizo) for others. It is now accepted convention to identify the black population as the sum of the preto and pardo categories, referred to as negro, afro-brasileira, or afro-descendente. In English, “black,” “African Brazilian,” and “people of African descent” refer to this same sum of the two groups. (Nascimento and Nascimento 2001, p. 108)

In contrast to the traditional color classification scheme, this new system approximates the U.S. understanding of racial group membership (Nobles 2000, p. 172; Guimarães 2001, p. 173). That is, the negro-versus-white dichotomous classification scheme in Brazil similarly joins together individuals with some discernible degree of African ancestry into one racial group for race-targeted policy administration, in essence representing an attempt to clarify ambiguous boundaries by “unmixing” the population.

Mulattos and blacks in Brazil, however, may not view themselves as common members of a negro racial group (Agier 1993; Marx 1998). Winant writes of nonwhites’ tendency in Brazil “not only to deny, but to avoid their own [black] racial identity” (Winant 2001, p. 246; emphasis in original). Hanchard, too, calls attention in his work to Brazilian nonwhites’ “negation of their [black] identity” (Hanchard 1994, p. 22). The term negro, then, may be more a classification attributed to nonwhites by movement actors than a real social group embraced by the general nonwhite population (Nobles 2000; Telles 2004)…

To read the entire article, click here.

The Race Construct and Public Opinion: Understanding Brazilian Beliefs about Racial Inequality and Their Determinants

The American Journal of Sociology
Volume 108, Number 2 (September 2002)
pages 406–39

Stanley R. Bailey, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

Researchers hold that the racial democracy ideology fosters a rejection of discrimination-based explanations for racial inequality, thereby affecting antiracist mobilization. This study finds that Brazilians understand the discriminatory basis of inequality and that an attitudinal dimension associated with racial democracy strongly increases the likelihood of that understanding. Negative stereotyping produces a smaller opposite effect, and “race” is not a significant predictor. Finally, Brazilian and American racial attitudes differ considerably in explaining black disadvantage. These findings question perceptions of Brazilian racial attitudes and the efficacy of
dominant theories for their analysis, suggesting a context-driven approach to theorizing and for antidiscrimination strategizing.

…BRAZILIAN RACIAL ATTITUDES AND THE MYTH OF RACIAL DEMOCRACY
Historical Background

Gilberto Freyre (1946) is credited with popularizing the notion of racial democracy in Brazil in the 1930s. Confronted with scientific racism beliefs in the superiority of a white race and that “mixed” blood created degeneracy, Freyre proposed instead that “cross-breeding” produced hybrid vigor in humans, thereby enabling a bright future for the otherwise condemned “dark” Brazilian nation. He emphasized an uncommon flexibility on the part of Portuguese colonizers that made possible extensive miscegenation, and he claimed that “mixed” Brazilians (of three races: Africans, Europeans, and Indigenous) gave birth to a new metarace, constituting a new world in the tropics (Freyre 1959).

In this ideological construct, miscegenation became the motor behind Brazilian racial dynamics and racial democracy. Due to the extensive mixing, potential group boundaries blurred, rendering racism in the manner of U.S. segregation and polarization unintelligible. Unlike nations where ethnic and racial identities were stubbornly ascribed or asserted, in Brazil a universal national identity transcended particularist racial identification. What in other societies were considered incompatible social segments, and where group interests were national organizational principles, in Brazil they were united into Brazilianness. In sum, Brazilians viewed their society through “anti-racialism” lenses, as opposed to those of “racialism” in the United States (Guimarães 1999)…

Read the entire article here.

Looking in the Cultural Mirror: How understanding race and culture helps us answer the question: “Who am I?”

Psychology Today
2010-07-06

Jefferson M. Fish, Ph.D.

The Census and Race—Part I–Key Issues: What can science tell us about the census’s race questions? (2010-07-06)

The 2010 Census is well on its way to completion. Its controversial questions about race have raised many issues that deserve to be explored in depth. This is the first post in a multi-part series dealing with the census’s race questions and what we can learn from them about science, politics, and American culture…

The Census and Race—Part II—Slavery (1790-1860): How did the census deal with race during slavery? (2010-07-13)

…The term “color”–not “race”– first appeared in the 1850 census, with three options: white, black, or mulatto; and these options were repeated in 1860. Whatever folk beliefs about “race” Americans may have held prior to the Civil War, they were of secondary importance. Instead, the census questions were organized around the institution of slavery, and were aimed at getting the information needed to apportion taxes and allocate congressional representation.

The key to understanding these questions is political, not biological. The Three-Fifths Compromise, was the deal that made possible the formation of a national government consisting of both free states and slave states; and it did so by counting each slave as 3/5 of a person. (The constitution euphemistically avoided the words “slave” or “slavery” by referring to “other Persons.”) The interrelatedness of the three critical issues of congressional representation, the distribution of taxes, and the creation of the census is embodied in the way they are bound together in just two sentences. Here is the relevant part of Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution:..

Read part II here.

The Census and Race—Part III— Reconstruction to the Great Depression (1870-1940): How did the census deal with race during segregation? (2010-07-20)

…The terms mulatto, quadroon, and octoroon reify the non-scientific American folk concept of blood. Blood is a biological entity, and many people inaccurately believe that it is the same as genes. The following explanation shows why they are wrong.

Suppose that there are eight genes for race, so that a mulatto has four black genes and four white genes, a quadroon has two black genes and six white genes, and an octoroon has one black gene and seven white genes. Now suppose that a mulatto man and a mulatto woman have a lot of children. Each child would get half its genes from the father and half from the mother. One child might get all four white genes from each parent and be 100% white, another might get all four black genes from each parent and be 100% black, and other children might wind up with all the other possible combinations of white and black genes. However, American culture views mulattos as black (e.g., President Obama); and believes that two blacks cannot have a 100% white baby. This is why the folk concept of blood does not act like genes…

• The Census and Race—Part IV— Civil Rights and the Cold War (1950-1980): What is special about the census categories White, Japanese, and Chinese? (2010-07-27)
• The Census and Race—Part V—(1990-2010): How do Samoans differ from Tahitians on the census? (2010-08-03)
• The Census and Race—Part VI—Summary of Trends/Lessons Learned: What have we learned from comparing all of the censuses since 1790? (2010-08-10)

President Obama checks the “Black” box Evidently it’s official: Barack Obama is the nation’s first black president.

Psychology Today
2010-04-04

Samantha Smithstein, Psy.D., Clinical and Forensic Psychologist and Co-Founder
Pathways Institute for Impulse Control, San Francisco

This week, the New York Times reported that “It is official: Barack Obama is the nation’s first black president.” Evidently, President Obama chose to check the “African-American” box when defining his race for the 2010 census

…From the perspective of science and biological anthropology, race does not exist. In other words, there is not one gene, trait, or characteristic that distinguishes all members of one race from all members of another. In fact, eighty-five percent of all human variation can be found in any local population, and a full ninety-four percent can be found on any continent. In other words, there are no sub-species when it comes to humans; we are, in truth, one of the most genetically similar to each other species of all species on earth…

Read the entire article here.

When the Options Are Open: Racial Identification of Part-American Indian Children in Census 2000 

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
Atlanta Hilton Hotel
Atlanta, Georgia
2003-08-16
23 pages

Carolyn A. Liebler, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Minnesota

I will use data on part-American Indian children in the 2000 Census 1 percent- PUMS data (expected March 2003) to assess my hypotheses that thick racial ties within the family constrain racial identification, and that structural aspects of the community (group size, inequality, and racial heterogeneity) affect racial identification when racial ties are thin within the family. I use the case of American Indians because their high levels of intermarriage and complex patterns of assimilation/identity retention for generations provide a varied group of people who could potentially identify their race as American Indian. Several hypotheses are supported by similar analyses using 1990 data, signifying that racial identification among people with mixed-heritage is affected by the social world beyond individual psychology and racial ties within the family. However, additional analyses using Census 2000 data are necessary because people of mixed heritage could mark multiple races (or a single race) in 2000. This freedom of choice in racial identification opens the door for new insights into patterns in and reasons behind racial identification among mixed-race people.

Read the entire paper here.

“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.

Read the entire paper here.

Black Is, Black Ain’t: Biracials, Middle-Class Blacks, and the Meaning of “The Black Community”

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting
Hilton San Francisco
San Francisco, California
2009-08-09
46 pages

Cherise A. Harris, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Connecticut College

Nikki Khanna Sherwin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Vermont

Various scholars have claimed that forging a sense of group cohesion amongst Black Americans is a necessary step toward Black liberation. Our research questions the extent to which group cohesion is possible given the increasing diversity of Black America, particularly its socioeconomic and cultural diversity. In in-depth interviews with 33 middle-class Blacks and 40 Black-White biracials, we explore the variation in the Black experience and the challenges this presents for group cohesion. Specifically, we examine: 1) the similarities and differences in the experiences of both groups, 2) their experiences with rejection and marginality by other Blacks, 3) how they negotiate this rejection, and 4) the extent to which all of the above are shaped by culturally constructed ideas of Blackness. As is consistent with other studies, we find that ideas about “authentic” Blackness have lead to a splintering of the Black community along class and racial-cultural lines. However, we also find evidence of greater tolerance for the community’s racial diversity than its class diversity. Nevertheless, the data presented here suggest that the increasing heterogeneity of Black America poses significant challenges to group cohesion and thus the ability to mobilize for the sake of racial advancement.

…For Black-White biracials and middle-class Blacks, living between the prescribed cultural and class lines of Black America yield life experiences that differ significantly from what is considered the norm. As a result of their class status, Black middle-class Americans must often negotiate life in both Black and White spaces and frequently experience both spatial and philosophical differences from their Black working- and lower-class counterparts. Similarly, Black-White biracials must negotiate both of their racial heritages and manage their identities in both public and private ways. The experiences of these individuals indicate that living between the lines of socially constructed notions of Blackness carries a number of social and psychological implications. These realities raise questions about the degree to which both groups feel attached to other Blacks as well as the degree to which other Blacks feel attached to them, and thus the degree to which they perceive themselves and other Blacks as part of the fictive Black family, as Stubblefield proposes…

Read the entire paper here.