Mixed Race Studies

The Mulatto In The United States: Including A Study Of The Role Of Mixed-Blood Races Throughout The World

Greenwood Press Reprint
918 (Reprint Publication Date: 1969-05-08)
417 pages
ISBN: 0-8371-0938-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-8371-0938-1
DOI: 10.1336/0837109388

Edward Byron Reuter (1880-1946)

An historical study of the role of the mulatto in American society, with a discussion of the mixing of races in other parts of the world. Edward Byron Reuter (1880-1946) received his doctoral degree in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1919 for this dissertation. He served (in 1933) as the 22nd President of the American Sociological Society.

Read the entire book here.

Commentary by Steven F. Riley

For 21st century readers this book will most likely considered a racist trope on ‘racial mixing’.

On page 103 in Rainier Spencer‘s Spurious Issues: Race and Multiracial Identity Politics in the United States, he discusses Reuter and says…

…It would be best to begin with a frank examination of Reuter’s racial views.  With absolute bluntness Reuter assured his readers that the “lower culture of the Negro people is of course a simple observational fact and is to be accepted as such.  To question is to deny the obvious.”  He was quite clear about the relative cultural merits of the Negro and white races, which he posited as representing “the antipodal degrees of human culture: at the one extreme are the standards of West Africa; at the other, those of Western Europe.”  Nor did Reuter seem to think that there was any bias inherent in this arrangement, feeling certain enough of it to write that “no Negro questioned the superior ability of the white, and probably there is no Negro today who does not subconsciously believe the white man superior”…

It would be easy (and perhaps desirable) to dismiss the influence of Reuter, but according to his biography at the American Sociological Association:

…Reuter was an active and influential participant in the development of the sociological profession, serving as president of the American Sociological Society in 1933, as secretary-treasurer of the Sociological Research Association from 1936 to 1938 and as president of this group in 1939. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. From 1928 until a few months before his death in 1946, he was consulting editor of the McGraw-Hill “Publications in Sociology” series. He served approximately ten years as an advisory editor of The American Journal of Sociology….

From Black to Biracial: Transforming Racial Identity Among Americans

Praeger Publishers an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group
1998
160 pages
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Paperback ISBN: 0-275-96744-1; ISBN-13: 978-0-275-96744-4

Kathleen Odell Korgen, Professor of Sociology
William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey

Is a person with both a white and African American parent black?  Thirty years ago in American society the answer would have been yes. Today, the answer most likely depends on whom you ask. According to the U.S. Census, a person with both a black and a white parent is, in fact, black. However, most young persons who fit this description describe themselves as biracial, both black and white. Most young Americans, whatever their racial background, agree.  Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 signaled the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement, a transformation has occurred in the racial self-definition of Americans with both an African American and a white parent. This book describes the transformation and explains why it has occurred and how it has come about. Through extensive research and dozens of interviews, Korgen describes how the transformation has its roots in the historical and cultural transitions in U.S. society since the Civil Rights era. A ground breaking book, From Black to Biracial will help all Americans understand the societal implications of the increasingly multiracial nature of our population. From affirmative action to the present controversy over the U.S. Census 2000, the repercussions of the transformation in racial identity related here affect all race-based aspects of our society. Students and faculty in sociology and multicultural studies, business leaders, and general readers alike will benefit from reading this work.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Transformation of Racial Identity
• Biracial Americans: White, Black, Both, Neither
• Black by Definition or The Best of Both Worlds?
• The Transformation: From Black to Biracial
• Turning Points: Biracial College Students and Dating
• Marginality and the Biracial American
• Identities and Transformation
• Public Policy Implications
• Appendix: Notes on Methodology
• Bibliography
• Index

Claiming Place: Biracial Young Adults of the Post-Civil Rights Era

Praeger
2000-11-30
208 pages
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-89789-760-0
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-313-06507-1

Marion Kilson, Dean of the Graduate School
Salem State College, Massachusetts

Born in the 1960s, the middle-class Biracial Americans of this study are part of a transitional cohort between the hidden biracial generations of the past and the visible blended generations of the future. As individuals, they have variously dealt with their ambiguous status in American society; as a generation, they share common existential realities in relation to White culture.

During the last decade of the 20th century public awareness of mixed race Americans increased significantly, in no small part because there has been a substantial increase in interracial marriages and offspring since 1960. This study, based on ethnographic interviews, provides an historical overview of the study of Biracial Americans in the social sciences, a sociological profile of project participants, sociocultural discussions of family and race as well as racial identity choices, and examinations of racial realities in adult lives and of recurrent systemic and personal life themes. The textual part of the book demonstrates the diversity of perception and experience regarding race and identity of these biracial young adults. The Epilogue not only reviews major findings pertaining to this transitional generation of Biracial Americans but discusses biraciality and the deconstruction of race in contemporary American society. An extensive bibliography of popular and scholarly sources concludes the book.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Biracial American Experience in Post-Civil Rights Era
Biracial Americans
Biracial Americans and Their Families
Biracial American Identity Choices
Racial Realities in Adult Biracial American Lives
Biracial American Life Themes
Biracial American Voices
Development of Racial Identities
Childhood Memories of Race
Family Relationships Remembered
Assessments of Biracial American Experiences
Epilogue
Bibliography

Who Is Black? One Nation’s Definition

Penn State Press
2001 (Originally published in 1992)
232 pages
6 x 9
ISBN 978-0-271-02172-0

F. James Davis, Professor Emeritus of Sociology
Illinois State University

Winner of the 1992 Outstanding Book on the Subject of Human Rights from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States.

Tenth Anniversary Edition

Reprinted many times since its first publication in 1991, Who Is Black? has become a staple in college classrooms throughout the United States, helping students understand this nation’s history of miscegenation and the role that the “one-drop rule” has played in it. In this special anniversary edition, the author brings the story up to date in an epilogue. There he highlights some revealing responses to Who Is Black? and examines recent challenges to the one-drop rule, including the multiracial identity movement and a significant change in the census classification of racial and ethnic groups.

Table of Contents

• PREFACE
• CHAPTER ONE: THE NATION’S RULE
  • The One-Drop Rule Defined
  • Black Leaders, But Predominantly White
  • Plessy, Phipps, and Other Challenges in Courts
  • Census Enumeration of Blacks
  • Uniqueness of the One-Drop Rule
• CHAPTER TWO: MISCEGENATION AND BELIEFS
  • Racial Classification and Miscegenation
  • Racist Beliefs About Miscegenation
  • The Judge Brady Paradox
  • Miscegenation in Africa and Europe
  • Race vs. Beliefs About Race
• CHAPTER THREE: CONFLICTING RULES
  • Early Miscegenation in the Upper South: The Rule Emerges
  • South Carolina and Louisiana: A Different Rule
  • Miscegenation on Black Belt Plantations
  • Reconstruction and the One-Drop Rule
  • The Status of Free Mulattoes, North and South
  • The Emergence and Spread of the One-Drop Rule
• CHAPTER FOUR: THE RULE BECOMES FIRM
  • Creation of the Jim Crow System
  • The One-Drop Rule Under Jim Crow
  • Effects of the Black Renaissance of the 1920s
  • The Rule and Myrdal’s Rank Order of Discriminations
  • Sexual Norms and the Rule: Jim Crow vs. Apartheid
  • Effects of The Fall of Jim Crow
  • De Facto Segregation and Miscegenation
  • Miscegenation Since the 1960s
  • Development of the One-Drop Rule in the Twentieth Century
• CHAPTER FIVE: OTHER PLACES, OTHER DEFINITIONS
  • Racial Hybrid Status Lower Than Both Parents Groups
  • Status Higher Than Either Parent Group
  • In-Between Status: South Africa and Others
  • Highly Variable Class Status: Latin America
  • Two Variants in the Caribbean
  • Equality for the Racially Mixed in Hawaii
  • Same Status as the Subordinate Group: The One-Drop Rule
  • Status of an Assimilating Minority
  • Contrasting Socially Constructed Rules
• CHAPTER SIX: BLACK ACCEPTANCE OF THE RULE
  • Alex Haley, Lillian Smith, and Others
  • Transracial Adoptions and the One-Drop Rule
  • Rejecton of the Rule: Garvey, American Indians, and Others
  • Black Acceptance: Reasons and Implications
• CHAPTER SEVEN: AMBIGUITIES, STRAINS, CONFLICTS, AND TRAUMAS
  • The Death of Walter White’s Father and Other Traumas
  • Collective Anxieties About Racial Identity: Some Cases
  • Personal Identity: Seven Modes of Adjustment
  • Lena Home’s Struggles with Her Racial Identity
  • Problems of Administering the One-Drop Rule
  • Misperceptions of the Racial Identity of South Asians, Arabs, and Others
  • Sampling Errors in Studying American Blacks
  • Blockage of Full Assimilation of Blacks
  • Costs of the One-Drop Rule
• CHAPTER EIGHT: ISSUES AND PROSPECTS
  • A Massive Distortion? A Monstrous Myth?
  • Clues for Change in Deviations from the Rule
  • Clues for Change in Costs of the Rule
  • Possible Direction: Which Alternative?
  • Prospects for the Future
• EPILOGUE TO THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY
• EDITION
• WORKS CITED
• INDEX

Notes of a White Black Woman: Race, Color, Community

Penn State Press
1995
206 pages
6 x 9
cloth: ISBN 978-0-271-01430-2
paper: ISBN 978-0-271-02124-9

Judy Scales-Trent, Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar, Professor Emerita
State Univerisity of New York at Buffalo Law School

“I remember one time in particular, after the cab I was in crashed into the car in front, then backed into the one behind. A policeman stopped to help.  As he was taking down my name and address, I noticed that he had checked the ‘white’ box.  ‘Officer,’ I said politely, ‘you made an error on your form. I am not white. I am black.’ He gave me a long, bored look, decided not to discuss it, and said, ‘Sure, lady.  If you say so.’ If I say so? If I say so!  As if it were my idea!  I was enraged at his assumption that all of this—the categories, the racial purity laws, the lives that are stomped, mangled, ruined because of those categories and those laws ïwas based on my say-so.  If I said so, we would do away with all of it ïthe sickness and fear, the need to classify as a way to control, the need to make some appear smaller so that others can appear larger. ‘If I say so’ indeed.”

While the “one-drop rule” in the United States dictates that people with any African ancestry are black, many black Americans have white skin.  Notes of a White Black Woman is one woman’s attempt to describe what it is like to be a “white” black woman and to live simultaneously inside and outside of both white and black communities.

Law professor Judy Scales-Trent begins by describing how our racial purity laws have operated over the past four hundred years.  Then, in a series of autobiographical essays, she addresses how race and color interact in relationships between men and women, within families, and in the larger community.  Scales-Trent ultimately explores the question of what we really mean by “race” in this country, once it is clear that race is not a tangible reality as reflected through color.

Scales-Trent uses autobiography both as a way to describe these issues and to develop a theory of the social construction of race.  She explores how race and color intertwine through black and white families and across generations; how members of both black and white communities work to control group membership; and what happens to relations between black men and women when thelayer of color is placed over the already difficult layer of race.  She addresses how one can tell–and whether one can tell–who, indeed, is “black” or “white.”  Scales-Trent also celebrates the richness of her bicultural heritage and shows how she has revised her teaching methods to provide her law students with a multicultural education.

The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity in the United States (2nd Edition)

Prentice Hall
2001
525 pages
Paperback ISBN-10: 0130283231; ISBN-13:  9780130283238

Edited By:

Joan Ferrante
Northern Kentucky University

Prince Brown, Jr.
Northern Kentucky University

For undergraduate courses in race and ethnic relations.

This groundbreaking collection of classic and cutting edge sociological research gives special attention to the social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States. It offers an in-depth and eye-opening analysis of (a) the power of racial classification to shape our understanding of race and race relations, (b) the way in which the system came into being and remains, and (c) the real consequences this system has on life chances.

I. THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES.
Patricia Riley, Adventures of an Indian Princess. Timothy Egan, Expelled in 1877, Indian Tribe is Now Wanted as a Resource. Lawrence Otis Graham, Black Man with a Nose Job. Garrett Hongo, Culture Wars in Asian America. Andrea Kim, Born and Raised in Hawaii, But Not Hawaiian. Yolanda Adams, Don’t Want to Be Black Anymore. Mitzi Uehara-Carter, On Being Blackanese. Joan Ferrante, Six Case Studies. Dympna Ugwu-Oju, What Will My Mother Say. Paul Andrew Dawkins, Apologizing for Being a Black Male. Judy Scales-Trent, Choosing Up Sides. Marilyn Halter, Identity Matters: The Immigrant Children. Sarah Van’t Hul, How It Was for Me. Joseph Tovares, Mojado Like Me. Yuri Kochiyama, Then Came the War.

II. CLASSIFYING PEOPLE BY RACE.
Paul Knepper, Historical Origins of the Prohibition of Multiracial Legal Identity in the State and the Nation. Federal Statistical Directive No. 15 THE U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, OMB’s Decisions: Revisions to Federal Statistical Directive. Prince Brown, Jr., Biology and the Social Construction of the “Race” Concept. Ian F. Haney Lopez, The Mean Streets of Social Race. Jack D. Forbes, “Indian” and “Black” as Radically Different Categories. Michael Granberry, A Tribe’s Battle for Its Identity. Madison Hemings, The Memoirs of Madison Hemings. Ariela J. Gross, Litigating Whiteness. Laura L. Lovett, Invoking Ancestors. Angelo N. Ancheta, Race Relations in Black and White . Time Magazine, How to Tell Your Friends From the Japs.

III. ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION.
The U.S. Bureau of the Census, Questions Related to Ethnicity. Luis Angel Toro, Directive No. 15 and Self-Identification. Himilce Novas, What’s in a Name? Julie E. Sprott, The Mingling of Alaska Natives with “Foreigners”: A Brief Historical Overview. Mary C. Waters, Choosing an Ancestry. David Steven Cohen, Reflections on American Ethnicity. Yen Le Espiritu, Theories of Ethnicity. Rudolph J. Vecoli, Are Italian-Americans Just White Folk? Peter D. Salins, Americans United by Myths.

IV. THE PERSISTENCE, FUNCTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL CLASSIFICATION.
Judy Scales-Trent, On Being Like a Mule. Article XIX, Chinese, Constitution of the State of California, 1872; Repealed, November 4, 1952, State of California. Howard Zinn, Persons of Mean and Vile Condition. Stephen Jay Gould, Science and Jewish Immigration. J. A. Rogers, Remarks on the First Two Volumes of Sex and Race. Prince Brown, Jr., Why “Race” Makes No Scientific Sense: The Case of Africans and Native Americans. Albert Jacquard, Science, Pseudo-science and Racism. Charles A Gallagher, White Reconstruction in the University. Trina Grillo and Stephanie M. Wildman, Taking Back the Center. The U.S. Supreme Court, Plessy v. Ferguson. Cheryl I. Harris, Plessy. Albert Jacquard, Declaration of Athens: Scientists Speak Out Against Racism.

V. TOWARD A NEW PARADIGM: TRANSCENDING CATEGORIES.
Vivian J. Rohrl, The Anthropology of Race: A Study of Ways of Looking at Race. Letter from Thomas Jefferson: Virginia’s Definition of a Mulatto. Cruz Reynoso, Ethnic Diversity: Its Historical and Constitutional Roots. Erich Loewy, Making Good Again. Stephen H. Caldwell and Rebecca Popenoe, Perceptions and Misperceptions of Skin Color. Selected Discrimination Cases Handled by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1999. Nicholas Peroff, Indianess. K.C. Cole, Brain’s Use of Shortcuts Can Be A Route to Bias. Richard T. Schaefer, Talking Past One Another. Ward Churchill, Let’s Spread the “Fun” Around: The Issue of Sports Team Names and Mascots. Lawrence Otis Graham, The Rules of Passing. Anthony S. Parent and Susan Brown Wallace, Childhood and Sexual Identity Under Slavery. Patricia Hill Collins, Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection. Bruce N. Simon, White-Blindness. Robert Jensen, White Privilege Shapes the U.S. Robert Jensen, More Thoughts on Why the System of White Privilege is Wrong.

The Effects of Mixed-Race Households on Residential Segregation

Journal Urban Geography
Issue Volume 28, Number 6, August 16-September 30, 2007
Online Date: 2007-11-27
Pages 554-577
ISSN: 0272-3638
DOI 10.2747/0272-3638.28.6.554

Mark Ellis
University of Washington

Steven R. Holloway
University of Georgia

Richard Wright
Dartmouth College

Margaret East
The University of Texas, Arlington

This paper investigates how household-scale racial mixing affects measurements of neighborhood-scale racial segregation. This topic is increasingly important as mixed-race households are becoming more common across the United States.  Specifically, our research asks two questions: What is the sensitivity of neighborhood racial segregation measures to levels of household-scale racial mixing? And what is the relationship between neighborhood racial diversity and the presence of mixed-race households? We answer these questions with an analysis that uses confidential long-form data from the 1990 U.S. census. These data provide information on household racial composition at the tract level. The results show that racial mixing within households has meaningful effects on measurements of neighborhood segregation, suggesting that patterns of mixed-race household formation and residential location condition understandings of neighborhood segregation dynamics. We demonstrate that mixed-race households are a disproportionate source of neighborhood diversity in the least racially plural neighborhoods. This article also reflects on the complications that mixed-race households pose for the interpretations of neighborhood-scale segregation and cautions against drawing conclusions about residential desegregation based on racial mixing in households.

Read or purchase the article here.

New Faces in a Changing America: Multiracial Identity in the 21st Century

SAGE Publications, Inc.
Paperback ISBN: 9780761923008
2001
432 pages

Edited by

Loretta I. Winters
California State University, Northridge

Herman L. DeBose
California State University, Northridge

How multiracial people identify themselves can have major consequences on their positions in their families, communities and society. Even the U.S. Census has recognized the rapidly increasing numbers of those who consider themselves multiracial, adding a new racial category to the 2000 Census form: two or more races.

New Faces in a Changing America: Multiracial Identity in the 21st Century examines the multiracial experience, its history and the political issues and consequences surrounding biracial and multiracial identity, bringing together top names in the field to give readers cutting edge views and insights gained from contemporary research.

This important new text follows the trail blazed by Maria Root, who contributes its opening chapter. An introduction places the issues of multiracial identity into context via a discussion of U.S. Census data and debates, providing an overview of the varied readings to come covering such topics as:

• Race as a social, rather than biological, construction
• The Multiracial Movement
• Racial/Ethnic Groups in America and Beyond
• Race, Gender & Hierarchy
• Gang Affiliation and Self-Esteem
• Black/White Interracial Couples and the Beliefs that Help Them to Bridge the Racial Divide

The book concludes with “The Multiracial Movement: Harmony and Discord,” by co-editor Loretta Winters, an epilogue putting the readings into perspective according to three models in the multiracial identity literature: the Multiracial Movement model, the Counter Multiracial movements model and the Ethnic Movement model.

Timely and comprehensive in its range of topics, this is an important resource for many audiences: students in Ethnic Studies, Race Relations and related courses; human service professionals including psychologists, counselors, social workers and school personnel and, importantly, multiracial individuals themselves.

Mixed Heritage – Identity, Policy and Practice

Runnymede Trust
ISBN-10: 0-9548389-6-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-9548389-6-6
EAN: 9780954838966
40 pages
September 2007

Edited by Jessica Mai Sims

Although they are often invisible in debates on race and ethnicity, the 2001 census reveals that the ‘Mixed’ population is the third largest ethnic category in the UK, with predictions that it will become the single largest minority group recognised by the Census by the end of 2020.

Over the summer months we have developed our thinking on this area of study through a seminars, roundtables, and conferences by partnering with the CRE, CLG, and London South Bank’s Families and Social Capital Research Group. Through this partnership we have established the following series of activity that forms that basis for future work on mixed heritage, which seeks to challenge the prevalent understandings and assumptions of the people who are thought to comprise of this group.

Table of Contents

• Foreword – Rob Berkeley

1. Statistics: The Mixed Category in Census 2001 — Charlie Owen
2. The Diversity of ‘the’ Mixed Race Population in Britain — Miri Song
3. Gendering Mixed-Race, Deconstructing Mixedness — Suki Ali
4. Thai-British Families: Towards a Deeper Understanding of ‘Mixedness’ — Jessica Mai Sims
5. Meeting the Educational Needs of Mixed Heritage Pupils: Challenges for Policy and Practice — Leon Tikly
6. Mixed Heritage: Perspectives on Health and Welfare — Mark R. D. Johnson
7. Adoption and Fostering Issues: ‘Judgement of Solomon’ — Savita de Sousa & John Simmonds
8. ‘Mixed’ Families: Assumptions and New Approaches — Chamion Caballero
9. It’s Time for Foundation — Sharron Hall
10. I loathe the term ‘mixed race’… — Linda Bellos
11. People in Harmony — Jill Olumide

• Biographical Information on Contributors
• Bibliography

Read the entire document here.

Rethinking ‘Mixed Race’

Pluto Press an imprint of MacMillan
May 2001
5.5 x 8.25 inches, 208 pages, 4 figures
ISBN: 978-0-7453-1567-6
ISBN10: 0-7453-1567-4

Edited by

David Parker, Lecturer and Faculty of Social Sciences
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Nottingham

Miri Song, Professor of Sociology
University of Kent

One of the fastest growing ethnic populations in many Western societies is that of people of mixed descent. However, when talking about multicultural societies or ‘mixed race’, the discussion usually focuses on people of black and white heritage. The contributors to this collection rectify this with a broad and pluralistic approach to the experiences of ‘mixed race’ people in Britain and the USA. The contributors argue that people of mixed descent reveal the arbitrary and contested logic of categorisation underpinning racial divisions. Falling outside the prevailing definitions of racialised identities, their histories and experiences illuminate the complexities of identity formation in the contemporary multicultural context.  The authors examine a range of issues.  These include gender; transracial and intercountry adoptions in Britain and the US; interracial partnering and marriage; ‘mixed race’ and family in the English-African diaspora; theorising of ‘mixed race’ that transcends the black/white binary and includes explorations of ‘mixtures’ among non-white minority groups; and the social and political evolution of multiracial panethnicity.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Rethinking ‘Mixed Race’ David Parker and Miri Song
1.  How Sociology Imagined Mixed Race—Frank Furedi
2.  Re-Membering ‘Race’: On Gender, ‘Mixed Race’, and Family in the English-African Diaspora—Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe
3.  Same Difference: Towards a More Unified Discourse in Mixed Race Theory—Minelle Mahtani and April Moreno
4.  The Subject is Mixed Race: The Boom in Biracial Biography—Paul Spickard
5.  Triples: The Social Evolution of a Multiracial Panethnicity: An Asian American Perspective