Mixed Race Studies

My Bones Are Red: A Spiritual Journey With A Triracial People In The Americas

Mercer University Press
2005
192 pages
8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
ISBN-10: 0865549176; ISBN-13: 978-0865549173

Patricia Ann Waak

In the late 1700s the roots of cowboy culture arose out of the Carolinas. These men and women were not the typical white ranchers that would be depicted in later stories and films. Instead they were a group of “tri-racial isolates.” While much is now being published about Melungeons, little has been written about the cowboy Redbones. The Redbones followed Reverend Joseph Willis to Louisiana in the early 1800s. He was the patriarch of the group and con-tributed his Baptist ministry to the spiritual composite that would make up their religious heritage.

My Bones Are Red primarily tells the stories of the Perkins family. They would stay in Louisiana for at least four decades before crossing the border into Texas. For the first time this book tracks family members who would be sequentially classified by the U.S. census as black, “free people of color,” mulatto, Indian, and white over a period of one hundred years. Historical evidence suggests the Perkins family and the families they married into were a combination of Native American, African, and British.

What started out as a quest to find the mother of her beloved grandfather, became for Patricia Waak a revelation about the diversity of her family. It became, in fact, a spiritual journey as she visited cemeteries, courthouses, and archives from Accomack County, Virginia, to Goliad, Texas. Filled with translations of old court cases, accounts from oral history, and the results of countless hours of research, she also invites us to participate in her own discovery through original poetry which introduces each chapter. Included are photographs, genealogical charts, maps, and copies of old documents.

The journey to discover the story of one line of her family, becomes for the author a farewell to her mother and an honoring of the people who contributed to who she is today. Patricia Waak’s career in the United States and overseas has dealt with population dynamics and their effect on human and environmental health. Most recently she has been the director of human population and environment programs and a senior advisor for the National Audubon Society. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including Planet Awakening. She lives in Colorado with her husband and two dogs.

Representing gods in a mixed-race society: Images, rituals and politics in María Lionza’s cult (Venezuela)

University of St. Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom
Centre for Amerindian, Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CAS)
Social Anthropology Seminar Room (Room 50, St Salvator’s Building)
2010-03-17, 15:00Z to 17:00Z

Roger Canals
University of Barcelona

Roger Canals, University of Barcelona, will speak on ‘Representing gods in a mixed-race society. Images, rituals and politics in María Lionza‘s cult (Venezuela)’.

Written Out of History

Pomona College Magazine
Pomona College, Claremont, California
Fall 2002
Volume 39, Number 1

Michael Balchunas

Spurred by a glimpse of family history, Professor Sid Lemelle is bringing to light a little-known aspect of the African Diaspora.

When the new people moved in, all eyes were upon them. There were comments about the way they looked, how much money they might have, what kind of work they did, their morals, their customs and their character. At first, it was all good. The newcomers, who were farmers, engineers, mechanics and other workers, wrote to friends left behind and extolled the virtues of their new home. That stirred pangs of fear among some residents, and a newspaper ran an editorial. More of these people might come, it said, and “since the Negro is a creature of imitation and not invention…they will degenerate…and [become] vicious…a nuisance and pest to society.”

The year was 1857, and the newcomers, from Louisiana, had settled near Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, about 50 miles inland from the Caribbean port of Veracruz. Their history, like much of the history of the African Diaspora, is virtually unknown.

Sidney Lemelle is working to change that…

…Another misperception is that the U.S. South was a strictly bipolar society of white masters and black slaves, he says. In antebellum Louisiana, a significant number of white planters, businessmen and government officials fathered mixed-race offspring, who became part of a stratum more privileged than slaves, other free blacks or poorer white residents, according to Lemelle. He is particularly intrigued by how race and racial identity issues were connected to property rights and ownership in Louisiana and Mexico in the 19th century. Building on the theories of UCLA legal scholar Cheryl Harris, he believes that “whiteness” was constructed by mixed-blood people and became the basis of racialized privilege; that “whiteness” was legitimized as a form of status property, which gave some individuals rights over others, even though both possessed African blood…

Read the entire article here.

Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico

Stanford University Press
2008
424 pages
13 illustrations, 2 maps.
ISBN-10: 0804756481; ISBN-13: 9780804756488

María Elena Martínez (1966-2014), Associate Professor of History and American Studies and Ethnicity
University of Southern California

María Elena Martínez’s Genealogical Fictions is the first in-depth study of the relationship between the Spanish concept of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) and colonial Mexico’s sistema de castas, a hierarchical system of social classification based primarily on ancestry. Specifically, it explains how this notion surfaced amid socio-religious tensions in early modern Spain, and was initially used against Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity. It was then transplanted to the Americas, adapted to colonial conditions, and employed to create and reproduce identity categories according to descent. Martínez also examines how the state, church, Inquisition, and other institutions in colonial Mexico used the notion of purity of blood over time, arguing that the concept’s enduring religious, genealogical, and gendered meanings and the archival practices it promoted came to shape the region’s patriotic and racial ideologies.

Nikkei Heritage: Intermarriages and Hapas: An Overview – Parts 1 and 2

Discover Nikkei (Japanese Migrans and Their Descendants)
Republished from Nikkei Heritage (The quarterly journal of the National Japanese American Historical Society)
2007-05-11

George Kitahara Kich, Senior Trial Consultant
Bonora D’Andrea

Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain, Lecturer in Sociology
National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Larry Hajime Shinagawa, Associate Professor Director of Asian American Studies
University of Maryland

Shizue Seigel

To be biracial and Japanese American means having many different labels from which to choose. For this historical overview, we will use “Hapa”, a term popularized by the Hapa Issues Forum, to mean people who have an Asian/Asian Pacific Islander parent and a parent of any other race. Our focus here is on those with a Japanese or a Japanese American parent.

There is no single Hapa experience. Over the decades, Hapas have had widely different experiences based on individual circumstance and background, as well as the time period and environment into which they were born. The history of people of mixed-race has been deeply influenced by the evolving social and legal contexts for interracial relationships and marriages, along with community attitudes about culture, tradition and belongingness. Legal barriers against mixed marriages have fallen; however, discrimination, prejudice, community fears and stereotyping still affect interracial marriages and interracial people today. Nonetheless, about half* of all Japanese American marriages since 1970 have been to non-JAs, and the birthrate of interracial and interethnic children with some Japanese ancestry now exceeds that of JA/JA children. The Japanese American community has been gradually welcoming Hapas as a significant and growing part of the Japanese American community…

Read the entire Part 1 of the article here.
Read Part 2 here.

But One Race: The Life of Robert Purvis

State University of New York Press
January 2007
293 pages
Hardcover ISBN10: 0-7914-7007-5; ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7007-7
Paperback ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7008-4

Margaret Hope Bacon (1921-2011)

Biography of famous black abolitionist and voting rights advocate, Robert Purvis.

Born in South Carolina to a wealthy white father and mixed race mother, Robert Purvis (1810–1898) was one of the nineteenth century’s leading black abolitionists and orators. In this first biography of Purvis, Margaret Hope Bacon uses his eloquent and often fierce speeches to provide a glimpse into the life of a passionate and distinguished man, intimately involved with a wide range of major reform movements, including abolition, civil rights, Underground Railroad activism, women’s rights, Irish Home Rule, Native American rights, and prison reform. Citing his role in developing the Philadelphia Vigilant Committee, an all black organization that helped escaped slaves secure passage to the North, the New York Times described Purvis at the time of his death as the president of the Underground Railroad. Voicing his opposition to a decision by the state of Pennsylvania to disenfranchise black voters in 1838, Purvis declared “there is but one race, the human race.” But One Race is the dramatic story of one of the most important figures of his time.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Ancestral Chart of the Purvis Family
• Introduction
• 1. Of Southern Birth
• 2. The City of Brotherly Love
• 3. Present at the Beginning
• 4. World Traveler
• 5. “We are Not Intruders Here”
• 6. To Aid the Fleeing Slave
• 7. A Time of Loss
• 8. Gentleman Farmer
• 9. “This Wicked Law”
• 10. “Are We Not Men?”
• 11. “A Proud Day for the Colored Man”
• 12. “Equality of Rights for All”
• 13. The Freedmen’s Savings Bank
• 14. “We are To the Manner Born”
• 15. “His Magnificent Record”
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Read the first chapter here.

Emerging whole from Native-Canadian relations: mixed ancestry narratives: a thesis

University of British Columbia
1999-04-25

Dawn Marsden

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in the Department of Educational Stuides.

After hundreds of years of contact, the relationships between the people of Native Nations and the Canadian Nation are still filled with turmoil. This is common knowledge. What isn’t well known, are the personal consequences for children who have Native and non-Native ancestors. This thesis is written with the assistance of eight people of mixed ancestry, who share their experiences, ideas, strategies and dreams, to help others who are dealing with similar issues. This thesis has been organized around the dominant themes and commonalities that have emerged out of eight interviews, into four sections: CONTEXT, CHALLENGES, STRATEGIES & GIFTS. The context that mixed ancestry individuals are born into is complex. Euro-Canadian designs on Native lands and resources resulted in policies that had, and continue to have, a devastating effect on Native people. Legal manipulations of Native identity, in particular, have resulted in the emergence of hierarchies of belonging. Such hierarchies are maintained by enduring stereotypes of “Indianness” and “Whiteness”. For some mixed ancestry individuals, negotiating the polarized hierarchies of Native and Canadian societies can result in feelings of being split, and the need to harmonize aspects of the self, with varying social environments. Various strategies are used to deal with such issues, internally and externally. Ultimately, through choices, strategies and transformations, it is possible to transcend the challenges of mixed ancestry, and to lead more fulfilling lives. My hope is that this thesis will be of assistance to people of mixed ancestry and to those trying to understand the complexities of Native- Canadian relations, at least to the point of inspiring more discussions and research.

Read the entire thesis here.

The erasure of the Afro element of mestizaje in modern Mexico: the coding of visibly black mestizos according to a white aesthetic in and through the discourse on nation during the cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution, 1920-1968

University of British Columbia
September 2001
166 pages

Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas, Associate Professor of Spanish
North Carolina Central University

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Faculty of Graduate Studies.

“The Erasure of the Essential Afro Element of Mestizaje in Modern Mexico: The Coding of Visibly Black Mestizos According to a White Aesthetic In and Through the Discourse on Nation During the Cultural Phase of the Mexican Revolution, 1920-1968″ examines how the Afro elements of Mexican mestizaje were erased from the ideal image of the Mexican mestizo and how the Afro ethnic contributions were plagiarized in modern Mexico. It explores part of the discourse on nation in the narrative produced by authors who subscribed to the belief that only white was beautiful, between 1920 and 1968, during a period herein identified as the “cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution.” It looks at the coding and distortion of the image of visibly black Mexicans in and through literature and film, and unveils how the Afro element “disappeared” from some of the most popular images, tastes in music, dance, song, food, and speech forms viewed as cultural texts that, by way of official intervention, were made “badges” of Mexican national identity.

The premise of this study is that the criollo elite and their allies, through government, disenfranchised Mexicans as a whole by institutionalizing a magic mirror—materialized in the narrative of nation—where mestizos can “see” only a partial reflection of themselves. The black African characteristics of Mexican mestizaje were totally removed from the ideal image of “Mexican-ness” disseminated in and out of the country. During this period, and in the material selected for study, wherever Afro-Mexicans—visibly Afro or not—are mentioned, they appear as “mestizos” oblivious of their African heritage and willingly moving toward becoming white.

The analysis adopts as critical foundation two essays: “Black Phobia and the White Aesthetic in Spanish American Literature,” by Richard L. Jackson; and “Mass Visual Productions,” by James Snead. In “Black Phobia…” Jackson explains that, to define “superior and inferior as well as the concept of beauty” according to how white a person is perceived to be, is a “tradition dramatized in Hispanic Literature from Lope de Rueda’s Eufemia (1576) to the present” (467). For Snead, “the coding of blacks in film, as in the wider society, involves a history of images and signs associating black skin color with servile behavior and marginal status” (142).

Read the entire thesis here.

Language and the Politics of Ethnicity in the Caribbean

Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean
York University, Toronto, Ontario
The Fourth Annual Jagan Lecture
Presented at York University on 2002-03-02

George Lamming, Visiting Professor
Brown University

The Jagan Lectures commemorate the life and vision of the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Caribbean thinker, politician, and political visionary. The series of annual lectures is founded upon the idea that the many and varied dimensions of Cheddi Jagan’s belief in the possibility of a New Global Human Order should be publicly ac-knowledged as part of his permanent legacy to the world.

This lecture was given by the renowned Caribbean writer and intellect George Lamming as part of the Jagan Lecture Series commemorating the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan. Lamming looks at the problem of ethnicity – and especially of relations between Africans and Indians in the territories where they form almost equal populations, namely Guyana and Trinidad – from multiple perspectives. He re-calls dramatizing strategies employed by the old colonial power in this region, strategies that are still used today by contemporary politicians. He proposes that race and ethnicity are socially constructed categories, and draws upon many Barbadian examples to illustrate the absurdity of racial prejudice in a Caribbean context where cultural miscegenation is so deep, and where habits of perception, accents, and tastes are so mixed, that wearing several categories of identity at once is common to all. His conclusion, however, is far from being a curse: the challenges of cultural, linguistic and ra-cial/ethnic diversity faced by the Caribbean constitute part of the wealth of the region, as amply demonstrated by its cultural workers, and its distinct traditions and peoples.

Read the entire paper here.

Colonial Proximities: Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871-1921

University of British Columbia Press
2009-05-15
288 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 9780774816335
Paperback ISBN: 9780774816342

Renisa Mawani, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of British Columbia

Contemporary discussions of multiculturalism and pluralism remain politically charged in former settler societies. Colonial Proximities historicizes these contestations by illustrating how crossracial encounters in one colonial contact zone — late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century British Columbia—inspired juridical racial truths and forms of governance that continue to inform contemporary politics, albeit in different ways.

Drawing from a wide range of legal cases, archival materials, and commissions of inquiry, this book charts the racial encounters between aboriginal peoples, European colonists, Chinese migrants, and mixed-race populations. By exploring the real and imagined anxieties that informed contact in salmon canneries, the illicit liquor trade, and the (white) slavery scare, this book reveals the legal and spatial strategies of rule deployed by Indian agents, missionaries, and legal authorities who, in the interests of racial purity and European resettlement, aspired to restrict, and ultimately prevent, crossracial interactions. Linking histories of aboriginal-European contact and Chinese migration, this book demonstrates that the dispossession of aboriginal peoples and Chinese exclusion were never distinct projects, but part of the same colonial processes of racialization that underwrote the formation of the settler regime.

Colonial Proximities shows us that British Columbia’s contact zone was marked by a racial heterogeneity that not only produced anxieties about crossracial contacts but also distinct modes of exclusion including the territorial dispossession of aboriginal peoples and legal restrictions on Chinese immigration. It is essential reading for students and scholars of history, anthropology, sociology, colonial/ postcolonial studies, and critical race and legal studies.

Table of Contents

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction: Heterogeneity and Interraciality in British Columbia’s Colonial “Contact Zone”
• 2. The Racial Impurities of Global Capitalism: The Politics of Labour, Interraciality, and Lawlessness in the Salmon Canneries
• 3. (White) Slavery, Colonial Knowledges, and the Rise of State Racisms
• 4. National Formations and Racial Selves: Chinese Traffickers and Aboriginal Victims in British Columbia’s Illicit Liquor Trade
• 5. “The Most Disreputable Characters”: Mixed-Bloods, Internal Enemies, and Imperial Futures
• Conclusion: Colonial Pasts, Entangled Presents, and Promising Futures
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Read the front matter and chapter 1 here.