Mixed Race Studies

Beyond Color-blind Universalism: Asians in a “Postracial America”

Journal of Asian American Studies
Volume 13, Number 3 (October 2010)
pages 327-342
E-ISSN: 1096-8598; Print ISSN: 1097-2129

Linda Trinh Võ, Associate Professor
Department of Asian American Studies School of Humanities
University of California, Irvine

Beyond the symbolism of President Barack Hussein Obama’s election is the unseen ways in which it is transforming the racial discourse in this country; however, whether it means a substantial transformation of structural inequities is more elusive. Does Obama’s election mean that the United States has moved beyond its historical legacy of slavery and institutionalized segregation? Are racial groups interchangeable in this colorblind universalism, so that one group can be merely substituted for another? We are in the process of digesting what his presidency means for Asian Americans on both a superficial or symbolic level, but also on the tangibles, namely the implementation of the campaign slogan “change we can believe in.” Recognizing that much remains uncertain for Asian Americans, I critique the connections, real and imagined, they have to the presidential election, provide cautionary notes on the post-racial narrative, and comment on the ongoing process and impact of racialization.

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Selling eugenics: the case of Sweden

Notes & Records of the Royal Society
Volume 64, Number 4
pages 379-400
DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2010.0009

Maria Björkman
Department of Thematic Studies, Technology and Social Change
Linköping University

Sven Widmalm
Department of Thematic Studies, Technology and Social Change
Linköping University

This paper traces the early (1910s to 1920s) development of Swedish eugenics through a study of the social network that promoted it. The eugenics network consisted mainly of academics from a variety of disciplines, but with medicine and biology dominating; connections with German scientists who would later shape Nazi biopolitics were strong. The paper shows how the network used political lobbying (for example, using contacts with academically accomplished MPs) and various media strategies to gain scientific and political support for their cause, where a major goal was the creation of a eugenics institute (which opened in 1922). It also outlines the eugenic vision of the institute’s first director, Herman Lundborg. In effect the network, and in particular Lundborg, promoted the view that politics should be guided by eugenics and by a genetically superior elite. The selling of eugenics in Sweden is an example of the co-production of science and social order.

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African Ancestry of the White American Population

The Ohio Journal of Science
Volume 58, Number 3 (May 1958)
pages 155-160

Robert P. Stuckert
Departments of Sociology and Anthropology
Ohio State University, Columbus

Defining a racial group generally poses a problem to social scientists. A definition of a race has yet to be proposed that is satisfactory for all purposes. This is particularly true when the racial group has minority group status as does the Negro group in the United States. To many persons, however, the matter of race definition is no problem. They view humanity as being divided into completely separate racial compartments. A Negro is commonly defined as a person having any known trace of Negro ancestry or “blood” regardless of how far back one must go to find it. A concomitant belief is that all whites are free of the presumed taint of Negro ancestry or “blood.”

The purpose of this research was to determine the validity of this belief in the non-Negro ancestry of persons classified as white. Current definitions of Negro may have serious limitations when used as bases for classifying persons according to ancestry (Berry, 1951). The terms African and non-African will be used rather than Negro and white when discussing the ancestry of an individual. Each of the former pair of terms has a more specific referent which is the geographic point of origin of an individual. At the same time, the two pairs of terms are closely related. Hence, this paper is the report of an attempt to estimate the percentage of persons classified as white that have African ancestry or genes received from an African ancestor.

This raises a question concerning the relationship between having an African ancestor and receiving one or more genes from this ancestor. Since one-half of an individual’s genetic inheritance is received from each parent, the probability of a person with one African ancestor within the previous eight generations receivingany single gene from this ancestor is equal to or greater than (0.5)⁸ or 3.9063 x 10³. It has been estimated that there are approximately 48,000 gene loci on 24 chromosome pairs (Stern, 1950). The probability that an individual with one African ancestor has one or more genes derived from this ancestor is equal to 1-(1-3.9063 x10^-3)^24,000 or greater than 0.9998. Having more than one African ancestor increases this probability. One final remark needs to be made. Some degree of African ancestry is not necessarily related to the physical appearance of the individual. Many of the genes possessed by virtue of descent from an African do not distinguish the bearer from persons of non-African ancestry. They are the genes or potentials for traits which characterize the human race. Nevertheless, these genes represent an element in the biological constitution of the individual inherited from an African…

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Ethnic identity of biracial individuals with one Asian parent

California State University, Long Beach
2006
66 pages
Publication Number: AAT 1437924
ISBN: 9780542893049

Christina A. Nguyen

A Thesis Presented to the Department of Social Work, California State University, Long Beach In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Social Work

The purpose of this study was to examine ethnic identity of biracial, Asian individuals. Level of exposure to Asian culture of biracial Asian individuals was examined to find if there was a significant difference between males and females and with which parent he/she identified more strongly (i.e., Asian parent vs. other parent) and how they were influenced by their Asian culture. Self-administered surveys were gathered from a sample of 32 biracial, Asian individuals.

Results indicated that there was no significant difference between males and females and their levels of exposure to their Asian culture. However, results did indicate that males identified with their Asian parent more often than their female counterparts. Overall, most respondents felt accepted by their Asian community. Implications for social work practices and recommendations for future research were also addressed.

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What Obama Isn’t: Black Like Me on Race

New York Daily News
2006-11-02

Stanley Crouch

If Barack Obama makes it all the way to becoming the Democratic nominee for President in 2008, a feat he says he may attempt, a much more complex understanding of the difference between color and ethnic identity will be upon us for the very first time.

Back in 2004, Alan Keyes made this point quite often. Keyes was the black Republican carpetbagger chosen by the elephants to run against Obama for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. The choice of Keyes was either a Republican version of affirmative action or an example of just how dumb the party believes black voters to be, since it was obvious that Keyes came from the Southeast, not the Midwest.

That race was never much of a contest, but one fascinating subplot was how Keyes was unable to draw a meaningful distinction between himself as a black American and Obama as an African-American. After all, Obama’s mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan. Other than color, Obama did not—does not—share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves…

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Trends in Mate Selection in a Tri-Racial Isolate

Social Forces
Volume 37, Number 3 (March 1959)
pages 215-221

Thomas J. Harte
Catholic University of America

Read before the twenty-first annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society in Asheville, North Carolina, April 11, 1958.

The “Brandywine” population of Southern Maryland is a tri-racial hybrid group which manifests many of the physical and social characteristics common to other known isolates located through the eastern part of the United States.  It is reputedly descended from mixed white, Indian, and Negro stock, although its most group-conscious members tend to reject the theory of Negro intermixture in their family background.  The skin color and hair texture of members seem to substantiate the theory of some white ancestry, and although a relatively high proportion possess some physical characteristics usually associated with Negro types, in general this population is marked by a high degree of “visibility.”  The Brandywine group is predominately rural. It has a total population of approximately 5,000.  Roman Catholicism is today, and has been traditionally, the religion of almost all of its members. Sixteen surnames are common in the population; four of these are unique to the group, the remaining twelve being more or less common among Negro and/or white families in the area.

The group has succeeeded in maintaining a considerable measure of isolation from the larger Negro and white populations through endogamous marriages as well as by residential and, to some extent, occupational segregation…

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The Variability of Hybrid Populations

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 16, Issue 3 (January/March 1932)
pages 283–307
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.1330160312

K. Wagner
Department of Anatomy
University of Oslo

On the assumption of mendelian inheritance it should be expected that hybrid populations, apart from the first generation of crossing, must show an increased variability as compared with the original ‘races’ that entered into the mixture. Assuming that the characters investigated are genetically very complex, i.e., that there is pronounced polymeria, the difference in variability between hybrid populations and the relatively ‘pure’ races would no doubt be diminished, but not entirely eliminated. The chances for segregation of a polymeric character are, it is true, very small and diminish greatly with an increasing number of fundamental factors, so that a very large body of hybrid material would be required in order to be able to count upon a variation effect, but polymeric characters in this absolute sense are certainly exceptional. If the complete emergence of a character is due to combinations of the factors abc, then ab, ac, or be will in many, perhaps in most, cases have some, effect. Neither does dominance play any decisive role for the variability rule here laid down, as the segregation of recessive types must bring about a considerable increase in the variability of hybrid populations, and, quite apart from this, it may be said that absolute dominance hardly comes into consideration as regards most of the anthropological characters.

Here, as so often elsewhere, changes of environment may have a disturbing influence, but these must necessarily be disregarded in a theoretical consideration of the matter. In case the racial crossing took place far back in time, it might be imagined that the high degree of heterozygosis occasioned…

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The Pocahontas Exception: The Exemption of American Indian Ancestry from Racial Purity Law

bepress Legal Series
Working Paper 1572
2006-08-18
47 pages

Kevin N. Maillard, Associate Professor of Law
Syracuse University

“The Pocahontas Exception” confronts the legal existence and cultural fascination with the eponymous “Indian Grandmother.” Laws existed in many states that prohibited marriage between whites and nonwhites to prevent the “quagmire of mongrelization.” Yet, this racial protectionism, as ingrained in law, blatantly exempted Indian blood from the threat to white racial purity. In Virginia, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 made exceptions for whites of mixed descent who proudly claimed Native American ancestry from Pocahontas. This paper questions the juridical exceptions made for Native American ancestry in antimiscegenation statues, and analyzes the concomitant exemptions in contemporary social practice. With increasing numbers of Americans freely and lately claiming Native ancestry, this openness escapes the triumvirate of resistance, shame, and secrecy that regularly accompanies findings of partial African ancestry. I contend that antimiscegenation laws such as the Racial Integrity Act relegate Indians to existence only in a distant past, creating a temporal disjuncture to free Indians from a contemporary discourse of racial politics. I argue that such exemptions assess Indians as abstractions rather than practicalities, which facilitates the miscegenistic exceptionalism as demonstrated in Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute.

Table of Contents

• I. INTRODUCTION
• II. ADVOCATING INDIAN-WHITE INTERMIXTURE
  • A. Support from the Founding Fathers
  • B. Assimilation Schemes and the Dawes Allotment Act
• III. EUGENICS AND THE RACIAL INTEGRITY ACT OF 1924
  • A. The Growth of the Eugenics Movement
  • B. Fear Ingrained in Law: The Racial Integrity Act
  • C. Accommodating the Elite: Redefining the Parameters of Whiteness
• IV. THE LEGEND OF POCAHONTAS
• V. THE VANISHING INDIAN
  • A. The Indian Grandmother Complex: A Different Kind of Birth for the Nation
  • B. To the Margins of Society: The Non-Threat of Indian Blood
  • VI. CONCLUSION

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Factors in the Microevolution of a Triracial Isolate

American Journal of Human Genetics
Volume 18, Number 1 (January 1966)
pages 26-38

W. S. Pollitzer
Department of Anatomy
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

R. M. Menegaz-Bock
Genetics Training Committe
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

J. C. Herion
Department of Medicine
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Triracial Isolates today attract the attention of the anthropologist, the geneticist, and the medical scientist as questions arise concerning the origin of such isolates, their history, social status, breeding structure, and inherited pathological conditions. This paper describes the physical, serological, and clinical characteristics of a hybrid population in northeastern North Carolina (Witkop et al., 1960; Menegaz-Bock, 1962), its racial composition, and the cultural and biological factors in its evolution.

History

The population can be traced at least as far back as the American Revolution. The most common surname in this region today is the same as that of two brothers, said to be descended from Cherokee Indians and whites, who fought in that war. The census of 1790 for the county in which the majority of this population now live lists this name only under the designation “all other free persons;” four of seven other surnames frequent in this population are listed as “free white,” while three are listed under both of these headings. Many of these names, well-known in the isolate today, can be traced through the census reports of the nineteenth century. In 1800, ten are listed, mostly under “free persons of color,” and the census of 1810 lists six of these as “other free persons except Indians not taxed.” By 1820, most of these names appear in the column “free Negro.” Eleven surnames common in the current population are listed in the census of 1830 as “free colored persons,” and most of these are listed under the same heading again in 1840. The census of 1850, designating free inhabitants as “white,” “black,” and “mulatto,” registers a dozen of these family names as “mulattoes” and half of these also as “white.” In 1860, the census for the western district of the county listed 13 of the common names as free inhabitants, either white, black, or mulatto. In the 1870 census for the township where most of the population now lives, five of seven last names common in the group include mulattoes. The census of 1880 contains ten names common in the township now, and all but two of these are to be found under “mulatto.” The census of 1890 was destroyed, and names are not released for the censuses from 1900 on…

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Re-imagining mixed race: Explorations of multiracial discourse in Canada

York University
December 2008
190 pages
ISBN: 9780494517864
Publication Number: AAT NR51786

Leanne Taylor

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

This dissertation analyses discourses of racial mixture, with particular focus on the Canadian context. I suggest that mixed race has been largely under-theorized in current racial and multiracial research and argue that this deficiency, as well as the controversies that mixed race often inspires, is an effect of the limitations in discourses about race, racism and identity. Throughout, I address many of the challenges, questions and controversies surrounding racial mixture (including struggles over identity, classification and the recent multiracial movement), and engage stories depicting experiences of mixed race people in Canada. I focus most closely on Lawrence Hill’s Black Berry Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada, Carol Camper’s anthology Miscegenation Blues: Voices of Mixed Race Women, and Shanti Thakur’s documentary Domino. I use their stories as a means of commenting on broader struggles around racialization, racial identities, and racial discourse in our present multicultural context—one that is increasingly placing unbalanced focus on ideals of colour-blindness and neo-liberalism. My study is meant to inspire a re-thinking of some key concepts in contemporary theories of race and mixed race and the growing societal claims that we are moving toward a raceless state. The issues and questions I raise in this dissertation are intended to address the problems and concerns that many critical theories of race and mixed race fail to consider. I argue that creolization theory, particularly Edouard Glissant’s theory of “Relation”, his attention to rhizomatic identity, and his challenge to linearity and fixity, offer a critical challenge that might move complex discussions of mixed race and multiracial theory forward and away from the restrictions of binaries, racial biologism, and essentialist identity politics.

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