Mixed Race Studies

The Population Variance of the Proportion of Genetic Admixture in Human Intergroup Hybrids

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
December 1971
Volume 68, Number 12
pages 3168–3169
PMCID: PMC389614

T. Edward Reed, Professor of Zoology and Anthropology; Associate Professor of Paediatrics
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

For each individual in a human hybrid population there is a proportion μi, whose value is usually unknown, that expresses the fraction of his genes deriving from a specified parental population. The distribution of these individual proportions about the mean proportion μ is not known for any large hybrid population in man. It is of interest to know whether the population variance of individual proportions (μi) can be estimated from the variation between different, independent estimates of the mean proportion (μ).This possibility was tested with data on Negroes of the Oakland, California area, by the use of some of the principles of analysis of variance. Even with a large sample and the useful Duffy blood-group system to indicate admixture, almost no information about the population variance of individual proportions is provided by between-sample variation in estimates of μ. It is concluded that group data on admixture proportions usually do not give useful information about the population variance. It is further concluded that a recent estimate of this variance by Shockley is in error.

Read the entire article here.

Caucasian Genes in American Negroes

Science (1969-08-22)
Volume 165
pages 762-768
DOI: 10.1126/science.165.3895.762

T. Edward Reed, Professor of Zoology and Anthropology; Associate Professor of Paediatrics
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Measurement of non-African ancestry is difficult, but it is worthwhile for several genetic reasons.

It is very difficult to describe the genetic history of a large, defined human population in a meaningful way. As a result there have been few opportunities, at the population level, to study the consequences of known genetic events in the recent past of modem populations. The Negro population of the United States, however, is one of the exceptions to these generalizations. The American individual to whom the term Negro is applied is almost always a biracial hybrid. Usually between 2 and 50 percent of his genes are derived from Caucasian ancestors, and these genes were very probably received after 1700. While it is obviously of social and cultural importance to understand Negro hybridity, it is less obvious that there are several pertinent genetic reasons for wishing to know about the magnitude and nature of Caucasian ancestry in Negroes. Recent data, both genetic and historical, now make possible a better understanding of American Negro genetic history than has been possible heretofore. Here I review and criticize the published data on this subject, present new data, and interpret the genetic significance of the evidence.

In order to put the genetic data in proper context, I must first give a little of the history of American slavery. The first slaves were brought to what is now the United States in 1619. Importation of slaves before 1700 was negligible, however, but after that date it proceeded at a high rate for most of the 18th century. Importation became illegal after 1808 but in fact continued at a low rate for several more decades (1, 2). The total number of slaves brought into the United States was probably somewhat less than 400,000 (3). Charleston, South Carolina, was the most important port of entry, receiving 30 to 40 percent of the total number (4). More than 98 percent of the slaves came from a very extensive area of West Africa and west-central Africa-from Senegal to Angola-and, in these areas, from both coastal and inland regions. Shipping lists of ships that brought slaves to the United States-and to the West Indies, often to be sent later to the United States provide a fairly detailed picture of the geographic origins of the slaves and a less complete picture of their ethnic origins. Table 1 gives the approximate proportions of American slaves brought from the eight major slaving areas of Africa. The contribution from East Africa is seen to be negligible, whereas the area from Senegal to western Nigeria contributed about half the total and the region from eastern Nigeria to Angola contributed the other half. An earlier tabulation for entry at Charleston alone (5) is quite similar, except that the contribution from the Bight of Biafra is much less (0.021 as compared to 0.233) and that from “Angola” is appreciably greater (0.396 as compared to 0.245).

At some early point in American slavery, matings between slaves and Caucasians began to occur. Quantitative data are lacking, and we can say only that most of these matings occurred after 1700. Our concern here is the genetic consequences of the matings the introduction of Caucasian genes into the genome (or total complement of genetic material) of the American Negro. We could, in theory, estimate the Caucasian contribution to American Negro ancestry in a very simple way if certain strict criteria were met. In practice it is not possible to show that all these criteria are met, but this fact has not stopped geneticists, including myself, from making estimates…

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The Sociological Relevance of the Concept of Half-Caste in British Society

Phylon (1960-)
Volume 36, Number 3 (3rd Quarter, 1975)
pages 309-320

G. Llewellyn Watson, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Prince Edward Island

Great Britain has a long tradition of social class distinctions and relations. Indeed, the early British railways of the nineteenth century had as many as four different classes of carriages or compartments for passengers, and these were based on an idea other that simply the ability to pay; they were based on the idea of the different kinds of people who should used them.

Today, of course, the existence in Britain of several thousand blacks from Britain’s lost colonies in the Third World has complicated the traditional world view and theoretical ideas about class relations. One very important aspect of this complication is the phenomenon of Half-Caste.

It is highly significant, from a socio-historical point of view, that in Britain, a class society, the children of mixed (i.e., black and white) sexual unions are characteristically known as Half-Caste. To full understand the socio-historical significance of this key concept and to grasp it in its dynamic perspective, one must necessarily utilize a mode of interpretation which would require that we refer to the cultural unity underlying the various world view of a given society in a given epoch. In this paper I propose to examine how the symbolic meaning of the concept of Half-Caste lies in its ability to typify and delineate the boundaries of inter-ethnic relations in British society…

Mai i ngā Ao e Rua–From Two Worlds: An investigation into the attitudes towards half castes in New Zealand

University of Otago, Dunedin
October 2006
91 pages

Suzanne Boyes

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), in Māori Studies at the University of Otago, Dunedin

This dissertation investigates the attitudes of others’ experienced by ‘half-caste’ or biethnic people of New Zealand, that is, people who have both Māori and Pākehā heritage. The dissertation combines the personal narratives of four half-caste people, my own story, and historical/theoretical literature to illuminate this subject. The dissertation introduces the topic by firstly, discussing the current identity politics in New Zealand, which has tended to dominate the political landscape as of late, and left half-caste people between the crossfire. Secondly, I introduce part of my own story as a half-caste person in New Zealand. In Chapter one, the pre-colonial origins of attitudes towards race, intermarriage and miscegenation are examined through an analysis of religious and scientific discourses. Chapter Two provides a basic understanding of Māori and Pākehā identity as separate entities, with the aim of demonstrating the binary opposites that have informed attitudes towards half-castes in New Zealand. The third chapter outlines a number of themes regarding attitudes towards the half caste people I interviewed as part of this research. The final chapter brings together literature and interview material through the lens of a Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People to provide an approach for looking towards the future of half-caste identity politics.

Read the entire dissertation here.

Organizers of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference to be Featured Guests on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox and Heidi W. Durrow
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Bonus Episode: Organizers of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference
When: Sunday, 2010-10-24, (20:00 EDT, 17:00 PDT), [Monday, 2010-10-25, 00:00Z, 01:00 BST]

Don’t miss out on this great chat and preview of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference—with the conference organizers!

Fanshen Cox, Tiffany Jones, and myself will participate in a Greg Carter (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) moderated round-table discussion titled “Exploring the Mixed Experience in New Media” on 2010-11-05 from 10:15 to 12:15 CDT at the conference.  For a complete schedule, click here.

Dr. Sue-Je Gage to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox and Heidi W. Durrow
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #178 – Dr. Sue-Je Gage
When: Thursday, 2010-11-04, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 16:00 CDT, 14:00 PDT)

Sue-Je Gage, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ithaca University

Dr Gage’s specific research focuses on citizenship, identity, blood, gender and transnationalism by examining the identities of Amerasians in South Korea. It explores how Amerasians as local, national and global citizens identify themselves and strategically use their identities to maneuver within Korean society and the globalizing world.

Download or listen to the podcast here.

Selected Bibliography:

• “The Amerasian Problem: Blood, Duty, and Race,” International Relations, Volume 21, Number 1 (2007): 86-1102.

Danielle Evans, an author straddling racial divides

Washington Post
2010-10-07

DeNeen L. Brown, Staff Writer

It is the tale of a biracial girl who is sent by her mother one summer to visit her white grandmother. But the grandmother immediately disapproves of her daughter’s child with the brown skin and long, curly hair. “If I thought my grandmother would like me better when my mother wasn’t around, our reunion quickly disabused me of the thought… ,” [Danielle] Evans reads.

The grandmother greets the girl, whose name is Tara, with an obligatory kiss, then tentatively touches her hair, which is twisted into tight cornrows.

“Did your mother do this to you?” Evans reads, standing in a black sweater dress in front of a stack of her books. A small crowd spills attentively before her into the aisles.

” ‘My hair?’

” . . . ‘Mommy can’t do my hair,’ I said. ‘A girl from her school did it for her.’

” ‘I swear, even on a different continent, that woman — When you go upstairs, take them out. You’re a perfectly decent-looking child, and for whatever reason your mother sends you looking like a little hoodlum.’

” ‘I am wearing pink,’ I said, more in my own defense than in my mother’s.”

The crowd laughs nervously. Evans continues to read. Some attendees will say later that they were astounded by the maturity of Evans’s voice as a writer, by the telling of stories of characters who seem so familiar. Depending on who is listening, the characters in the collection—titled “Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self“—could be a best friend or that girl down the street, but many of them are “outsiders,” says Evans, black or biracial people who are wrestling with race and the legacy of race in a so-called post-racial era…

…”Right now we have a moment with a lot of language about post-racialism and yet a lot of evidence that we are clearly not post-anything,” she says, “and there’s a lot of room for complication, contradiction and ambiguity, which is good territory for fiction.”…

Read the entire article here.

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

Riverhead Books an Imprint of Penguin
2010-09-23
240 pages
9.25 x 6.25in
Hardcover ISBN: 9781594487699
eBook (Adobe reader) ISBN: 9781101439470
ebook (ePub Ebook) ISBN: 9781101443477

Danielle Evans

Introducing a new star of her generation, an electric debut story collection about young African-American and mixed-race teens, women, and men struggling to find a place in their families and communities.

When Danielle Evans’s short story “Virgins” was published in The Paris Review in late 2007, it announced the arrival of a bold new voice. Written when she was only twenty-three, Evans’s story of two black, blue-collar fifteen-year-old girls’ flirtation with adulthood for one night was startling in its pitch-perfect examination of race, class, and the shifting terrain of adolescence.

Now this debut collection delivers on the promise of that early story. In “Harvest,” a college student’s unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront her own feelings of inadequacy in comparison to her white classmates. In “Jellyfish,” a father’s misguided attempt to rescue a gift for his grown daughter from an apartment collapse magnifies all he doesn’t know about her. And in “Snakes,” the mixed-race daughter of intellectuals recounts the disastrous summer she spent with her white grandmother and cousin, a summer that has unforeseen repercussions in the present.

Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one’s sense of identity and the choices one makes.

The social ambiguity of race and ethnicity

Campus Times
Serving the University of Rochester since 1873
2010-09-30

Victoria Massie

One of the reasons why I fell in love with anthropology is because I realized that race isn’t an inherent part of who we are. Through careful socialization, via standardized tests and my parents, I had always known that when asked my race, the appropriate answer was Black/African-American/Non-Hispanic.

But lo and behold, this year as I attempt to “naturalize” myself —  either by attempting to lose the weight that I have been hiding behind for so many years or cutting my hair to respect and appreciate the natural curls bestowed to me (in spite of mainstream society’s warped ideas about beauty, particularly Black beauty) — my physical transformation, seems to constantly dismantle my assigned racial category…

Read the entire article here.

The Japanese in multiracial Peru, 1899-1942

University of California, San Diego
November 2009
335 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3355652

Stephanie Carol Moore

This study analyzes the integration of the Japanese into the politics of race and nation in Peru during the period from 1899 to 1942. The first generation of Japanese immigrants arrived in Peru at the apex of debates on national racial identity and popular challenges to the white oligarchy’s exclusive hold on national political and economic power. This dissertation examines how not only elites, but also working- and middle-class movements advocated the exclusion of the Japanese as a way of staking their claims on the nation. In this study, I argue that Peru’s marginalization of the Japanese sprang from racist structures developed in the colonial and liberal republican eras as well as from global eugenic ideologies and discourses of “yellow peril” that had penetrated Peru. The Japanese were seen through Orientalist eyes, conceptualized and homogenized as a race that acted as a single organism and that would bring only detriment to the Peruvian racial “whitening” project. Eugenics conflated women with their reproduction, leading “racial science” advocates to portray Japanese women in Peru as the nation’s ultimate danger and accuse them of attempting to conquer Peru “through their wombs.”

The Japanese men and women who settled in Peru, however, were also actors in their Peruvian communities. Many Japanese laborers, largely Okinawan, were participants in rural labor movements in Peru. Policymakers, hacienda owners, and local power holders, however, undermined class-based challenges to their authority by demonizing the Japanese as a cultural, racial, and political threat to the Peruvian nation. In stepping out of their rung on the racial hierarchy, the Japanese shop keepers also provoked resentment both among their fellow Peruvian business owners and elements within the urban labor movement. The deeper the Japanese Peruvians sank their roots into Peru, the more shrill became the accusations that they were “inassimilable.” Finally, opportunistic politicians played upon the Peruvian elites’ deepest fears by accusing the Japanese immigrants of joining with Peru’s indigenous people to launch a race war.

Table of Contents

• Signature Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Lis of Tables
• Map
• Acknowledgements
• Vita
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Historical and Hemispheric Context of Japanese Immigration to Peru: Independence to 1920s
• Chapter Two: Japanese Workers on Peru’s Sugar Plantations, 1890-1923
• Chapter Three: Conflict and Collaboration: Yanaconas in the Chancay Valley
• Chapter Four: The Butcher, The Baker, and the Hatmaker: Working Class Protests against the Japanese Limeños
• Chapter Five: Race, Economic Protection, and Yellow Peril: Local Anti-Asian Campaigns and National Policy
• Chapter Six: Peru’s “Racial Destiny”: Citizenship, Reproduction, and Yellow Peril
• Epilogue
• Conclusion
• References

List of Fugures

• Figure 5.1: Anti-Asia cartoons
• Figure 5.2: “The Asian Metamorphosis”
• Figure 5.3: Business License of Y. Nishimura, Tailor, Lima
• Figure 6.1: Mundo Gráfico Cartoon

List of Tables

• Table 4.1: Selected Professions of Peruvians and Foreigners (Lima 1908)
• Table 4.2: 1940 Investigation of Japanese Bakeries, Lima
• Table 6.1: Births to Japanese Women in Lima

Order the dissertation here.