Mixed Race Studies

Race, Creole, and National Identities in Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea” and Phillips’s “Cambridge”

Small Axe
Number 21 (Volume 10, Number 3)
October 2006
pages 87-104
E-ISSN: 1534-6714, Print ISSN: 0799-0537
DOI: 10.1353/smx.2006.0035

Vivian Nun Halloran, Assoiate Professor of Comparative Literature
Indiana University, Bloomington

As postmodern historical novels dramatizing slavery and its legacy in the anglophone Caribbean islands, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) and Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge (1993) problematize Englishness as a national and cultural identity that may or may not be dependent upon race and also reject the Creole as an identity subordinate in status to that of European. By questioning the prevailing nineteenth century assumption of an inherent relationship linking the observable geographical boundaries of a state and the essential character of its national culture, Cambridge destabilizes Englishness as a homogeneous racial signifier for whiteness in its depiction of London as a bustling metropolis with a small but visible population of Black Britons, while Wide Sargasso Sea portrays Creole Jamaican society, black and white, at a moment of crisis, on the eve of the arrival of the first wave of indentured servants from India. Both novels suggest that social demarcations between English and Creole cultural identities are artificial because they ultimately depend on chance — on the geographical accident of a given person’s or character’s place of birth…

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Rene, Louis, and Leopold: Senghorian Negritude as a Black Humanism

MFS Modern Fiction Studies
Volume 51, Number 4, Winter 2005
pages 921-935
E-ISSN: 1080-658X Print ISSN: 0026-7724
DOI: 10.1353/mfs.2006.0008

Michel Fabre

Randall Cherry

Jonathan P. (Paul) Eburne, Professor of Comparative Literature and English
Pennsylvania State University

Drawing from archival documentation of their long-standing literary relationship, this essay examines the correspondences between the negritude writings of Léopold Sédar Senghor and the assimilationist thought of his literary precursor René Maran. It traces the history of Senghorian negritude as a theory of cultural intermixture or métissage. As Fabre demonstrates, Senghor’s ideas about the ethical and political significance of cultural hybridity, which emerged from his intellectual relations with transnational black figures of the 1920s and 1930s, aimed to counter biologically-rooted forms of racial essentialism with a notion of blackness—what Senghor referred to as the “black soul”—considered as a set of cultural properties.

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The Meaning of Race in Healthcare and Research-Part 2: Should Race Be Used in Health Care and Research?

Pediatric Nursing
Volume 31, Number 4 (July-August 2005)
Pages 305-308

Cathy J. Tashiro, PhD, RN, Associate Professor of Nursing
University of Washington, Tacoma

The state of race today is complex and challenging. An article published in the preceding issue of this journal examined the history of race and its impact on health care. This article further examines the issue of race and health care as concerns arise regarding the relevance of genetics to health disparities. Pediatric nurses must examine the literature on race, as well as our own assumptions, and be clear about when and why we use racial categories and what they really mean.

The impreciseness of racial categories, as well as the history of racial discrimination in the United States, has contributed to skepticism about the use of race in the clinical setting. Reasonable concerns have been raised that suggest race has been proven to be a non-scientific concept, and that its use in medicine can both be highly misleading and can reinforce an erroneous belief in the inherent biology of race (Witzig, 1996). Fullilove (1998) has argued that race should be abandoned as a variable in public health research in favor of other levels of analysis, such as place of residence, which can provide more meaningful data about social conditions influencing health. The use of race in the clinical setting in particular can lead to stereotyping and even false assumptions (Anderson, Moscou, Fulchon, & Newspiel, 2001), as demonstrated by the case study at the beginning of the companion article published in the previous issue of this journal (Tashiro, 2005). President Clinton’s Cancer Panel, which convened a meeting of experts on “The Meaning of Race in Science,” concluded that race, as a social and political construct, has no basis in science; that there is no genetic basis for racial classification, nor for a belief that distinct races exist; and, that racism continues to exert a powerful influence in society (Freeman, 1997).

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) stops short of advocating the abandonment of the concept of race altogether, but urges that when race is used adequate justification should be provided. According to the authors of the AAP (2000) position statement on race, “Although race historically has been viewed as a biological construct, it is now known to be more accurately characterized as a social category that has changed over time and varies across societies and cultures” (p. 1349). For this reason, in order not to perpetuate erroneous stereotypes, AAP recommends that race and ethnicity be used as variables in research only when they are accurately defined and when the reasons for using them are adequately explained.

Kaplan and Bennett (2003) suggest guidelines for responsible use of race and ethnicity in health- related publications. These include stating the reason for the use of race as a variable and specifying how individuals in the study are assigned to racial categories, avoiding the use of race as a proxy for genetic variation, and avoiding any stigmatizing and/or misleading terminology (Kaplan & Bennett, 2003, pp. 2711-2713). Regarding terminology, some (e.g., Lee, Mountain, & Koenig, 2001) have advocated for the use of the term “racialized groups” instead of “race” in research using race as variable, emphasizing that race is not inherently meaningful scientifically, but rather a concept that is produced by society.

While it would seem to make intuitive sense to abandon the use of race as a variable altogether, there are some dangers to that position too. Proponents for continuing to collect data by race argue that abandoning this practice would eliminate the evidence of health differences due to persistent inequalities between racialized groups (Krieger, Williams, & Zierler, 1999). Race is a social fact in the U.S., and the routine collection of data by race began in earnest because of the Civil Rights Act, in order to identify and eliminate discrimination in housing, employment, and other areas of civic life. Without the data, evidence of discrimination would be lost. In fact, the concept of “color-blind racism” has been identified as a way of perpetuating the racial hierarchy by ignoring racial inequalities (Bonilla-Silva, 2003). In this regard, if the Institute of Medicine report on unequal treatment, discussed previously in the companion article (Tashiro, 2005), is any indication, “color-blindness” has not yet arrived in the examining room, and to pretend that it has will detract from efforts to ameliorate the social and economic conditions producing health disparities.

One’s stance toward race must by necessity be complex. As Krieger (2001) states in relationship to epidemiologic research, “considering lived experiences of racism as real but the construct of biological ‘race’ as spurious, social epidemiological research investigates health consequences of economic and non-economic expressions of racial discrimination” (p. 696). To paraphrase Krieger: while race is not real, racism is.

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Gabriela Meets Olodum: Paradoxes of Hybridity, Racial Identity, and Black Consciousness in Contemporary Brazil

Research in African Literatures
Volume 38, Number 1 (Spring 2007)
pages 181-193
E-ISSN: 1527-2044
Print ISSN: 0034-5210
DOI: 10.1353/ral.2007.0007

Russell G. Hamilton, Emeritus Professor of Portuguese, Brazilian and Lusophone African Literatures
Vanderbilt University

With respect to the first part of this article’s title, Gabriela is the formidable female protagonist of Jorge Amado’s celebrated novel Gabriela, Cravo e Canela. This novel, first published in 1958, has been translated into more than fifteen languages, and its English-language version, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, made the New York Times best-seller list for nearly a year. Moreover, the novel was adapted to the small screen as a TV series, as well as to the silver screen. In the role of Gabriela, Sônia Braga, a prototypical Brazilian morena, a term used to designate a mixed-race woman, became a sensation in the 1975 telenovela (soap opera). Braga later received international acclaim when she starred opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the 1985 film adaptation of the novel.

When Amado’s novel first appeared in print, Gabriela became the latest in a long line of enchanting female mulatto characters in Brazilian literature. To a greater or lesser degree, all of these fictional females, the mixed-race offspring of African and European or of Brazilian Indian and Caucasian parentage, are most often depicted as physically and otherwise appealing literary characters. Whether in literature and other modes of cultural expression, or in real and imagined social existence, exotic, mysterious, coquettish, and sensual women of color, most especially mulatas (mulatto women), constitute both the subjects and objects of a nativistic and, indeed, pan-Luso-Brazilian cult. This cult of the mulataencantada (enchanted mulatto woman) has been codified as a romanticized component of Brazil’s national identity and popular culture. Although less likely to occur as blatantly today, in this era of increased black consciousness, the cult of the enchanted mulatto, and mulatto enchantress, has manifested itself in the popular press…

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The Importance of Race and Ethnic Background in Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice

New England Journal of Medicine
2003-03-20
Volume 348, Number 12
pages 1170-1175

Esteban González Burchard, M.D.
Elad Ziv, M.D.
Natasha Coyle, Ph.D.
Scarlett Lin Gomez, Ph.D.
Hua Tang, Ph.D.
Andrew J. Karter, Ph.D.
Joanna L. Mountain, Ph.D.
Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D.
Dean Sheppard, M.D.
Neil Risch, Ph.D.

A debate has recently arisen over the use of racial classification in medicine and biomedical research. In particular, with the completion of a rough draft of the human genome, some have suggested that racial classification may not be useful for biomedical studies, since it reflects “a fairly small number of genes that describe appearance” and “there is no basis in the genetic code for race.” In part on the basis of these conclusions, some have argued for the exclusion of racial and ethnic classification from biomedical research. In the United States, race and ethnic background have been used as cause for discrimination, prejudice, marginalization, and even subjugation. Excessive focus on racial or ethnic differences runs the risk of undervaluing the great diversity that exists among persons within groups. However, this risk needs to be weighed against the fact that in epidemiologic and clinical research, racial and ethnic categories are useful for generating and exploring hypotheses about environmental and genetic risk factors, as well as interactions between risk factors, for important medical outcomes. Erecting barriers to the collection of information such as race and ethnic background may provide protection against the aforementioned risks; however, it will simultaneously retard progress in biomedical research and limit the effectiveness of clinical decision making.

Race and Ethnic Background as Geographic and Sociocultural Constructs with Biologic Ramifications

Definitions of race and ethnic background have often been applied inconsistently. The classification scheme used in the 2000 U.S. Census, which is often used in biomedical research, includes five major groups: black or African American, white, Asian, native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaska native. In general, this classification scheme emphasizes the geographic region of origin of a person’s ancestry. Ethnic background is a broader construct that takes into consideration cultural tradition, common history, religion, and often a shared genetic heritage…

…Sociocultural Correlates of Race and Ethnic Background

The racial or ethnic groups described above do not differ from each other solely in terms of genetic makeup, especially in a multiracial and multicultural society such as the United States. Socioeconomic status is strongly correlated with race and ethnic background and is a robust predictor of access to and quality of health care and education, which, in turn, may be associated with differences in the incidence of diseases and the outcomes of those diseases. For example, black Americans with end-stage renal disease are referred for renal transplantation at lower rates than white Americans. Black Americans are also referred for cardiac catheterization less frequently than white Americans. In some cases, these differences may be due to bias on the part of physicians and discriminatory practices in medicine. Nonetheless, racial or ethnic differences in the outcomes of disease sometimes persist even when discrepancies in the use of interventions known to be beneficial are considered. For example, the rate of complications from type 2 diabetes mellitus varies according to racial or ethnic category among members of the same health maintenance organization, despite uniform utilization of outpatient services and after adjustment for levels of education and income, health behavior, and clinical characteristics. The evaluation of whether genetic (as well as nongenetic) differences underlie racial disparities is appropriate in cases in which important racial and ethnic differences persist after socioeconomic status and access to care are properly taken into account…

…Racially Admixed Populations

Although studies of population genetics have clustered persons into a small number of groups corresponding roughly to five major racial categories, such classification is not completely discontinuous, because there has been intermixing among groups both over the course of history and in recent times. In particular, genetic admixture, or the presence in a population of persons with multiple races or ethnic backgrounds, is well documented in the border regions of continents and may represent genetic gradations (clines) — for example, among East Africans (e.g., Ethiopians) and some central Asian groups. In the United States, mixture among different racial groups has occurred recently, although in the 2000 U.S. Census, the majority of respondents still identified themselves as members of a single racial group. Genetic studies of black Americans have documented a range of 7 to 20 percent white admixture, depending on the geographic location of the population studied. Despite the admixture, black Americans, as a group, are still genetically similar to Africans. Hispanics, the largest and fastest growing minority population in the United States, are an admixed group that includes white and Native American ancestry, as well as African ancestry. The proportions of admixture in this group also vary according to geographic region.

Although the categorization of admixed groups poses special challenges, groups containing persons with varying levels of admixture can also be particularly useful for genetic-epidemiologic studies. For example, Williams et al. studied the association between the degree of white admixture and the incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus among Pima Indians. They found that the self-reported degree of white admixture (reported as a percentage) was strongly correlated with protection from diabetes in this population. Furthermore, as noted above, information on race or ethnic background can provide important clues to effects of culture, access to care, and bias on the part of caregivers, even in genetically admixed populations. It is also important to recognize that many groups (e.g., most Asian groups) are highly underrepresented both in the population of the United States and in typical surveys of population genetics, relative to their global numbers. Thus, primary categories that are relevant for the current U.S. population might not be optimal for a globally derived sample…

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Hybridity in the Third Space: Rethinking Bi-cultural Politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Paper Presented to Te Oru Rangahau Maori Research and Development Conference
1998-07-07 through 1998-07-09
Massey University
7 pages

Paul Meredith (Ngati Kaputuhi/Pakeha), Research Fellow
Te Matahauariki Institute
University of Waikato, New Zealand

This brief paper joins a growing call for a reconceptualisation of bicultural politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand that draws on an inclusionary and multifaceted identity politics. (Reilly 1996; McClean 1997; Spoonley 1997) The paper argues the need for this conceptualisation to take place in an alternative space that blurs the limitations of boundaries and engenders new possibilities.

In this paper I invoke Homi Bhabha’s notions of hybridity and the third space and offer some introductory comment as to what these concepts might mean for a project that seeks to redesign the laws and institutions for a bicultural Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Read the entire paper here.

Claiming the (n)either/(n)or of ‘third space’: (re)presenting hybrid identity and the embodiment of mixed race

Journal of Intercultural Studies
Volume 25, Issue 1 (April 2004)
pages 75 – 85
DOI: 10.1080/07256860410001687036

Torika Bolatagici, Associate Lecturer
School of Communication & Creative Arts
Deakin University, Melbourne, Austrailia

As a multiracial artist, I am interested in how people of mixed race have been represented in popular culture and how mixed race image-makers can redress popular representation and facilitate a movement beyond the dichotomy, which seeks to reduce us to the sum of our parts. In the footsteps of Evelyn Alsultany I advocate the creation of a new cartography—a space that is inclusive and beyond existing notions of race. To this end I embarked on a project of exploration of the representation of multiracial identity, drawing from Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of Third Space.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same

Thinking Twice: RACE
The Stanford Review
2009-01-29

C. Matthew Snipp, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
Stanford University

Last week, we inaugurated our first African American president, and coincidentally our first mixed race president, and our first Hawaiian president. The first of these three events captured the public imagination while the other two have passed with barely a comment, and for good reason. Few Americans know the sordid history behind the acquisition of Hawaii. Fewer still have parsed what it means to be multiracial in America. But most Americans are well aware of the travails of African Americans, from slavery to Jim Crow to the Civil Rights movement.

Trolling the news outlets since the November elections yields two seemingly dissonant messages. One is that Obama’s election signals a new era in race relations—that we are living in a “post-civil rights” era, an era of “color blindness.” The New York Times recently published a glowing story about an interracial couple who suddenly have found it less awkward to have to conversations with their friends about racial differences. In contrast, others are quick to point out that racism is alive and well in America, and that Obama’s election will mean little for changing the racial partition that has existed in this country since its inception….

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Why Obama is Black Again

Thinking Twice: RACE
The Stanford Review
2009-01-29

Michele Elam, Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor of English and Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Stanford University

Barack Obama’s inauguration was for so many an awe-inspiring, historic and transnational event: It was full of grand pageantry and a good-humored pomp and circumstance that made D.C. the place to be. People were called together in many ways, and one of the more important ways they were asked to unite was over the contentious matter of race.

But it is worthwhile noting that this unlikely racial consensus was achieved through a strategic kind of absenting: Gone from the inaugural coverage were all the hand-wringing equivocations preceding the Democratic nomination about whether Obama’s person and politics went “beyond race” (and if that was a good thing or not), whether he even met the minimum standards for blackness (it was never clear who got to wield this racial measuring stick), or whether he was capitalizing on what novelist Danzy Senna calls the “mulatto millennium” of mixed-race celebrities…

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Identity in Education: Future of Minority Studies

Palgrave Macmillan
May 2009
296 pages
ISBN: 978-0-230-60917-4, ISBN10: 0-230-60917-1
6 1/8 x 9-1/4 inches, 296 pages, 

Edited by

Susan Sánchez-Casal, Director
Tufts University / Skidmore College, Madrid

Amie A. Macdonald, Associate Professor of Philosophy
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

This edited volume explores the impact of social identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion and so on) on teaching and learning.  Operating within a realist framework, the contributors to this volume (all of whom are minority scholars) consider ways to productively engage identity in the classroom and at the institutional level, as a means of working toward racial democracy in higher education.  As realists, all authors in the volume hold the theoretical position that identities are both real and constructed, and that identities are always epistemically salient.  Thus the book argues–from diverse disciplinary and educational contexts–that mobilizing identities in academia is a necessary part of progressive (antiracist, feminist, anticolonial) educators’ efforts to transform knowledge-making, to establishcritical access for minority students to higher education, and to create a more just and democratic society.

Introduction—Amie A. Macdonald and Susan Sánchez-Casal

PART I: CRITICAL ACCESS AND PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION
Identity, Realist Pedagogy, and Racial Democracy in Higher Education—Susan Sánchez-Casal and Amie A. Macdonald
What’s Identity Go to Do With It?: Mobilizing Identities in the Multicultural Classroom—Paula M. L. Moya
Fostering Cross-Racial Mentoring: White Faculty and African American Students at Harvard College—Richard Reddick

PART II: CURRICULUM AND IDENTITY
Which America Is Ours?: Martí’s “Truth” and the Foundations of “American Literature”—Michael Hames-García
The Mis-Education of Mixed Race—Michele Elam
Ethnic Studies Requirements and the “White” Dominated Classroom—Kay Yandell
Historicizing difference in The English Patient: The Politics of Identity and (Mis)Recognition—Paulo Lemos Horta

PART III: REALIST PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES
Teaching Disclosure: Overcoming the Invisibility of Whiteness in the American Indian Studies Classroom—Sean Kiccumah Teuton
Religious Identities and Communities of Meaning in the Realist Classroom—William Wilkerson
Postethnic America? A Multicultural Training Camp for Americanists and Future EFL teachers—Barbara Bucheneau, Paula Moya, Carola Hecke, J. Nicole Shelton
The Uses of Error: Toward a Realist Methodology of Student Evaluation—John Su