Watson [Program] Will Allow Reid to Study Issues Multi-Racial People Face

Posted in Articles, Brazil, Caribbean/Latin America, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2010-02-07 22:31Z by Steven

Watson [Program] Will Allow Reid to Study Issues Multi-Racial People Face

Davidson University
Davidson, North Carolina
2007-04-02

Rachel Andoga

“When I went abroad to Strasbourg, France, I remember meeting everybody in my program on the plane, and this one girl said to me, ‘So, can we just get this out of the way—what are you?’”
 
Amy Reid, a senior biology major and dance team captain, has heard such questions about her ethnicity for years. Her light skin and curly black hair defy pigeon-holing her as white, black, Latino or somewhere in between. Realizing that she’s not alone in ethnic no-man’s land, she wrote a successful Watson Foundation proposal that will allow her to spend the coming year exploring the concept of ethnic identity in Brazil and Namibia.

Reid’s project seeks to compare and contrast multi-racial identity development within specific communities. She chose to visit Brazil and Namibia for their unique cultural heritages. “For a long time, people believed that there was no racism in Brazil since there is such extensive interracial mixing between the native groups, descendants of African slaves, and the Portuguese,” she said. “That’s no longer the popular belief.”…

Read the entire article here.

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