Obama & The Biracial Factor Book Release & Roundtable Discussion

Posted in Barack Obama, Forthcoming Media, Identity Development/Psychology, Live Events, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United States on 2012-03-06 18:25Z by Steven

Obama & The Biracial Factor Book Release & Roundtable Discussion

Richard Oakes Multicultu​ral Center-SF State Student Center
1650 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, California
2012-04-05, 16:00-18:00 PDT (Local Time)

Join book contributors, Dr. Robert Collins, Dr. Wei Ming Dariotis, Dr. Grace Yoo, Dr. Andrew Jolivétte and Cesar Chavez Research Institute Director, Dr. Belinda Reyes in a lively conversation about the 2012 Presidential election campaign and the new book, Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority.

Books will be available at the event.

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IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas

Posted in Anthologies, Anthropology, Books, History, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, Social Science, United States on 2010-09-26 20:08Z by Steven

IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas

Smithsonian Institution
2009
256 pages
6 5/8 x 9 1/2 inches
115 color and black-and-white illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-58834-271-3

Twenty-seven passionate essays explore the complex history and contemporary lives of people with a dual heritage that is a little-known part of American culture. Authors from across the Americas share first-person accounts of struggle, adaptation, and survival and examine such diverse subjects as contemporary art, the Cherokee Freedmen issue, and the evolution of jazz and blues. This richly illustrated book brings to light an epic history that speaks to present-day struggles for racial identity and understanding.

IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas accompanies the groundbreaking exhibition of the same title developed by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Through the concepts of policy, community, creative resistance, and lifeways, the exhibition and publication examine the long overlooked history of Native American and African American intersections in the Americas.

The book features a foreword by NMAI Director Kevin Gover and NMAAHC Director Lonnie G. Bunch, III, essays by leading scholars, and approximately 100 object images, documents, and photographs. IndiVisible illuminates a history fraught with colonial oppression, racial antagonism, and the loss of culture and identity. Uncovered within that history, however, are stories of cultural resurgence and the need to know one’s roots. Guided by NMAI historian Gabrielle Tayac, five Native scholars served as curatorial advisors for the exhibition and contributors for the publication: Angela A. Gonzales, Robert K. Collins, Judy Kertész, Penny Gamble-Williams, and Thunder Williams. In addition to the curatorial advisors, esteemed authors Theda Perdue, Tiya Miles, Richard Hill, Sr., Herman J. Viola, and Ron Welburn—among the book’s many expert voices—discuss race relations in the Jim Crow South, creative resistance, the relationship between African Americans and the Haudenosaunee, the famed buffalo soldiers of the American West, and the roots of jazz and blues. Taken together, the book’s essays and images create a portrait of a vital American subculture.

Read the forward here.

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Personal passion fuels Smithsonian exhibit

Posted in Anthropology, History, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, Slavery, Social Science, United States on 2010-09-26 18:04Z by Steven

Personal passion fuels Smithsonian exhibit

San Francisco State University News
2010-02-12

Denize Springer

The search for identity is particularly complex for Americans of both African and Native American heritage, according to Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies Robert Keith Collins.

Of Choctaw and African American descent, Collins has turned a personal passion into a career. His research, featured in a major exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, focuses on the racially motivated laws and other influences and issues that continue to complicate the lives of mixed-heritage people throughout the Americas.

According to the 2000 U.S. census, hundreds of thousands of Americans claim both African and Native American heritage. The tangled relationship between these groups began when Native Americans were enslaved, took African slaves, rescued them from slavery and married freed or freeborn African slaves. Collins’ research involves scouring historical records of the Americas, particularly the slave narratives compiled by the WPA (Works Project Administration) during the Great Depression, which illuminated the dynamics of slave life within Native American nations…

Read the entire article here.

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