Owen White
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208198
- eISBN:
- 9780191677946
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208198.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This book recreates the lives of the children born of relationships between French men and African women from the time France colonized much of West Africa towards the end of the 19th century, until ...
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This book recreates the lives of the children born of relationships between French men and African women from the time France colonized much of West Africa towards the end of the 19th century, until independence in 1960. Set within the context of the history of miscegenation in colonial French West Africa, the study focuses upon the lives and identities of the resulting mixed-race or mÉtis population, and their struggle to overcome the handicaps they faced in a racially divided society. This author has drawn an evaluation of the impact and importance of French racial theories, and offers a critical discussion of colonial policies in such areas as citizenship and education, providing insights into problems of identity in colonial society.Less
This book recreates the lives of the children born of relationships between French men and African women from the time France colonized much of West Africa towards the end of the 19th century, until independence in 1960. Set within the context of the history of miscegenation in colonial French West Africa, the study focuses upon the lives and identities of the resulting mixed-race or mÉtis population, and their struggle to overcome the handicaps they faced in a racially divided society. This author has drawn an evaluation of the impact and importance of French racial theories, and offers a critical discussion of colonial policies in such areas as citizenship and education, providing insights into problems of identity in colonial society.
Myra S. Washington
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496814227
- eISBN:
- 9781496814265
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496814227.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This book examines the racialization of Blasians – mixed race people with Black and Asian ancestry – that neither sees them as new or unique, nor as a racial salve to move the United States past the ...
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This book examines the racialization of Blasians – mixed race people with Black and Asian ancestry – that neither sees them as new or unique, nor as a racial salve to move the United States past the problem of the colour line. The emergence of Blasian celebrities and the analyses of these stars acknowledges that to understand what and who is a Blasian means to first understand hegemonic notions of both Blacks and Asian/Americans. Contextualized against those dominant discourses Blasians explode the narrow boundaries of authenticity around racialized categories. Multiracial people are just as capable as monoracial people of upholding hierarchies of identity, as well as dismantling those hierarchies. Thus, in this book Blasians do not escape race, or erase race, but they do deconstruct normative instantiations of identity. The presence, mobility, and utility of these multiracial celebrities within both U.S. and global racial schemas simultaneously realize and complicate potential alternatives to racial and racist paradigms. These mixed race stars draw attention to how risible and absurd the biological and cultural premises for racialization truly are, and demonstrate potential alternatives for affiliation that do not rely on genetic material.Less
This book examines the racialization of Blasians – mixed race people with Black and Asian ancestry – that neither sees them as new or unique, nor as a racial salve to move the United States past the problem of the colour line. The emergence of Blasian celebrities and the analyses of these stars acknowledges that to understand what and who is a Blasian means to first understand hegemonic notions of both Blacks and Asian/Americans. Contextualized against those dominant discourses Blasians explode the narrow boundaries of authenticity around racialized categories. Multiracial people are just as capable as monoracial people of upholding hierarchies of identity, as well as dismantling those hierarchies. Thus, in this book Blasians do not escape race, or erase race, but they do deconstruct normative instantiations of identity. The presence, mobility, and utility of these multiracial celebrities within both U.S. and global racial schemas simultaneously realize and complicate potential alternatives to racial and racist paradigms. These mixed race stars draw attention to how risible and absurd the biological and cultural premises for racialization truly are, and demonstrate potential alternatives for affiliation that do not rely on genetic material.
Caroline Rody
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195377361
- eISBN:
- 9780199869558
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377361.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This epilogue examines the history of mixed‐race characters in Asian American fiction, so as to consider the meaning of the generation of mixed‐race fictional children born to the protagonists of the ...
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This epilogue examines the history of mixed‐race characters in Asian American fiction, so as to consider the meaning of the generation of mixed‐race fictional children born to the protagonists of the novels centrally considered in this study. After a brief discussion of the legacy of “tragic” mulattoes and other mixed‐race characters in U.S. fiction, and then of the increasing public acceptance and even affirmation of mixed‐race identity in popular and literary discourse, it goes on to trace a line of troubled mixed‐race Asian figures, with special attention to the melancholic predicament of visually indeterminate race, in texts by writers including Frank Chin, Jessica Hagedorn, Heinz Insu Fenkl, and Don Lee. Patricia Chao's Mambo Peligroso and Jiro Adachi's Island of Bicycle Dancers present more affirmative if problematic portrayals of mixed characters and societies. But the mixed children in Chang‐rae Lee's Native Speaker, Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land, and Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange should be seen as suggestive projections of an emerging interethnic consciousness.Less
This epilogue examines the history of mixed‐race characters in Asian American fiction, so as to consider the meaning of the generation of mixed‐race fictional children born to the protagonists of the novels centrally considered in this study. After a brief discussion of the legacy of “tragic” mulattoes and other mixed‐race characters in U.S. fiction, and then of the increasing public acceptance and even affirmation of mixed‐race identity in popular and literary discourse, it goes on to trace a line of troubled mixed‐race Asian figures, with special attention to the melancholic predicament of visually indeterminate race, in texts by writers including Frank Chin, Jessica Hagedorn, Heinz Insu Fenkl, and Don Lee. Patricia Chao's Mambo Peligroso and Jiro Adachi's Island of Bicycle Dancers present more affirmative if problematic portrayals of mixed characters and societies. But the mixed children in Chang‐rae Lee's Native Speaker, Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land, and Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange should be seen as suggestive projections of an emerging interethnic consciousness.
Pat Thane and Tanya Evans
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199578504
- eISBN:
- 9780191741838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199578504.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
‘Illegitimacy’ increased again during the Second World War, causing another moral panic about rampant sexuality among young people. Official statistics showed reality: pre-marital pregnancy was ...
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‘Illegitimacy’ increased again during the Second World War, causing another moral panic about rampant sexuality among young people. Official statistics showed reality: pre-marital pregnancy was common before the war, but absence of fathers at war prevented many marriages, leading to more unmarried motherhood. Different experiences of civilian mothers, war workers, and pregnant servicewomen. Problems of mixed-race babies. Inadequacy of public services when families couldn't or wouldn't help. NC and other voluntary agencies vital and called on by the state to help. New services introduced, leading to permanent improvements in welfare after the war. Individual wartime life stories: a woman civil servant supported by her family and colleagues, other women rejected; Eric Clapton discovers his ‘mother’ is his grandmother, his ‘sister’ his mother. Traumatic for him.Less
‘Illegitimacy’ increased again during the Second World War, causing another moral panic about rampant sexuality among young people. Official statistics showed reality: pre-marital pregnancy was common before the war, but absence of fathers at war prevented many marriages, leading to more unmarried motherhood. Different experiences of civilian mothers, war workers, and pregnant servicewomen. Problems of mixed-race babies. Inadequacy of public services when families couldn't or wouldn't help. NC and other voluntary agencies vital and called on by the state to help. New services introduced, leading to permanent improvements in welfare after the war. Individual wartime life stories: a woman civil servant supported by her family and colleagues, other women rejected; Eric Clapton discovers his ‘mother’ is his grandmother, his ‘sister’ his mother. Traumatic for him.
WILLIAM DUSINBERRE
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195326031
- eISBN:
- 9780199868308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326031.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Several instances of relatively benevolent conduct toward slaves, directed usually toward a house servant, a skilled artisan, a “family slave,” or a mixed-race person, can be discovered in the Polk ...
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Several instances of relatively benevolent conduct toward slaves, directed usually toward a house servant, a skilled artisan, a “family slave,” or a mixed-race person, can be discovered in the Polk family records. White women sometimes pressed their husbands or their sons to act more benevolently than they would otherwise have done. But expressions of genuine feeling for a black person were exceedingly rare, and the actions of the Polk men (and some of the women) were normally governed by self-interest — sometimes dressed in beguilingly paternalist language. The Polk family records lend little support to the view that the men in this family acted largely in consonance with the paternalist code that was supposed to govern their conduct.Less
Several instances of relatively benevolent conduct toward slaves, directed usually toward a house servant, a skilled artisan, a “family slave,” or a mixed-race person, can be discovered in the Polk family records. White women sometimes pressed their husbands or their sons to act more benevolently than they would otherwise have done. But expressions of genuine feeling for a black person were exceedingly rare, and the actions of the Polk men (and some of the women) were normally governed by self-interest — sometimes dressed in beguilingly paternalist language. The Polk family records lend little support to the view that the men in this family acted largely in consonance with the paternalist code that was supposed to govern their conduct.
Katrina Jagodinsky
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300211689
- eISBN:
- 9780300220810
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300211689.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
This book is the first to focus on Indigenous women of the Southwest and Pacific Northwest and the ways they dealt with the challenges posed by the existing legal regimes of the nineteenth and ...
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This book is the first to focus on Indigenous women of the Southwest and Pacific Northwest and the ways they dealt with the challenges posed by the existing legal regimes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In most western states, it was difficult if not impossible for Native women to inherit property, raise mixed-race children, or take legal action in the event of rape or abuse. Through the experiences of six Indigenous women who fought for personal autonomy and the rights of their tribes, the book explores a long yet generally unacknowledged tradition of active critique of the U.S. legal system by female Native Americans.Less
This book is the first to focus on Indigenous women of the Southwest and Pacific Northwest and the ways they dealt with the challenges posed by the existing legal regimes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In most western states, it was difficult if not impossible for Native women to inherit property, raise mixed-race children, or take legal action in the event of rape or abuse. Through the experiences of six Indigenous women who fought for personal autonomy and the rights of their tribes, the book explores a long yet generally unacknowledged tradition of active critique of the U.S. legal system by female Native Americans.
Miri Song
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781479840540
- eISBN:
- 9781479843367
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479840540.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
While there has been significant growth in studies of “multiracial,” or “mixed-race,” individuals, very few have investigated the experiences of the descendants of multiracial individuals—the ...
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While there has been significant growth in studies of “multiracial,” or “mixed-race,” individuals, very few have investigated the experiences of the descendants of multiracial individuals—the so-called multigeneration multiracials. As interracial unions and disparate types of multiracial people continue to increase in many societies, what effect does this have on our understanding of racial categories and boundaries? How do multiracial people think about race in relation to themselves and their children? Using in-depth interviews, this book investigates how and why multiracial people racially identify and raise their children in particular ways, as well as their attitudes toward the transmission of minority ancestries to their children. Delving into parents’ concerns about racism and the strategies they use to address it with their children, the book also explores their thoughts about their children’s futures in a society in which mixing and mixed-race people are increasingly part of the mainstream.Less
While there has been significant growth in studies of “multiracial,” or “mixed-race,” individuals, very few have investigated the experiences of the descendants of multiracial individuals—the so-called multigeneration multiracials. As interracial unions and disparate types of multiracial people continue to increase in many societies, what effect does this have on our understanding of racial categories and boundaries? How do multiracial people think about race in relation to themselves and their children? Using in-depth interviews, this book investigates how and why multiracial people racially identify and raise their children in particular ways, as well as their attitudes toward the transmission of minority ancestries to their children. Delving into parents’ concerns about racism and the strategies they use to address it with their children, the book also explores their thoughts about their children’s futures in a society in which mixing and mixed-race people are increasingly part of the mainstream.
Elizabeth Christine Russ
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195377156
- eISBN:
- 9780199869480
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377156.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
Chapter Two, which investigates Ifigenia (Iphigenia, 1924), by Teresa de la Parra, and The Sheltered Life (1932), by Ellen Glasgow, focuses on the role that family histories and notions of ...
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Chapter Two, which investigates Ifigenia (Iphigenia, 1924), by Teresa de la Parra, and The Sheltered Life (1932), by Ellen Glasgow, focuses on the role that family histories and notions of genealogical “purity” play in the lives of women. More specifically, these novels link the romantic desires of the daughters of the landowning plantocracy to a past, which, although seemingly remote from the urban spaces inhabited by these heroines, reveals itself in a constant pressure to conform to romantic ideals shaped by the socioeconomic dynamics of the plantation or, in the case of Venezuela, the hacienda. Even though they are primarily concerned with the plights of their light-skinned protagonists, both novels also suggest through important subplots the ways in which black and mixed race women, too, are trapped by these dynamics. While shown in a sympathetic light, the novels’ non-white characters are nonetheless constrained by pressures exerted through the plot and through language itself, which are shaped to a surprising degree by the different concepts of race that prevailed in Glasgow’s Virginia and Parra’s Venezuela.Less
Chapter Two, which investigates Ifigenia (Iphigenia, 1924), by Teresa de la Parra, and The Sheltered Life (1932), by Ellen Glasgow, focuses on the role that family histories and notions of genealogical “purity” play in the lives of women. More specifically, these novels link the romantic desires of the daughters of the landowning plantocracy to a past, which, although seemingly remote from the urban spaces inhabited by these heroines, reveals itself in a constant pressure to conform to romantic ideals shaped by the socioeconomic dynamics of the plantation or, in the case of Venezuela, the hacienda. Even though they are primarily concerned with the plights of their light-skinned protagonists, both novels also suggest through important subplots the ways in which black and mixed race women, too, are trapped by these dynamics. While shown in a sympathetic light, the novels’ non-white characters are nonetheless constrained by pressures exerted through the plot and through language itself, which are shaped to a surprising degree by the different concepts of race that prevailed in Glasgow’s Virginia and Parra’s Venezuela.
Tanya Katerí Hernández
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479830329
- eISBN:
- 9781479840748
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479830329.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration
Commanding greater public attention is the idea that discrimination against multiracial (racially-mixed) people is a distinctive challenge to the enforcement of civil rights law. This perspective is ...
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Commanding greater public attention is the idea that discrimination against multiracial (racially-mixed) people is a distinctive challenge to the enforcement of civil rights law. This perspective is based upon the belief that multiracials experience racial discrimination in a unique manner that makes it necessary to reformulate traditional civil rights law. Multiracials and Civil Rights, based upon a close examination of many multiracial discrimination legal cases in a variety of equality law contexts, demonstrates the fallacy and danger of that conjecture. The book elucidates the distinction between the presumed exceptional space that multiracial persons are rhetorically imagined to occupy in the public discourse, and the binary non-white versus white realities they actually experience when targeted for discrimination. Rather than point to a need for a shift away from the existing civil rights laws, the cases instead indicate the need for further support of the current structures. The book concludes that multiracial discrimination cases are helpful in highlighting the continued need for attention to white supremacy and for fortifying the focus of civil rights law on racial privilege and the lingering legacy of bias against non-whites.Less
Commanding greater public attention is the idea that discrimination against multiracial (racially-mixed) people is a distinctive challenge to the enforcement of civil rights law. This perspective is based upon the belief that multiracials experience racial discrimination in a unique manner that makes it necessary to reformulate traditional civil rights law. Multiracials and Civil Rights, based upon a close examination of many multiracial discrimination legal cases in a variety of equality law contexts, demonstrates the fallacy and danger of that conjecture. The book elucidates the distinction between the presumed exceptional space that multiracial persons are rhetorically imagined to occupy in the public discourse, and the binary non-white versus white realities they actually experience when targeted for discrimination. Rather than point to a need for a shift away from the existing civil rights laws, the cases instead indicate the need for further support of the current structures. The book concludes that multiracial discrimination cases are helpful in highlighting the continued need for attention to white supremacy and for fortifying the focus of civil rights law on racial privilege and the lingering legacy of bias against non-whites.
David S. Dalton (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781683400394
- eISBN:
- 9781683400523
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683400394.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
Mexico’s traumatic Revolution (1910–1917) attested to stark divisions that had existed in the country for many years. Following the conflict, postrevolutionary leaders attempted to unify the ...
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Mexico’s traumatic Revolution (1910–1917) attested to stark divisions that had existed in the country for many years. Following the conflict, postrevolutionary leaders attempted to unify the country’s diverse (particularly indigenous) population under the umbrella of official mestizaje. Indigenous Mexicans would have to assimilate to the state by undergoing projects of “modernization” that entailed industrial growth through the imposition of a market-based economy. One of the most remarkable aspects of this nation-building project was the postrevolutionary government’s decision to use art to communicate discourses of official mestizaje. Until at least the 1970s, state-funded cultural artists whose work buoyed official discourses by positing mixed-race identity as a key component of an authentic Mexican identity. State officials viewed the hybridity of indigenous and female bodies with technology as paramount in their attempts to articulate a new national identity. As they fused the body with technology through medicine, education, industrial agriculture, and factory work, state officials believed that they could eradicate indigenous “primitivity” and transform Amerindians into full-fledged members of the nascent, mestizo state. This book discusses the work of José Vasconcelos, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Emilio “El Indio” Fernández, El Santo, and Carlos Olvera. These artists—and many others—held diametrically opposed worldviews and used very different media while producing works during different decades. Nevertheless, each of these artists posited the fusion of the body with technology as key to forming an “authentic” Mexican identity.Less
Mexico’s traumatic Revolution (1910–1917) attested to stark divisions that had existed in the country for many years. Following the conflict, postrevolutionary leaders attempted to unify the country’s diverse (particularly indigenous) population under the umbrella of official mestizaje. Indigenous Mexicans would have to assimilate to the state by undergoing projects of “modernization” that entailed industrial growth through the imposition of a market-based economy. One of the most remarkable aspects of this nation-building project was the postrevolutionary government’s decision to use art to communicate discourses of official mestizaje. Until at least the 1970s, state-funded cultural artists whose work buoyed official discourses by positing mixed-race identity as a key component of an authentic Mexican identity. State officials viewed the hybridity of indigenous and female bodies with technology as paramount in their attempts to articulate a new national identity. As they fused the body with technology through medicine, education, industrial agriculture, and factory work, state officials believed that they could eradicate indigenous “primitivity” and transform Amerindians into full-fledged members of the nascent, mestizo state. This book discusses the work of José Vasconcelos, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Emilio “El Indio” Fernández, El Santo, and Carlos Olvera. These artists—and many others—held diametrically opposed worldviews and used very different media while producing works during different decades. Nevertheless, each of these artists posited the fusion of the body with technology as key to forming an “authentic” Mexican identity.
Richard A. Bailey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195366594
- eISBN:
- 9780199894109
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195366594.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter analyzes colonial whites' perceptions of blacks and Indians, as well as the consequences of such views. As colonists made sense of perceived physical and cultural differences, they ...
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This chapter analyzes colonial whites' perceptions of blacks and Indians, as well as the consequences of such views. As colonists made sense of perceived physical and cultural differences, they ordered these “others” of society as essentially, intellectually, culturally, and spiritually inferior. This ordering, of course, did not stay within the white mind. Instead, colonial leaders turned to their laws to carve out specific places for New Englanders of color, relegating many black, red, and mixed-race inhabitants of the northern colonies to the status of slave. These laws and the market in human flesh they legally sanctioned not only offered ways to control Native Americans and Africans but also made the inconsistencies in the colonial order evident for all to see.Less
This chapter analyzes colonial whites' perceptions of blacks and Indians, as well as the consequences of such views. As colonists made sense of perceived physical and cultural differences, they ordered these “others” of society as essentially, intellectually, culturally, and spiritually inferior. This ordering, of course, did not stay within the white mind. Instead, colonial leaders turned to their laws to carve out specific places for New Englanders of color, relegating many black, red, and mixed-race inhabitants of the northern colonies to the status of slave. These laws and the market in human flesh they legally sanctioned not only offered ways to control Native Americans and Africans but also made the inconsistencies in the colonial order evident for all to see.
Verónica Castillo-Muñoz
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520291638
- eISBN:
- 9780520966727
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520291638.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book documents the story of working-class communities and how they constituted the racially and ethnically diverse landscape of Baja California. Packed with new and transformative stories, the ...
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This book documents the story of working-class communities and how they constituted the racially and ethnically diverse landscape of Baja California. Packed with new and transformative stories, the book examines the interplay of land reform and migratory labor on the peninsula from 1850 to 1954, as governments, foreign investors, and local communities shaped a vibrant and dynamic borderland alongside the booming cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, and Santa Rosalia. Migration and intermarriage between Mexican women and men from Asia, Europe, and the United States transformed Baja California into a multicultural society. Mixed-race families extended across national borders, forging new local communities, labor relations, and border politics.Less
This book documents the story of working-class communities and how they constituted the racially and ethnically diverse landscape of Baja California. Packed with new and transformative stories, the book examines the interplay of land reform and migratory labor on the peninsula from 1850 to 1954, as governments, foreign investors, and local communities shaped a vibrant and dynamic borderland alongside the booming cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, and Santa Rosalia. Migration and intermarriage between Mexican women and men from Asia, Europe, and the United States transformed Baja California into a multicultural society. Mixed-race families extended across national borders, forging new local communities, labor relations, and border politics.
Greg Carter
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814772492
- eISBN:
- 9780814790489
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814772492.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Barack Obama's historic presidency has re-inserted mixed race into the national conversation. While the troubled and pejorative history of racial amalgamation throughout U.S. history is a familiar ...
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Barack Obama's historic presidency has re-inserted mixed race into the national conversation. While the troubled and pejorative history of racial amalgamation throughout U.S. history is a familiar story, this book reconsiders an understudied optimist tradition, one which has praised mixture as a means to create a new people, bring equality to all, and fulfill an American destiny. The book re-envisions racial mixture as a vehicle for pride and a way for citizens to examine mixed America as a better America. Tracing the centuries-long conversation that began with Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur's Letters of an American Farmer in the 1780s through to the Mulitracial Movement of the 1990s and the debates surrounding racial categories on the U.S. Census in the twenty-first century, the book explores a broad range of documents and moments, unearthing a new narrative that locates hope in racial mixture. It traces the reception of the concept as it has evolved over the years, from and decade to decade and century to century, wherein even minor changes in individual attitudes have paved the way for major changes in public response. The book sweeps away an ugly element of U.S. history, replacing it with a new understanding of race in America.Less
Barack Obama's historic presidency has re-inserted mixed race into the national conversation. While the troubled and pejorative history of racial amalgamation throughout U.S. history is a familiar story, this book reconsiders an understudied optimist tradition, one which has praised mixture as a means to create a new people, bring equality to all, and fulfill an American destiny. The book re-envisions racial mixture as a vehicle for pride and a way for citizens to examine mixed America as a better America. Tracing the centuries-long conversation that began with Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur's Letters of an American Farmer in the 1780s through to the Mulitracial Movement of the 1990s and the debates surrounding racial categories on the U.S. Census in the twenty-first century, the book explores a broad range of documents and moments, unearthing a new narrative that locates hope in racial mixture. It traces the reception of the concept as it has evolved over the years, from and decade to decade and century to century, wherein even minor changes in individual attitudes have paved the way for major changes in public response. The book sweeps away an ugly element of U.S. history, replacing it with a new understanding of race in America.
OWEN WHITE
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208198
- eISBN:
- 9780191677946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208198.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to reconstruct the lives of the children mentioned in Louis Joseph Barot's account during the period of French rule in West ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to reconstruct the lives of the children mentioned in Louis Joseph Barot's account during the period of French rule in West Africa. It focuses on the offspring of temporary unions between French men and African women from the period of French expansion across West Africa in the late 19th century until the 1960 independence. It explains the French occupation of a small section of the population in West Africa.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to reconstruct the lives of the children mentioned in Louis Joseph Barot's account during the period of French rule in West Africa. It focuses on the offspring of temporary unions between French men and African women from the period of French expansion across West Africa in the late 19th century until the 1960 independence. It explains the French occupation of a small section of the population in West Africa.
OWEN WHITE
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208198
- eISBN:
- 9780191677946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208198.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter sketches a history of the contact between French men and African women which created a mÉtis population in West Africa. It compares French attitudes and practices with those of other ...
More
This chapter sketches a history of the contact between French men and African women which created a mÉtis population in West Africa. It compares French attitudes and practices with those of other Europeans. It provides some idea of how such relationships were conducted across the federation and changed over time.Less
This chapter sketches a history of the contact between French men and African women which created a mÉtis population in West Africa. It compares French attitudes and practices with those of other Europeans. It provides some idea of how such relationships were conducted across the federation and changed over time.
OWEN WHITE
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208198
- eISBN:
- 9780191677946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208198.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter examines the thinking which led to the creation of special homes for mÉtis children deemed to have been abandoned by their parents, set up first by missionaries, and by the colonial ...
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This chapter examines the thinking which led to the creation of special homes for mÉtis children deemed to have been abandoned by their parents, set up first by missionaries, and by the colonial administration itself. It discusses the factors which figured the actions and attitudes of French men, showing how these actions and attitudes help us to know the lives of the mixed-race population of French West Africa.Less
This chapter examines the thinking which led to the creation of special homes for mÉtis children deemed to have been abandoned by their parents, set up first by missionaries, and by the colonial administration itself. It discusses the factors which figured the actions and attitudes of French men, showing how these actions and attitudes help us to know the lives of the mixed-race population of French West Africa.
Peter Wallenstein
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195112436
- eISBN:
- 9780199854271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112436.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines the case of a Virginian woman named Octavia Featherstone, who has a tri-racial background—part white, part black, and part Indian. Featherstone explained that her Indian ...
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This chapter examines the case of a Virginian woman named Octavia Featherstone, who has a tri-racial background—part white, part black, and part Indian. Featherstone explained that her Indian ancestry—and not her white forebears—made it possible for her to be born and live free in the 1850s. This chapter discusses that some mixed-race Virginians, though born unfree, were designated to remain so only for specific periods; and many non-whites, though born into lifelong slavery, gained their freedom. The chapter focuses on Virginia east of the Blue Ridge, a region whose population in the years between 1760 and 1860, was roughly half white and half non-white, half free and half slave. Tilting the balance was a middle group of people who were free but not white. It takes another look at their origins—who they were and how, though many of them had been born into slavery, they came to be free.Less
This chapter examines the case of a Virginian woman named Octavia Featherstone, who has a tri-racial background—part white, part black, and part Indian. Featherstone explained that her Indian ancestry—and not her white forebears—made it possible for her to be born and live free in the 1850s. This chapter discusses that some mixed-race Virginians, though born unfree, were designated to remain so only for specific periods; and many non-whites, though born into lifelong slavery, gained their freedom. The chapter focuses on Virginia east of the Blue Ridge, a region whose population in the years between 1760 and 1860, was roughly half white and half non-white, half free and half slave. Tilting the balance was a middle group of people who were free but not white. It takes another look at their origins—who they were and how, though many of them had been born into slavery, they came to be free.
Rebecca C. King-O'Riain, Stephen Small, Minelle Mahtani, Miri Song, and Paul Spickard (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814770733
- eISBN:
- 9780814770474
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814770733.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Patterns of migration and the forces of globalization have brought the issues of mixed race to the public sphere in far more visible and far more dramatic ways than ever before. This book examines ...
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Patterns of migration and the forces of globalization have brought the issues of mixed race to the public sphere in far more visible and far more dramatic ways than ever before. This book examines the contemporary experiences of people of mixed descent in nations around the world, moving beyond U.S. borders to explore the dynamics of racial mixing and multiple descent in Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Okinawa, Australia, and New Zealand. In particular, the book asks: how have new global flows of ideas, goods, and people affected the lives and social placements of people of mixed descent? The book addresses the ways mixed-race individuals defy, bolster, speak, and live racial categorization, paying attention to the ways that these experiences help us think through how we see and engage with social differences. The chapters highlight how mixed-race people can sometimes be used as emblems of multiculturalism, and how these identities are commodified within global capitalism while still considered by some as not pure or inauthentic. The book considers the many different meanings of racial mixedness.Less
Patterns of migration and the forces of globalization have brought the issues of mixed race to the public sphere in far more visible and far more dramatic ways than ever before. This book examines the contemporary experiences of people of mixed descent in nations around the world, moving beyond U.S. borders to explore the dynamics of racial mixing and multiple descent in Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Okinawa, Australia, and New Zealand. In particular, the book asks: how have new global flows of ideas, goods, and people affected the lives and social placements of people of mixed descent? The book addresses the ways mixed-race individuals defy, bolster, speak, and live racial categorization, paying attention to the ways that these experiences help us think through how we see and engage with social differences. The chapters highlight how mixed-race people can sometimes be used as emblems of multiculturalism, and how these identities are commodified within global capitalism while still considered by some as not pure or inauthentic. The book considers the many different meanings of racial mixedness.
Shirley Anne Tate
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381717
- eISBN:
- 9781781382288
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381717.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Shirley Anne Tate analyses the aesthetics of creolization. Introducing the cultural politics of beauty into Glissantian creolization she shows that aesthetics has the potential to take us beyond a ...
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Shirley Anne Tate analyses the aesthetics of creolization. Introducing the cultural politics of beauty into Glissantian creolization she shows that aesthetics has the potential to take us beyond a simple mètissage to enable us to see how a nation understands itself. Discussing the example of the crowning of 20 year-old black ‘mixed race’ Rachel Christie on 20th July 2009 as the first black Miss England, she explores, first what creole could mean in aesthetic terms; second, Rachel Christie as the embodiment of the English nation as creolized, and third, the poetics of relation in which the continuation of white racial hegemony emerges through the beauty pageant as a micro-strategy of aesthetic domination.Less
Shirley Anne Tate analyses the aesthetics of creolization. Introducing the cultural politics of beauty into Glissantian creolization she shows that aesthetics has the potential to take us beyond a simple mètissage to enable us to see how a nation understands itself. Discussing the example of the crowning of 20 year-old black ‘mixed race’ Rachel Christie on 20th July 2009 as the first black Miss England, she explores, first what creole could mean in aesthetic terms; second, Rachel Christie as the embodiment of the English nation as creolized, and third, the poetics of relation in which the continuation of white racial hegemony emerges through the beauty pageant as a micro-strategy of aesthetic domination.
Julian Lim
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469635491
- eISBN:
- 9781469635507
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469635491.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
With the railroad’s arrival in the late nineteenth century, immigrants of all colors rushed to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, transforming the region into a booming international hub of economic and ...
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With the railroad’s arrival in the late nineteenth century, immigrants of all colors rushed to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, transforming the region into a booming international hub of economic and human activity. Following the stream of Mexican, Chinese, and African American migration, Julian Lim presents a fresh study of the multiracial intersections of the borderlands, where diverse peoples crossed multiple boundaries in search of new economic opportunities and social relations. However, as these migrants came together in ways that blurred and confounded elite expectations of racial order, both the United States and Mexico resorted to increasingly exclusionary immigration policies in order to make the multiracial populations of the borderlands less visible within the body politic, and to remove them from the boundaries of national identity altogether. Using a variety of English- and Spanish-language primary sources from both sides of the border, Lim’s transnational study reveals how a borderlands region that has traditionally been defined by Mexican-Anglo relations was in fact shaped by a diverse population that came together dynamically through work and play, in the streets and in homes, through war and marriage, and in the very act of crossing the border.Less
With the railroad’s arrival in the late nineteenth century, immigrants of all colors rushed to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, transforming the region into a booming international hub of economic and human activity. Following the stream of Mexican, Chinese, and African American migration, Julian Lim presents a fresh study of the multiracial intersections of the borderlands, where diverse peoples crossed multiple boundaries in search of new economic opportunities and social relations. However, as these migrants came together in ways that blurred and confounded elite expectations of racial order, both the United States and Mexico resorted to increasingly exclusionary immigration policies in order to make the multiracial populations of the borderlands less visible within the body politic, and to remove them from the boundaries of national identity altogether. Using a variety of English- and Spanish-language primary sources from both sides of the border, Lim’s transnational study reveals how a borderlands region that has traditionally been defined by Mexican-Anglo relations was in fact shaped by a diverse population that came together dynamically through work and play, in the streets and in homes, through war and marriage, and in the very act of crossing the border.
