Mixed Race Studies

Race, Skin Color, and Economic Outcomes in Early Twentieth-Century America

Stanford University Job Market Paper
2012-11-28
53 pages

Roy Mill
Department of Economics
Stanford University

Luke C.D. Stein
Department of Economics
Stanford University

We study the effect of race on economic outcomes using unique data from the first half of the twentieth century, a period in which skin color was explicitly coded in population censuses as “White,” “Black,” or “Mulatto.” We construct a panel of siblings by digitizing and matching records across the 1910 and 1940 censuses and identifying all 12,000 African-American families in which enumerators classified some children as light-skinned (“Mulatto”) and others as dark-skinned (“Black”). Siblings coded “Mulatto” when they were children (in 1910) earned similar wages as adults (in 1940) relative to their Black siblings. This within-family earnings difference is substantially lower than the Black-Mulatto earnings difference in the general population, suggesting that skin color in itself played only a small role in the racial earnings gap. To explore the role of the more social aspect that might be associated with being Black, we then focus on individuals who “passed for White,” an important social phenomenon at the time. To do so, we identify individuals coded “Mulatto” as children but “White” as adults. Passing for White meant that individuals changed their racial affiliation by changing their social ties, while skin color remained unchanged. Passing was associated with substantially higher earnings, suggesting that race in its social formcould have significant consequences for economic outcomes. We discuss how our findings shed light on the roles of discrimination and identity in driving economic outcomes.

Read the entire paper here.

Appointment of a new Parliamentary Poet Laureate

Parliament of Canada
2011-12-20

December 20, 2011 (Ottawa) – The Speaker of the Senate, the Honourable Noël A. Kinsella, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Honourable Andrew Scheer, today announced the appointment of Fred Wah as Canada’s next Parliamentary Poet Laureate [2011-2013], effective immediately. Mr. Wah is the fifth poet to hold this office.

“As a distinguished poet, editor, and teacher Fred Wah is known across Canada for his interest in a range of subjects,” said Speaker Kinsella. “Mr. Wah brings forth a collaborative approach and unique perspective to his work inspiring younger poets, students and others both nationally and internationally with his reflections on Canadian culture.”

“Fred Wah’s poetry is grounded in Canada’s political and social landscapes,” said Speaker Scheer. “He has done much to encourage and promote the importance of literature, culture and language within Canadian society.”

Mr. Wah was selected by the Speakers upon the recommendation of the Selection Committee composed of Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages; Daniel J. Caron, Deputy Head and Librarian and Archivist of Canada; Robert Sirman, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts, and Sonia L’Heureux, Assistant Parliamentary Librarian.

Reflecting on his nomination, Fred Wah intends to share his enthusiasm for new poets and artists, and will bring to the position the passion and dedication he brings to all his work. “My work as Parliamentary Poet Laureate will continue to engage poetry as it represents our homes and migrations, our questions of history and identity. I’m grateful for the opportunity to sustain poetry’s presence in our national imaginary.”

Mr. Wah has been writing and publishing since 1965. Author of five limited-edition chapbooks and 18 books, his repertoire includes the 1986 Governor General Award-wining poetry book Waiting for Saskatchewan. Fred Wah has consistently challenged and thrilled readers and has had a major influence on multiple generations of writers…

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The False Laws of Narrative: The Poetry of Fred Wah

Wilfrid Laurier University Press
October 2009
102 pages
Paper ISBN13: 978-1-55458-046-0

Fred Wah, Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate

Edited by:

Louis Cabri, Associate Professor of English
University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

The False Laws of Narrative is a selection of Fred Wah’s poems covering the poets entire poetic trajectory to date. A founding editor of Tish magazine, Wah was influenced by leading progressive and innovative poets of the 1960s and was at the forefront of the exploration of racial hybridity, multiculturalism, and transnational family roots in poetry. The selection emphasizes his innovative poetic range.

Wah is renowned as one of Canada’s finest and most complex lyric poets and has been lauded for the musicality of his verse. Louis Cabri’s introduction offers a paradigm for thinking about how sound is actually structured in Wah’s improvisatory poetry and offers fresh insights into Wah’s context and writing. In an afterword by the poet himself, Wah presents a dialogue between editor and poet on the key themes of the selected poems and reveals his abiding concerns as poet and thinker.