Mixed Race Studies

Journal of Intercultural Studies: Call for Papers: Special Issue

Journal of Intercultural Studies
2016-11-04

Deadline: 2017-07-31

Studying mixed race in a global perspective is an increasingly important phenomenon. The global economy, growing rates of migration, and rapidly advancing information and communication technologies have brought diverse groups in closer contact in more areas of the globe, even those previously regarded as racially and ethnically homogenous. Intermarried couples and mixed race celebrities are often heralded in media reports as examples of a growing phenomenon where race, culture and colour are argued to no longer matter, even when that is far from the reality. Amidst these widespread claims of a post-racial or colourblind world, the Othering of certain groups and racialized discourse remains, and is often most clear in debates over the possibility or perceived threat of intimacy and sex with racialized Others. In an ever-changing globalised world, mixing across established boundaries of race, ethnicity, religion or tribe can be celebrated, yet it can also be constructed as very dangerous, and these complexities need to be studied globally. While countless academic studies and media reports have been devoted to investigating, documenting and/or explaining this phenomenon of mixed identities and relationships, many questions remain unanswered.

• What does mixed race mean across the globe?
• What are the lived experiences of mixed couples and mixed race individuals in different countries and contexts?
• What are attitudes toward ‘mixing’?
• How do the children of mixed couples identify?
• Is there a way to understand the experiences of mixed people and families in a global context, or is there too much difference – different histories, different populations and different contexts – to find common ground?

Submission Instructions

We are looking for original papers that critically address the issue of mixed race globally from new and innovative perspectives to make up this Special Issue.

Papers to be between 7,000–8,000 words in length, and submitted to https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjis (when submitting please label your manuscript a ‘Special Issue Paper’).

The Critical Mixed Race special issue will be published early–2018: we are accepting papers up until the 31st July 2017

Editorial information

Guest Editor: Erica Chito Childs, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Centre

For more information, click here.

The continued rejection of racial mixing lies in deep-seated notions of racial difference and maintenance of racial boundaries. In the U.S., we are still highly segregated in our neighborhoods and friendship circles. Even in our favorite TV shows and movies, interracial couples are infrequent, and biracial children even rarer. Most individuals will maintain that race does not matter in terms of who they work with or are friends with. But despite that, it remains socially acceptable for us to discriminate in terms of who we date. Most whites will not admit they do not want a black neighbor, but will freely admit their racial preferences in dating, referencing physical attraction and lack of cultural similarities as reasons not to consider dating anyone of another race.

Erica Chito Childs, “Williams’s Pregnancy Proves Interracial Couples Still Aren’t Accepted,” Fortune, May 3, 2017. http://fortune.com/2017/05/03/serena-williams-pregnant-fiance-alexis-ohanian-photo/.

Williams’s Pregnancy Proves Interracial Couples Still Aren’t Accepted

Fortune
2017-05-03

Erica Chito Childs, Associate Professor of Sociology
Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center

Serena Williams arrives at the Costume Institute Benefit May 1, 2017 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images

When Romanian tennis captain Ilie Nastase imagined Serena Willams’s baby with her white fiancĂ© Alexis Ohanian would look like “chocolate with milk” last week, his offensive comments were immediately criticized in the media. Williams herself called out his comments as racist on Instagram. Days later Nastase apologized, saying, “That was the first time I had heard about her pregnancy, and my reaction was spontaneous.”

This feud offered the public a glimpse of how mixed race people around the globe are subject to a variety of similarly insulting terms. Nastase may try to pass off his remark as an isolated incident. But in reality, it reflects the continued widespread opposition to and discomfort with interracial couples and multiracial children.

On one hand, mixed race celebrities and interracial celebrity couples like Williams and Ohanian are heralded in the media as examples of a world where race, ethnic background, and color no longer matter. This belief in a post-racial world grew louder after the election of President Barack Obama, who is biracial. Accompanying these proclamations of multiracialism was the notion that opposition to interracial unions was a thing of the past. In addition, we also hear that interracial marriages are on the rise and the biracial population is booming.

Yet a closer look at the statistics tells a different story…

Read the entire article here.

Screening and Discussion of Race: The Power of an Illusion, Episode 1

Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
Monday, 2016-03-28, 18:30-21:00 EDT (Local Time)

Join us for the first in a series of screenings and discussions of the thought-provoking PBS series Race: The Power of An Illusion, which uses science, history, and more to dispel the many myths and misconceptions surrounding the concept of race. Post-screening discussion led by Erica Chito-Childs, author, CUNY sociology professor, and leading researcher on issues of race.

For more information and to reserve tickets, click here.

A Global Look at Mixing: Problems, Pitfalls and Possibilities

Journal of Intercultural Studies
Volume 35, Issue 6, 2014
pages 677-688
DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2014.968305

Erica Chito Childs, Associate Professor of Sociology
Hunter College, The City University of New York

The importance of studying mixed race in a global perspective is gaining momentum. The global economy, growing rates of immigration, and rapidly advancing information and communication technologies have brought diverse groups in closer contact in more areas of the globe, even those previously regarded as racially and ethnically homogenous. Intermarried couples and mixed race celebrities are often heralded in media reports as examples of a growing phenomenon where race, culture and color are argued to no longer matter, even when that is far from the reality. Amidst these widespread claims of a post-racial or colorblind world, the othering of certain groups and racialized discourse remains, and is often most clear in debates over the possibility or perceived threat of intimacy and sex with racialized Others. Mixing across established boundaries of race, ethnicity, religion or tribe is still dangerous, and these realities need to be studied globally. While countless academic studies and media reports have been devoted to investigating, documenting and/or explaining this phenomenon of mixed identities and relationships, many questions remain unanswered. Who can marry whom? What are attitudes toward “mixing?” How do the children of mixed couples identify? What differences matter? How are these differences articulated and what are the underlying reasons that these perceived differences matter, particularly when it comes to intimate and familial relations? And in an ever-changing globalised world, is there a way to understand the experiences of mixed people and families in a global context, or is there too much difference—different histories, different populations and different contexts to find common ground? Therefore this article will briefly review the current state of “mixed” research, why it is important to study this issue while highlighting the problems with existing approaches and emphasizing the need for a global framework for understanding mixed marriage and mixed identities.

Read the entire article here.

235. Paper Session: Racial Dynamics of Dating & Marriage

Crossing Borders: 2015 Annual Meeting
Eastern Sociological Society
Millennium Broadway Hotel
New York, New York
2015-02-26 through 2015-03-01

Saturday, 2015-02-28, 08:30-10:30 EST (Local Time)

Presider: Erica Chito-Childs, City University of New York – Hunter College

• The Role of Race in Dating Among Americans: How “Whiteness” Influences Perception of Interracial Relationships Jennifer Dejesus — Pace University, Andrea Voyer — Pace University
  University
• Marriage Patterns among Multiracial Americans: Upward Amalgamation, Downward Amalgamation, Matching and Hyper-Matching Gregory Eirich — Columbia University, Gracelyn Bateman — Mindshare
• Disappearing Difference, or The Illegibility of Multiracials in Interracial Relationships Melinda Mills — Castleton State College
• Does Intermarriage Blur Boundaries? The Transformation of Racial and Ethnic Boundaries among Interracially and Inter-ethnically Married Filipino Americans and their Families Brenda Gambol — The Graduate Center, City University of New York
• They Don’t Want to Date Any Dark People Chong-suk Han — Middlebury College

For more information, click here.

279. Invited Thematic Session: Crossing Interracial Borders

Crossing Borders: 2015 Annual Meeting
Eastern Sociological Society
Millennium Broadway Hotel
New York, New York
2015-02-26 through 2015-03-01

Saturday, 2015-02-28, 12:00-13:30 EST (Local Time)

Organizer: Erica Chito-Childs, City University of New York – Hunter College

Presider: Erica Chito-Childs, City University of New York – Hunter College

• Transracial Kin-scription: The Silent Engine of Racial Change? Kimberly McClain DaCosta — New York University
• Emerging Patterns of Interracial Marriage and Immigrant Integration in the United States Daniel Lichter — Cornell University
• Interracial Marriage in the U.S. and Brazil: Racial Boundaries in Comparative Perspective Chinyere Osuji — Rutgers University
• A Global Look at Attitudes Towards “Mixed” Marriage Erica Chito-Childs — City University of New York – Hunter College

Discussant: Amy Steinbugler, Dickinson College

For more information, click here.

Today’s college students see no problem with multiracial relationships

College
USA Today
2014-01-08

Aja Frost
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Had Kim Kardashian and Kanye West gotten married 48 years ago, they would have probably been met with more policemen than paparazzi. That’s because interracial marriages weren’t legalized in the U.S. until 1967.

Interracial relationships are more common than ever. In 1960, just 0.4% of marriages were interracial. A recent study found that number had increased to 15% for newlyweds.

Nowhere is the growing acceptance and practice of multiracial relationships more common than on college campuses.

“Younger people aren’t tied down with all the old racial stereotypes,” says Dr. Erica Chito-Childs, a sociology professor at Hunter College in New York City and author of two books on interracial marriage. “They’re more likely to have grown up with a favorite musical entertainer [who] is African-American or of a different race. They’ve grown up watching shows or cartoon shows that are multiracial. And depending on where they live, they’ve probably gone to school with friends that are of a different race.”…

…A survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 43% of all Americans believe the rise in intermarriages has been a good thing. However, among 18- to 29-year-olds, a majority 61% approve of interracial marriage and 93% favor multiracial dating. The approval for multiracial marriages rises in accordance with college education levels.

But Dr. Chito-Childs cautions against getting too excited about the statistics surrounding multiracial relationships…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed Mondays Film Series at the Brooklyn Historical Society

Crossing Borders, Bridging Generatons
Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
Mondays, 2014-08-04 through  2014-08-18, 18:30 EDT (Local Time)

Hosted by and post-screening discussion with:

Erica Chito Childs, Professor of Sociology (author of Navigating Interracial Borders and Fade to Black and White: Interracial Images in Popular Culture)
City University of New York

This series is co-sponsored by MixedRaceStudies.org.

August 18: Toasted Marshmallows (2014): 

Come watch the first public screening of the documentary Toasted Marshmallows in the U.S.! Follow filmmakers Marcelitte Failla and Anoushka Ratnarajah on a journey across Canada and the U.S. as they document the experiences of other mixed-race identified women, delve into their own cultural and ethnic histories, and tell stories about color, passing, privilege, ancestry, and belonging. An extended preview of the film will be followed by a dialogue with the filmmakers and Erica Chito-Childs.

August 11: My Beautiful Laundrette (1985):

British-born, half-Pakistani playwright and novelist Hanif Kureishi won an Oscar nomination for his 1985 screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette, a richly layered film about Pakistani immigrant life in Thatcherite London.

Come watch the protagonist, Omar, navigate mixed-income and mixed-race arrangements in his family and develop an unlikely, yet beautiful, queer relationship with Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis). Set against the backdrop of anti-immigrant racism and fascism, the story of Omar’s laundrette presents an electrifying set of possibilities around class, race, sexuality, belonging, and love.

August 4: Imitation of Life (1959):

The Mixed Monday film series launches with a 1959 Lana Turner classic—Imitation of Life—which explores the story of an African-American woman and her light-skinned, mixed-race daughter who passes for white. Come munch on popcorn, watch the film and discuss the history and cultural context around mixed families, race relations and popular culture.

JS-44.12: A Global Look at Mixed Marriage

XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology: Facing an Unequal Word: Challenges for Global Sociology
International Sociological Association
Yokohama, Japan
2014-07-13 through 2014-07-19

Wednesday, 2014-07-16, 18:00 JST (Local Time)
Room: 315

Erica Chito Childs, Sociology
Hunter College, City University of New York

Mapping attitudes toward intermarriage—who is and who is not an acceptable mate—offers an incisive means through which imaginings of belonging—race, ethnicity, nationhood, citizenship and culture—can be critically evaluated.  In particular, social constructions of race and difference involve discussions of purity, race identity and taboos against interracial sex and marriage. Drawing from qualitative interviews and ethnographic research in six countries on attitudes toward intermarriage, this paper explores these issues of intermarriage in a global context.  Through a comparison of qualitative data I collected in Australia, Brazil, Ecuador, Portugal, South Africa and the United States, I offer a theoretical framework and provide an empirical basis, to understand the concept of intermarriage and what it tells us about racial boundaries in a global context. For example, in the United States, the issue of intermarriage is discussed as interracial with less attention paid to inter-religious or inter-ethnic, to the point that those concepts are rarely used.  Similarly in South Africa, despite the end of apartheid decades ago, marriage across racial categories is still highly problematized and uncommon.  Yet globally there is less consensus of what constitutes intermarriage—sometimes intercultural, interethnic, or any number of words with localized meanings.  In South America and Australia, the debate seems to revolve more around indigenous status, citizenship and national identity such as who is Australian or who is Ecuadoran?  As indigenous populations rally for rights and representation how does this change the discourse on what intermarriage mean?  Looking globally, what differences matter? What boundaries are most salient in determining the attitudes of different groups toward intermarriage?  How are various communities responding to intermarriage, particularly if there are a growing number of “mixed” families? This research on attitudes toward intermarriage adds to our understanding of constructions of race, racism and racialized, gendered and sexualized beliefs and practices globally.

For more information, click here.