“A Chosen Exile” by History Professor Allyson Hobbs, has won two prizes from the Organization of American Historians

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2015-04-28 01:54Z by Steven

“A Chosen Exile” by History Professor Allyson Hobbs, has won two prizes from the Organization of American Historians

Stanford University Department of History
Palo Alto, California

2015-04-20

A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life” by History Professor Allyson Hobbs has won two prizes from the Organization of American Historians: the Frederick Jackson Turner Award for best first book in American history and the Lawrence Levine Award for best book in American cultural history.

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Critical Mixed-Race In Transnational Perspective: The US, China, And Hong Kong, 1842-1943

Posted in Asian Diaspora, History, Live Events, Media Archive, United States on 2015-01-13 20:03Z by Steven

Critical Mixed-Race In Transnational Perspective: The US, China, And Hong Kong, 1842-1943

Center for East Asian Studies
Lathrop East Asia Library, Room 224
Stanford University
518 Memorial Way, Stanford, California
Thursday, 2015-01-15, 16:15-17:30 PST (Local Time)

Emma Teng, T.T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This paper will examine the intersection of Sinophone Studies and Critical Mixed-Race Studies (CMRS) – two new and critical paradigms of inquiry – as productive forces in reshaping Chinese Studies beyond the old Area Studies model. My work analyzes the evolving discourses on mixed-race as well as the lived experiences of Eurasians in China, Hong Kong, and the US during the era between 1842 and 1943, and thus lies at the intersection of these two emergent and dynamic fields. Through my research on transnational Chinese-Western mixed families I aim to expand the horizons of Critical Mixed-Race Studies, which has been dominated by the study of black-white interracialism. I ask how a transpacific comparative approach might shift the theoretical frameworks for critical race and ethnic studies by challenging the presumed universality of US-centric models. At the same time, I aim to expand the horizons of “Chinese” studies, asking how mixed-race or transracial hybrid identities contest racially bounded, Han Chinese-centric definitions of Chineseness.

For more information and to RSVP, click here.

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The End of Race As We Know It?

Posted in Census/Demographics, Communications/Media Studies, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Passing, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United States, Videos on 2014-10-29 15:06Z by Steven

The End of Race As We Know It?

Stanford+Connects
Stanford University
2014-10-09

Michele Elam, Professor of English
Stanford University

Sharing demographic shifts and a personal story about the use of her photograph in various advertisements, Professor Michele Elam traces multiracial identities from the 1940s to present day. In this talk, she explores how society understands race through context and their own cultural perceptions, and what this means for society.

For more information, click here.

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Stanford historian re-examines practice of racial ‘passing’

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2013-12-19 09:36Z by Steven

Stanford historian re-examines practice of racial ‘passing’

Stanford News
The Humanities at Stanford
2013-12-18

Nate Sloan, Doctoral Candidate in Musicology
Stanford University

In the margins of historical accounts and the dusty corners of family archives, Stanford history Professor Allyson Hobbs uncovers stories long kept hidden: those of African Americans who passed as white, from the late 18th century to the present.

Dr. Albert Johnston grew up in Chicago, attended the University of Chicago Medical School in the 1920s, and went on to become a radiologist in a small town in New Hampshire. He and his wife were black – a fact they initially hid so that Johnston could secure an internship – and for 20 years, they kept this secret from their neighbors, and even their children.

After the United States entered World War II, Johnston effectively “outed” himself by applying for the Navy. He was rejected because of his racial background, and word of his mixed-race roots spread. What motivated Johnston to sacrifice his social status and job security? Was it wartime patriotism, or something else: a desire to have the truth out in the open?

Questions like these have motivated the latest research project of Stanford history Professor Allyson Hobbs. The Johnstons’ story is one of the many instances of racial “passing” – the practice in which light-skinned African Americans chose to present themselves as white – that Hobbs profiles in her upcoming book, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing (Harvard University Press, 2014)…

Read the entire article here.

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When Half is Whole: Understanding Mixed Race Identities

Posted in Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2013-01-29 19:21Z by Steven

When Half is Whole: Understanding Mixed Race Identities

Stanford University, Cypress North
Tresidder Union
459 Lagunita
2013-02-01, 12:00 PST (Local Time)

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Consulting Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine & Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity will discuss identity development in persons of mixed racial and national backgrounds.  This topic has particular appeal to those who are interracially married and have children who are racially mixed, as well as people of mixed race heritage or for parents who are raising children who are ethnically different from them.

Free and open to all faculty, staff, retirees, postdocs and their eligible dependents who are part of the Stanford University, SLAC, Stanford hospital and clinics, LPCH.

For more information, click here.

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

Posted in Census/Demographics, Economics, New Media, Papers/Presentations, Passing, Social Science, United States on 2012-11-29 21:43Z by Steven

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.

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Students more likely to identify as multiracial

Posted in Arts, Campus Life, Media Archive, United States on 2012-10-24 23:56Z by Steven

Students more likely to identify as multiracial

The Stanford Daily: Breaking News from the Farm Since 1892
Stanford University
2012-10-24

Taylor Chambers

Erika Roach ’13 identifies herself as “Blasian,” while Marcus Montanez-Leaks ’13 says he’s “Blexican.”

These terms and others used to describe mixed race individuals are becoming more common in conversation and student groups focused on mixed race issues have begun popping up on campus, a trend mirroring the rise in applications.

Mixed race applicants to Stanford are “one of the fastest growing groups,” according to Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw.

During the 2011-12 academic year, 11.6 percent of undergraduates identified their racial/ethnic category as “two or more races,” up from 8.4 percent the previous year. 2010-11 was the first year the University began collecting data on mixed race individuals.

In 2011, the Department of Education started requiring universities to collect more information about applicants’ race and ethnicity. Many college applications, including the Common Application that Stanford uses, now allow students to check multiple boxes when it comes to describing their racial and ethnic identities.

“Students [telling] us exactly what their racial background is … not a mandatory request. It is optional,” Shaw said. He added that the ability to self-identify accurately is a crucial part of the college admissions process.

For students who identify with more than one heritage, the ability to check all that apply on the racial background section of college admissions proves crucial to establishing their identity…

Michele Elam, English professor and author of a 2011 book on mixed race, The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics and Aesthetics in the New Millennium, argues that diversity remains an important consideration among many others in college admissions, but does not believe that students are simply “cynically trying to game the system by checking as many boxes as possible.”
 
“A lot of young high school students when doing college admissions are just coming of age politically and racially,” Elam said. “Some may not have thought of themselves as having a distinct mixed identity before being asked to check multiple boxes.”…

Read the entire article here.

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Racing “mixed race” in the 21st century

Posted in Articles, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2012-03-17 03:11Z by Steven

Racing “mixed race” in the 21st century

Gender News
The Clayman Institute for Gender Research
Stanford University
2012-03-16

Krystale E. Littlejohn

Mixed race and social negotiation

What are you?  For many people, this question elicits a variety of responses: student, sister, brother, dancer, mother, sports enthusiast.  For ethnically ambiguous people, however, the question usually refers to what race they are — or whether they identify as mixed race.  Implicit in such a question is the notion that mixed race people have a choice, a choice to decide how they racially identify.

This view of choice implies that America has arrived in a post-race society. For the first time since its origin in 1790, the U.S. Census in 2000 gave respondents the choice to mark more than one race.  Many view the “mark one or more races” (MOOM) option as validation that mixed race people can freely choose their racial identities.  In a recent talk at the Clayman Institute, race scholar Michele Elam challenged the notion of unconstrained choice for mixed race people and offered a nuanced view of the relationship between race, art and social justice in the 21st century…

Read the entire article here.

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ENGLISH 56N: Mixed Race in the New Millennium: Crossings of Kin, Culture and Faith (Stanford Introductory Seminar)

Posted in Communications/Media Studies, Course Offerings, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United States on 2011-07-02 04:31Z by Steven

ENGLISH 56N: Mixed Race in the New Millennium: Crossings of Kin, Culture and Faith (Stanford Introductory Seminar)

Stanford University
Winter Quarter, 2011-2012

Michele Elam, Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor of English and Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Stanford University

Our course examines how literature, theater, graphic art and popular culture shape understandings of contemporary “mixed race” identity and other complex experiences of cultural hybridity. Course explores implications for racial identity, art, and politics for the new millennium.

For more information, click here.

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Living Out Loud: (De)Constructing the Multiracial Individual

Posted in Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science on 2011-06-30 00:57Z by Steven

Living Out Loud: (De)Constructing the Multiracial Individual

Stanford University
2011-05-19
55 pages

Stephanie Otani-Sunamoto

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Department Honors in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University

Although mixed race people have existed throughout American history, being mixed race was either stigmatized or an unrecognized identity option until the Multiracial Movement began in the late 1980’s. The past twenty years have brought an unparalleled rise in Mixed Race consciousness. On a political level, advocates successfully campaigned for Census reclassification in the form of a “Mark one or more” option on the Census 2000. Mixed Race scholars, activists, writers and artists were active in creating a new, cosmopolitan “Mixed Race Person.” All the while they proclaimed that they fighting against racism and representing a largely marginalized community.

This thesis takes a critical approach to the messages about what it means to be “Mixed Race” that proliferate in the media and in academia: Mixed Race people have “the best of both worlds” and the act of choosing one racial and/or cultural identity forces the multiracial person to deny part of who her or she is. I argue that the academic and popular conceptualizations of Mixed Race actually reinforce the racial/racist ideologies Multiracial activists claimed to be so oppressive. These problematic ideas are a direct result of one of the driving forces for Mixed Race activism and scholarship: the desire to legitimize multiracial families. In doing so, one particular narrative of mixed race identity and authenticity has prevailed. I call for a more nuanced vision of Mixed Race personhood that allows for non-traditional family structures and does not impose any ideals of authenticity upon the mixed race individual. I will then present a literary nonfiction piece, Outside/Inside, based on my own life as a counter-example to the common narratives seen in Mixed Race literature and representations.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Theoretical Framework
  • Building a Mixed Race History
  • Mixed Race Literature and Constructions of Multiracial Personhood
  • Towards a Productive Mixed Race Consciousness
  • Conclusion
  • Works Cited

Introduction

I’m mixed. I’m not one or the other.
Interracial mixing is the future. Pretty soon, everyone will be mixed.
Mixed race people are so beautiful.
I don’t have to choose between my parents.
You are so exotic.
What is your ethnicity?
I love being mixed because people can’t place me into any categories.
Do you have anything else “in” you?
I am the best of both worlds.
Mixed race people aren’t as racist because they are a sign that old racial barriers are breaking down.

These statements, whether in the form of words or images, have been the soundtrack playing in my ears for all of my adult life. Three years ago, I started paying attention to the messages that surrounded me about Mixed Race and race in general. Everyone seemed to have opinions about where ambiguous bodies, including mine, belonged.

Academic literature on Mixed Race identity formation told me that mixed race people were in a position that is largely defined by the struggle to find legitimation from “both their cultures.” Cultures. The mixed race people I saw in videos and read in books talked about cultures as though they were tangible objects given to them the day they came home from the hospital and were told, Take these and make use of all of them. I knew that was not how race worked. Race was a physical categorization; it does not fully explain how the individual identity is internalized and made meaning.

But there were some divergent voices. Michele Elam argues that Multiracial advocates have framed their arguments as “ahead of the times” and in doing so have painted those who choose to criticize their efforts as conservative, even backwards. Michele Elam, Kimberly McClain DaCosta and Kim Williams are among the few who have taken a critical approach to studying the Mixed Race Movement through analyzing literature and entertainment, Multiracial organizations and marketing, and political strategies, respectively. While their works make important contributions, I believe that there is still much more room for nuance in the discussion about Mixed Race, particularly subjectivities.

The disconnect between what I knew about race and what I have read about Multiraciality led me on a roundabout journey to the research questions that drive this piece. The term Mixed Race implies that there are two (or more) essences being mixed, but how can that be if race isn’t real? If a new group has been created, new boundaries for group membership have also been created. Who stands inside and outside the boundaries of the new Mixed Race group? Are there other narratives in this movement that have been overlooked? Where is my place in all of this discourse?

I have created a framework that critiques popular ideas about Mixed Race and offers suggestions for the future of Mixed Race scholarship. I will discuss how the simultaneous denial and exploitation of multiracial people historically and the example of empowerment provided by the Civil Rights Movement spurred a group of people to give positive meaning to the word Multiracial. I will analyze the ways in which current representations and theorizations of Mixed Race identity conflate racial and ethnic identity formation. I argue that this has happened because Multiracial organization was motivated by the desire to validate the concept of a Multiracial Family. I will conclude by suggesting ways to for Mixed Race scholarship to move beyond advocacy and focus on the experiences of multiracial bodies, not multiethnic people.

Perhaps by presenting a voice that diverges from the monolithic entity that is Mixed Race Studies in 2011, it can provide a pathway for other types of stories we have yet to hear…

Read the entire thesis here.

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