Mixed Heritage Week 2015: AIDE Presents: “What Are You?” Exploring Biracial and Multiracial Identity (DICE)

Posted in Campus Life, Census/Demographics, Communications/Media Studies, Live Events, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2015-03-13 00:39Z by Steven

Mixed Heritage Week 2015: AIDE Presents: “What Are You?” Exploring Biracial and Multiracial Identity (DICE)

The Ohio State University
Student Life Multicultural Center, Alonso Family Room
3034 Ohio Union, 1739 N. High Street
Columbus, Ohio
Thursday, 2015-03-26, 20:00-21:00 EDT (Local Time)

This presentation will provide an overview of the changing racial demographics in the United States in relation to multiracial people. This will include identifying issues multiracial college students face, U.S. Census data, examples of multiracial microaggressions, and examples of the use of multiracial identity in modern pop culture…

For more information click here.

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Being Amerasian in South Korea: Purebloodness, Multiculturalism, and Living Alongside the U.S. Military Empire

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Dissertations, Media Archive, Social Science on 2012-11-05 14:44Z by Steven

Being Amerasian in South Korea: Purebloodness, Multiculturalism, and Living Alongside the U.S. Military Empire

The Ohio State University
June 2012
96 pages

Yuri W. Doolan

Honors Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors Research Distinction in History in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University

This thesis focuses on the history of U.S. neo-colonialism in South Korea through the lens of mixed race Amerasians—a population generally regarded and understood to have been produced through the liaisons between South Korean camptown women and American military personnel. In this project, I discuss the historical and contemporary status and identity of mixed race individuals in South Korea as the country’s national ideology evolved from an embrace of purebloodedness to multiculturalism. My analysis is chronologically framed around intercountry adoption policies in the years immediately following the Korean War (formed to excise the presence of mixed race GI babies from South Korea) and state-sponsored multicultural policy initiatives beginning in 2005. I research the production of Amerasian subjectivity and identity in South Korea over the past six decades through an analysis of pureblooded constructions of Koreanness, U.S. militarism and camptowns, androcentric Nationality and Family Laws, contemporary multicultural policy formations, and the popular culture and lived experiences of Amerasians in South Korea.

I also offer a comparative analysis of a new mixed race group in South Korea called Kosian (Korean/Asian). I critique multiculturalism in South Korea, which targets this emerging Kosian demographic, arguing that multicultural policy is primarily one of assimilation rather than a recognition of cultural and racial differences. I suggest that the marginal status of mixed race Amerasians has not changed much since the Korean War and is linked to South Korea’s persistent status as a neo-colony of the United States—a history of national shame and subjugation that Amerasians have come to symbolize. Primary sources for this study include legal and government documents, popular media representations, interviews with pureblooded Koreans, as well as oral histories of Amerasians that I conducted in South Korea during the summer of 2011.

Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • A Note on Terminology
  • Chapter One
    • Introduction
    • Pureblooded Constructions of Race
    • The G.I. Baby and Camptowns
    • Intercountry Adoption
    • Gendered Citizenship and Korean Family Law
    • Conclusion
  • Chapter Two
    • Introduction
    • A “Multicultural” Era
    • White Privilege in Contemporary South Korean Society
    • Conclusion
  • Conclusion
  • Bibliography

Read the entire thesis here.

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2007 URO Spotlight: Noel Voltz – History and African American Studies

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2010-06-24 21:09Z by Steven

2007 URO Spotlight: Noel Voltz – History and African American Studies

Undergraduate Research Office
The Ohio State University

Noel Voltz is finishing her degree in African American and African Studies. She is currently writing her Honors Thesis and plans on continuing her research and pursuing a PhD in History.

…What specifically have you researched, and what projects are you currently working on?

My research project/honors thesis is entitled “Black Female Agency and Sexual Exploitation: Quadroon Balls and Plaçage Relationships” and I have been working on it for the past two years.  I am conducting historical research that focuses on New Orleans from 1805 to 1860.  More specifically, I am studying the relationship choices made by some of these free women of color.  It appears that some of these women chose to enter into sexual relationships with white men as a mean of gaining social standing, protection, and money.  Until recently, historians have overlooked the lives of Louisiana’s free women of color during the colonial and antebellum eras.  This research, therefore, expands historical knowledge about the unique social institution of Quadroon Balls and plaçage relationships in order to give greater breadth to our understanding of free women of color’s sexual and economic choices. Ultimately, I plan to continue this project as my graduate dissertation…

Read the entire article here.

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