Race and Mixed Race

Posted in Course Offerings, History, Law, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2011-04-08 21:57Z by Steven

Race and Mixed Race

University of Michigan
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
American Culture
AMCULT 311 –  Topics in Ethnic Studies
Section 001
Fall 2011

Evelyn Azeeza Alsultany, Assistant Professor of American Culture

This course examines how conceptions of race and mixed race have been historically shaped through law, science, and popular culture. In addition to examining the ways in which race has been socially constructed and how its meanings have changed over time, the course also explores the politics of interracial marriage, contemporary mixed race identities, and cross-racial adoption. Through an examination of historical, sociological, and autobiographical texts, the course explores a variety of themes including: census classifications, affirmative action, notions of colorblindness, questions of appearance, “authenticity,” community belonging, and the debates around the mixed race movement. Course requirements include posting a weekly discussion question, two in-class exams, and a final group project.

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The Racial Identification of Biracial Children with One Asian Parent: Evidence from the 1990 Census

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, Reports, United States on 2011-02-23 01:26Z by Steven

The Racial Identification of Biracial Children with One Asian Parent: Evidence from the 1990 Census

No. 96-370
Population Studies Center Research Report Series
Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan
August 1996

Yu Xie, Otis Dudley Duncan Distinguished University Professor of Sociology
University of Michigan

Kimberly A. Goyette, Associate Professor of Sociology
Temple University

This paper examines the socioeconomic and demographic correlates that are associated with whether biracial children with an Asian parent are racially identified with their Asian parent or with their non-Asian parent. With data extracted from the 5 percent Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1990 Census, we take into account explanatory variables at three levels: child’s characteristics, parents’ characteristics, and locale’s racial composition. Our results indicate that the racial identification of biracial children with an Asian parent is to a large extent an arbitrary option within today’s prevailing racial classification scheme. We find empirical evidence in support of the theoretical proposition that both assimilation and awareness of Asian heritage affect the racial identification of biracial children with an Asian parent. Of particular interest is our new finding that the Asian parent’s education increases the likelihood of Asian identification only for third-generation children. In general, we find demographic factors, such as the Asian parent’s ethnicity, to play a far more important role than socioeconomic factors approximating assimilation and awareness processes. In light of these results, we advance the thesis that, like ethnic options among whites, racial options are available for the racial identification of biracial children with an Asian parent.

Read the entire report here.

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Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Migration from the West Indies to Britain, 1750-1820

Posted in Caribbean/Latin America, Dissertations, Family/Parenting, History, New Media, Slavery, United Kingdom on 2010-10-17 02:53Z by Steven

Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Migration from the West Indies to Britain, 1750-1820

The University of Michigan
2010
481 pages

Daniel Alan Livesay, Assistant Professor of History
Drury University, Springfield, Missouri

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in The University of Michigan 2010

This dissertation shows that the migration of mixed-race individuals from the Caribbean to Britain between 1750 and 1820 helped to harden British attitudes toward those of African descent. The children of wealthy, white fathers and both free and enslaved women of color, many left for Britain in order to escape the deficiencies and bigotry of West Indian society. This study traces the group’s origin in the Caribbean, mainly Jamaica, to its voyage and arrival in Britain. It argues that the perceived threats of these migrants’ financial bounty and potential to marry and reproduce in Britain helped to collapse previous racial distinctions in the metropole which had traditionally differentiated along class and status lines and paved the way for a more monolithic racial viewpoint in the nineteenth century.

This study makes three major contributions to the history of the British Atlantic. First, it provides a thorough examination of the West Indies’ elite population of color, showing its connection to privileged white society in both the Caribbean and Britain. Those who moved to the metropole lend further proof to the agency and influence of such individuals in the Atlantic world. Second, it expands the notion of the British family at the turn of the nineteenth century. Through analyses of wills, inheritance disputes, and correspondence, this project reveals the regularity of British legal and personal interaction with relatives of color across the Atlantic, as well as with those who resettled in the metropole. Third, it allows for a material understanding of Atlantic racial ideologies. By connecting popular discussions in the abolition debate and the sentimental novel to biographical accounts of mixed-race migrants, British notions of racial difference are more strongly linked to social reality. Uncovering an entirely new cohort of British people of color and its members’ lived experiences, this dissertation provides crucial insight into the tightening of British and Atlantic racial attitudes.

INTRODUCTION

In 1840, the Reverend Donald Sage completed his memoirs. Reflecting on the meandering twists and turns of life, he wrote extensively on his education and the different schools he attended as a youth. One of these institutions, where he stayed only briefly between 1801 and 1803, was located in the small seaside town of Dornoch, in the Scottish Highlands. Sage described the village as a “little county town” which had been “considerably on the decrease” by the time his family had arrived. As one would do in such a journal, Sage thought back on his boyhood friends, and noted that while at Dornoch he and his brother became close companions with the Hay family. Like Sage, the three Hay brothers were not originally from the village; they had instead been born in the West Indies. In fact, Sage revealed that they were “the offspring of a negro woman, as their hair, and the tawny colour of their skin, very plainly intimated, [and] [t]heir father was a Scotsman.” Sage became particularly good friends with Fergus, the eldest of the three, of whom he gave a very qualified endorsement: “Notwithstanding the disadvantages of his negro parentage, Fergus was very handsome. He had all the manners of a gentleman, and had first-rate abilities.”

It may seem out of place for three West Indian children, the offspring of an interracial couple, to be living in a small village at Scotland’s northern tip in 1801. Historians tend to think of an Afro-Caribbean presence in Britain as a phenomenon of the last sixty-plus years, and one localized around major urban centers. At the same time, only recently has the topic of inter-racial unions been addressed in the “new” multicultural Britain. The story of the Hay children in Dornoch, however, was not at all unique at the turn of the nineteenth century. Rather, the Hays were members of a regular migration of mixed-race West Indians who arrived in the home country during the period. Facing intense discrimination, few jobs opportunities, and virtually no educational options in the colonies, West Indians of color fled to Britain with their white fathers’ assistance. Once arrived, they encountered myriad responses. While some white relatives accepted them into their homes, others sued to cut them off from the family fortune. Equally, even though a number of fictional and political tracts welcomed their arrival, others condemned their presence and lobbied to ban them from landing on British soil. Regardless of these variable experiences, mixed-race migrants traveled to Britain consistently during the period. The Hay children may have turned heads on the roads of Dornoch, but they would not have been a wholly unfamiliar sight.

This study examines the movement of mixed-race individuals from the Caribbean to Britain at the end of the long eighteenth century. It argues that the frequent and sustained migration of these children of color produced a strong British reaction, at both the personal and popular levels, against their presence, and helped contribute to the simplification and essentialization of British racial ideology in the nineteenth century. A number of personal histories are followed through the various stages of this transplantation, and are compared to published accounts of the phenomenon in general. White patronage and parental ties were vital in the colonies if a mixed-race individual was to leave for Britain. Connected through these kinship and business associations, elite West Indians of color maintained their own Atlantic networks. Once in Britain, they had to monitor their finances vigilantly against rival claimants to Caribbean fortunes. Family attempts at disinheritance were a frequent problem, and demonstrated an increasing British disgust at colonial miscegenation, along with mixed-race resettlement. With the advent of the abolition movement in the 1770s and 1780s, the issue took on greater political importance. Rich heirs of color now in Britain seemed to herald the cataclysmic prophesies of slavery supporters. Certain that abolition would destroy the racial and class barriers between black and white, many Britons recoiled at those of hybrid descent now resident in the metropole. If class distinctions had restrained racial prejudice in the early years of the eighteenth century, they no longer produced the same moderating effects at the century’s close…

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • List of Figures
  • List of Tables
  • List of Abbreviations
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: The World They Left Behind: Family Networks and Mixed-Race Children In the West Indies
  • Chapter 2: Patterns of Migration: Push and Pull Factors Sending West Indians of Color to Britain
  • Chapter 3: Inheritance Disputes and Mixed-Race Individuals in Britain
  • Chapter 4: Success and Struggle in Britain
  • Chapter 5: West Indians of Color in Britain, and the Abolition Question
  • Chapter 6: Depictions of Mixed-Race Migrants in British Literature
  • Conclusion
  • Bibliography

List of Figures

  • Brunias, 1779
  • 1.2 “The Barbadoes Mulatto Girl,” by Agostino Brunias, 1779
  • 1.3 “Joanna,” by William Blake, 1796
  • 1.4 Percentages of Children Born of Mixed Race, and the Percentage of Mixed-Race Children Born in Wedlock, St. Catherine, Jamaica, 1770-1808
  • 1.5 Percentage of Mixed-Race Children Born in Wedlock, Kingston, Jamaica, 1809-1820
  • 1.6 Percentage of Free, Mixed-Race Children with Interracial Parents, Kingston, Jamaica, 1750-1820
  • 1.7 Thomas Hibbert’s House, Kingston, Jamaica, 2008 (erected 1755)
  • 2.1 Deficiency Fines Collected (in pounds current), St. Thomas in the Vale Parish, Jamaica, 1789-1801
  • 2.2 Percentage of West Indians in Student Body (University of Edinburgh Medical School and King’s College, Aberdeen), 1750-1820
  • 2.3 “Johnny New-Come in the Island of Jamaica,” by Abraham James, 1800
  • 4.1 “A Scene on the quarter deck of the Lune,” by Robert Johnson from his Journal, April 8, 1808
  • 4.2 Cartoon by Robert Johnson from his Journal, April 8, 1808
  • 4.3 Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath, London
  • 4.4 “Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray,” unknown artist (formerly attributed to John Zoffany), c. 1780
  • 4.5 “The Morse and Cator Family,” by John Zoffany, c. 1783
  • 4.6 “Nathaniel Middleton,” by Tilly Kettle, c. 1773
  • 4.7 “William Davidson,” by R. Cooper, c. 1820
  • 4.8 “Robert Wedderburn,” 1824..306
  • 5.1 “Sir Thomas Picton,” c. 1810
  • 5.2 Calderon’s Torture, from The Trial of Governor Picton
  • 5.3 Calderon’s Torture, and “Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave,” by William Blake, 1793
  • 6.1 “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” by Josiah Wedgwood, 1787

List of Tables

  • 1.1 Racial Classification of the Mothers of Mixed-Race Children with White Fathers, by Percentage, 1770-1820
  • 1.2 Percentages of Interracial Parents vs. Two Parents of Color Amongst Mixed-Race Children in Jamaica, 1730-1820
  • 2.1 Percentage of white men’s wills, proven in Jamaica, with bequests for mixed-race children in Britain (either presently resident, or soon to be sent there), 1773-1815
  • 2.2 Percentage of white men’s wills with acknowledged mixed-race children, proven In Jamaica, that include bequests for mixed-race children in Britain (either presently resident, or soon to be sent there), 1773-1815.131
  • 2.3 Professions of testators sending mixed-race children to Britain, by percentage, 1773-1815
  • 2.4 Destinations of mixed-race Jamaicans, by percentage, 1773-1815
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Clusters of racial identity among Black/White biracial college students: A mixed method investigation

Posted in Campus Life, Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2010-10-14 19:33Z by Steven

Clusters of racial identity among Black/White biracial college students: A mixed method investigation

University of Michigan
August 2006
197 pages
Publication ID: AAT 3208292

Yvette C. Clinton

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfullment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Psychology) in the University of Michigan

Historically, in the United States Black/White biracial individuals were labeled as Black in accordance with the “one drop rule”. However, recent Census changes now allow biracial individuals to identify with multiple racial groups. As a result there are several ways in which biracial youth view their multiple racial identities. The aim of the present study was to examine how Black and biracial identities among biracial college students were related by conducting a cluster analysis. The study utilized a mixed method design to examine how racial identity clusters differed in terms of how they viewed their race, the racial socialization messages they received from their parents, racial context and psychological well-being. Sixty-one Black/White biracial college students at a Midwestern University completed a demographic questionnaire and scales that measured Black and biracial centrality, Black and biracial socialization messages received from their parents, feelings of alienation from Black and White peers and psychological well-being. Thirty participants also took part in a semi-structured interviewed that focused on the participants’ racial identity, discussions about race with parents and interactions in their college context.

A cluster analysis based on the participants’ Black and biracial centralities revealed four main cluster groups. Qualitative analyses examined dominant themes of racial identity and racial socialization messages among each cluster group. It was found that each cluster had a distinct way of viewing their Black and biracial identities. Clusters included: (1) an adamant biracial identity, (2) a public Black identity, (3) a dual identity (Black and biracial), and (4) non-racial identity (race was not important). Quantitative analyses revealed that there were significant differences in racial socialization messages, racial context (racial composition of neighborhood and number of Black and White friends), and feelings of alienation from Black and White peers between the clusters. However, there were no differences in psychological well-being between any of the racial identity cluster groups. This suggests that there are multiple “healthy” ways that Black/White biracial youth view their racial identities.

Purchase the dissertation here.

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Multiracial College Students: Understanding Interpersonal Self-Concept in the First Year

Posted in Campus Life, Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, New Media, United States on 2010-09-11 03:23Z by Steven

Multiracial College Students: Understanding Interpersonal Self-Concept in the First Year

The University of Michigan
2010
151 pages

Mark Allen Kamimura

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Education) in The University of Michigan 2010

This purpose of this study was to explore the differences between mixed and single race students in the factors that contribute to an interpersonal self-concept. The data in this study are drawn from a national longitudinal survey, Your First College Year (YFCY), from 2004-2005 and include mixed race Black and Asian students and their single race Black and Asian peers to explore interpersonal self-concept.

The results suggest that mixed and single race Asian and Black students have different pre-college and first year experiences, but only mixed race Black students were found to develop a significantly higher interpersonal self-concept after their first-year than their single race peers. Most importantly for mixed and single race students are their interactions with diverse peers. For all groups, both negative and positive interactions based on race within the college environment directly impact interpersonal self-concept. First-year college experiences (Positive Ethnic/Racial Relations, Racial Interactions of a Negative Quality, Leadership Orientation, Sense of Belonging, Campus Racial Climate, Self-Assessed Cognitive Development) were the most significant contributors to the development of an interpersonal self-concept in comparison to pre-college experiences.

The findings in this study expand the literature on multiracial college students and provide empirical evidence to support institutional practices that aim to promote a positive interpersonal self-concept in the first college year.

Table of Contents

  • DEDICATION
  • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  • LIST OF FIGURES
  • LIST OF TABLES
  • LIST OF APPENDICES
  • ABSTRACT
  • CHAPTER 1
    • INTRODUCTION
      • Statement of the Problem
      • Purpose and Scope of the Study
      • Significance of the Study
      • Contributions of the Study
  • CHAPTER 2
    • LITERATURE REVIEW
      • The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Census 2000
      • Social Construction of Race and Racial Categories
      • Multiracial Terminology
      • College Student Identity
    • Overview of Relevant Studies on Mixed and Single Race Students
      • Multiracial Students in Higher Education
      • Relevant Studies of Multiracial Individuals
      • Relevant Individual Race Studies
    • Theories on Multiracial Identity
      • Linear Racial Identity Development Approach
      • Resolution Approach
      • Ecological Approach
    • Comparisons Between Single-Race and Multiracial Research
      • Theoretical Comparison
    • Indicators of Multiracial Interpersonal Self-Concept
      • Positional
      • Resources
      • Information
      • Relationships
      • Environment
      • Involvement
      • Politics
      • Identity
      • Personal
      • Conceptual Mode
  • CHAPTER 3
    • METHODOLOGY
      • Date Sources and Data Collection
      • Sample
      • The 48 Cases
      • Dependent Variable
      • Independent Variables
      • Conceptual Regression Model
      • Data Preparation
      • Limitations
  • CHAPTER 4
    • RESULTS
      • Independent t-Tests
        • Single Race Black Students and Mixed Race Black Students (Independent Variables)
        • Single Race Asian Students and Mixed Race Asian Students (Independent Variables)
        • Interpersonal Self-concept (Dependent Variable)
        • Summary
      • Multivariate Analysis
        • Interpersonal Self-Concept for First Year Mixed and Single Race Black Students
        • Summary
        • Interpersonal Self-Concept for First Year Mixed and Single Race Asian Students
        • Summary
        • Comparison of Interpersonal Self-Concept Between Groups
        • Summary of Results
  • CHAPTER 5
    • DISCUSSION
      • Summary of Findings
      • Implications to Practice in Higher Education
        • Student Affairs
        • Academic Incorporation
        • Higher Education and Institutional Policy
      • Implications for Research
        • Theory
        • Design and Methodology
        • Future Research
      • Conclusion
  • APPENDICES
  • REFERENCES

List of Figures

  • Figure 2.1 Conceptual Model for Interpersonal Self-Concept
  • Figure 3.1 Conceptual Regression Model

LIST OF TABLES

  • Table 2.1 Factors Contributing to a Multiracial Interpersonal Self-Concept
  • Table 3.1 Sample Size
  • Table 3.2 Interpersonal Self-concept Factor Analysis
  • Table 3.3 Summary of Variables and Indices
  • Table 3.4 Factor Analysis Descriptive Statistics
  • Table 3.5 Positive Race/Ethnic Relations
  • Table 3.6 Racial/Ethnic Interactions of a Negative Quality
  • Table 3.7 Campus Racial Climate
  • Table 3.8 Race/Ethnic Composition of the Environment
  • Table 3.9 Leadership and Community Orientation
  • Table 3.10 Informed Citizenship
  • Table 3.11 Satisfaction with College
  • Table 3.12 Sense of Belonging
  • Table 3.13 Self-Assessed Cognitive Development
  • Table 4.1 Frequencies, Means, Standard deviations, and Test of Significance on Independent Variables for Entire Sample by Race (Total Black n=2647 and Total Black+n=485)
  • Table 4.2 Means, Standard deviations, and Test of Significance on Independent Variables for Entire Sample by Race (Asian Total n=1927 and Total Asian+n=464)
  • Table 4.3 Means, Standard deviations, and Individual and Paired Tests of Significance on Dependent Variables for Entire Sample by Race (Black Total n=2647 and Total Black+n=485) and (Asian Total n=1927 and Total Asian+ n=464)
  • Table 4.4 Standardized beta coefficients for blocked entry regression on Dependent Variable Interpersonal Self-Concept (α=.599) for Entire Sample: Black and Black+ (n = 2,434)
  • Table 4.5 Standardized beta coefficients for blocked entry regression on Dependent Variable Interpersonal Self-Concept (α=.647) for Entire Sample: Asian and Asian+ (n = 2,158)
  • Table 4.6 Unstandardized beta coefficients for blocked entry regression on DependentVariable Interpersonal Self-Concept. Comparison of Black and Black+ (α=.599, n = 2,434) and Asian and Asian+ (α=.647, n = 2,158)

LIST OF APPENDICES

  • APPENDIX A: Office of Management and Budget Information
  • APPENDIX B: Renn’s Ecology of College Student Development Model

Read the entire dissertation here.

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