Mixed Race Studies

Rhiannon Giddens wins Best Folk Album GRAMMY

Guitar Girl Magazine
2022-04-06

GGM Staff

Congratulations to Rhiannon Giddens on her Grammy Award win for Best Folk Album for They’re Calling Me Home. Giddens was also nominated for Best American Roots Song for ​​”Avalon” from They’re Calling Me Home, which she made with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. Giddens is now a 2-time winner and an 8-time nominee. On Wednesday, Giddens will also perform at Paul Simon’s tribute concert “Homeward Bound: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon,” alongside Brandi Carlile, Brad Paisley, Billy Porter, Dave Matthews, and Paul Simon himself.

The Grammy award-winning album, released by Nonesuch last April, has been widely celebrated by the NY Times, NPR Music, NPR, Rolling Stone, People, Associated Press and far beyond, with No Depression deeming it “a near perfect album…her finest work to date.” Recorded over six days in the early phase of the pandemic in a small studio outside of Dublin, Ireland – where both Giddens and Turrisi live – They’re Calling Me Home manages to effortlessly blend the music of their native and adoptive countries: America, Italy, and Ireland. The album speaks of the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical “call home” of death…

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Growing Up in a Family With Multiple Ethnicities Was Both Lonely and Beautiful

Parents
2022-04-19

Mieko Gavia

I always felt like an outsider, but being mixed is filled with beauty and complexity.

Growing up I always felt like an outsider. My name, my skin, my hair all tells the story of where my parents and my parent’s parents come from. It all marks me as a bit different. I’m mixed Okinawan, Black, and Mexican, and there aren’t a lot of people out there like me. I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a household with mixed parents and siblings because my parents made sure to teach us about our heritage, and about cultures all over the world.

This gave me respect for all sorts of different types of people, and instilled pride in my identity. I am also grateful that they encouraged curiosity about the world, and created an atmosphere where we all “got” each other…

Read the entire article here.

My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist’s Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (an imprint of Macmillan Publishers)
2022-05-03
240 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 9780374604875
Audio ISBN: 9781250856319
Digital Audio ISBN: 9781250856326
e-Book ISBN: 9780374604882

Will Jawando, Councilmember
Montgomery County, Maryland

Will Jawando tells a deeply affirmative story of hope and respect for men of color at a time when Black men are routinely stigmatized. As a boy growing up outside DC, Will, who went by his Nigerian name, Yemi, was shunted from school to school, never quite fitting in. He was a Black kid with a divorced white mother, a frayed relationship with his biological father, and teachers who scolded him for being disruptive in class and on the playground. Eventually, he became close to Kalfani, a kid he looked up to on the basketball court. Years after he got the call telling him that Kalfani was dead, another sickening casualty of gun violence, Will looks back on the relationships with an extraordinary series of mentors that enabled him to thrive.

Among them were Mr. Williams, the rare Black male grade school teacher, who found a way to bolster Will’s self-esteem when he discovered he was being bullied; Jay Fletcher, the openly gay colleague of his mother who got him off junk food and took him to his first play; Mr. Holmes, the high school coach and chorus director who saw him through a crushing disappointment; Deen Sanwoola, the businessman who helped him bridge the gap between his American upbringing and his Nigerian heritage, eventually leading to a dramatic reconciliation with his biological father; and President Barack Obama, who made Will his associate director of public engagement at the White House—and who invited him to play basketball on more than one occasion. Without the influence of these men, Will knows he would not be who he is today: a civil rights and education policy attorney, a civic leader, a husband, and a father.

Drawing on Will’s inspiring personal story and involvement in My Brother’s Keeper, President Obama’s national initiative to address persistent opportunity gaps facing boys and young men of color, My Seven Black Fathers offers a transformative way for Black men to shape the next generation.

Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You, Second Edition: Busting Myths about Human Nature

University of California Press
May 2022
352 pages
Illustrations: 10 b/w illustrations
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Paperback ISBN: 9780520379602
eBook ISBN: 9780520976818

Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

A compelling takedown of prevailing myths about human behavior, updated and expanded to meet the current moment.

There are three major myths of human nature: humans are divided into biological races; humans are naturally aggressive; and men and women are wholly different in behavior, desires, and wiring. Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You counters these pervasive and pernicious myths about human behavior. Agustín Fuentes tackles misconceptions about what race, aggression, and sex really mean for humans, and incorporates an accessible understanding of culture, genetics, and evolution that requires us to dispose of notions of “nature or nurture.”

Presenting scientific evidence from diverse fields, including anthropology, biology, and psychology, Fuentes devises a myth-busting toolkit to dismantle persistent fallacies about the validity of biological races, the innateness of aggression and violence, and the nature of monogamy, sex, and gender. This revised and expanded edition provides up-to-date references, data, and analyses, and addresses new topics, including the popularity of home DNA testing kits and the rise of ‘”incel” culture; the resurgence of racist, nativist thinking and the internet’s influence in promoting bad science; and a broader understanding of the diversity of sex and gender.

The Life of Elreta Melton Alexander: Activism within the Courts

University of Georgia Press
2022-05-01
224 pages
Illustrations: 11 b&w
Trim size: 6.000in x 9.000in
Hardcover ISBN: 9-780-8203-6192-5
Paperback ISBN: 9-780-8203-6193-2

Virginia L. Summey, Historian, Author, and Faculty Fellow
Lloyd International Honors College, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

This book explores the life and contributions of groundbreaking attorney, Elreta Melton Alexander Ralston (1919-98). In 1945 Alexander became the first African American woman to graduate from Columbia Law School. In 1947 she was the first African American woman to practice law in the state of North Carolina, and in 1968 she became the first African American woman to become an elected district court judge. Despite her accomplishments, Alexander is little known to scholars outside of her hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. Her life and career deserve recognition, however, not just because of her impressive lists of “firsts,” but also owing to her accomplishments during the civil rights movement in the U.S. South.

While Alexander did not actively participate in civil rights marches and demonstrations, she used her professional achievements and middle-class status to advocate for individuals who lacked a voice in the southern legal system. Virginia L. Summey argues that Alexander was integral to the civil rights movement in North Carolina as she, and women like her, worked to change discriminatory laws while opening professional doors for other minority women. Using her professional status, Alexander combatted segregation by demonstrating that Black women were worthy and capable of achieving careers alongside white men, thereby creating environments in which other African Americans could succeed. Her legal expertise and ability to reach across racial boundaries made her an important figure in Greensboro history.