Recent jcmrs items

Darryl Leroux. Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Darryl Leroux's Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity from University of Manitoba Press.

Rhetorical Dance of Belonging: Chamaole Narratives of Race, Indigeneity, and Identity from Guam

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article is based on an investigation of identity formations of a mixed-race mestisa/mestisu group from Guam, locally known as Chamaole, who are descendants of both native Chamorros and White Americans ( haole ). Using a hybrid research methodology, the author analyzes Chamaole encounters with ambiguity in interviews with three Chamaole authors and poets: Jessica Perez-Jackson (“Half Caste”), Lehua M. Taitano (excerpts from A Bell Made of Stones ), and Corey Santos (“Chamaoli”). An analysis of their works and their interviews reveals patterns of cultural, genealogical, racial, linguistic, and political conflicts between Chamorros and White Americans since the US occupation of Guam. The article articulates how Chamaoles overcome race-based prejudices, celebrate Chamorro resistance, and reckon with White supremacy, showing that tensions resulting from US colonialism in Guam are magnified in Chamaole experiences....

Cover Art

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This cover was created by G. Reginald Daniel. The image is by Ashlea Gillon (Ngāti Awa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāiterangi).

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A list of articles in this special issue on mixedness and Indigeneity in the Pacific.

Exploring Mixedness in Fiji: Navigating Mixed-Race Identities for Individuals of Indo-Fijian and Indigenous Fijian Descent

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article explores the shifts and negotiations of racial, ethnic, and national identity for persons of mixed Indo-Fijian and Indigenous Fijian descent. The study provides a detailed historical overview of the racialization of politics and identity in Fiji and the subsequent politicization of mixed race. Drawing on narratives of identity and belonging gathered from multiple individual and group interviews with ten participants in Fiji, the article juxtaposes this historical framework with the lived reality of mixedness in contemporary Fiji. Framed within the field of critical mixed race studies, this research identifies and interrogates how identity constructions are challenged, accommodated, and reinforced through the participants’ lived experiences of mixedness and how this relates to Indigenous identity. The article seeks to provide a new layer of analysis at a time when identity politics remain critical in Fijian society. Drawing on models of mixed identity developed...

Editor's Note

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction to the special issue. We remember and honor the founding editor and inaugural editor in chief of JCMRS , G. Reginald Daniel.

Whiria Tū Aka: Conceptualizing Dual Ethnic Identities, Complexities, and Intensities

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Indigenous ethnic grouping Māori did not exist prior to Pākehā arrival in Aotearoa New Zealand. Instead, Māori identified as members of hapū (kinship group, subtribe), and membership was always related to concepts inclusive of whakapapa (genealogy, ancestry, belonging, and self-identification). In addition, Māori often intermarried with members of other hapū and, therefore, have a long history of “mixedness.” In fact, re-tellings of whakapapa have always acknowledged and honored the mixedness that occurred as a result of unions between different hapū members. In these ways, Māori have always celebrated our complex mixed identity positionings. Since colonization, a new “mixedness” has occurred between Māori and Pākehā settlers in Aotearoa. This article interrogates Māori/Pākehā notions of “mixedness,” including being white coded, kiri mā (white skin), white Māori, socially assigned as Pākehā, or half-caste. It discusses the ways these...

Billie Allan and V. C. Rhonda Hackett (eds.). Decolonizing Equity

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Billie Allan and V. C. Rhonda Hackett's edited volume Decolonizing Equity from Fernwood Publishing.

“But Aren’t We All Mixed Race?”: The Politics of Mixed-Race Identity and Belonging in Papua New Guinea

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Mixed-race people in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have long been socially acknowledged as a distinct ethnic group—a group whose individual members sometimes also oscillate between being subsumed by, included within, or excluded from other racial categories like Asian, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and White. It is perhaps this ability to shift between what are often perceived as fixed racial categories that leaves some mixed-race people having to justify, negotiate, or explain the breakdown of their ethnic heritage to strangers, friends, and colleagues, some of whom think it is enlightened to say things like, “But aren’t we all mixed race?” or “Are you sure that’s what you are?” or the far less benign “You’re nothing but a mixed-race bastard.” This article examines historical and contemporary ideas about mixed-race identity in PNG in terms of both the privilege and oppression that members of this category experience. It stresses that racial identity in PNG is strongly connected...

Samira K. Mehta. The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Samira K. Mehta's The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging from Beacon Press.

Mixed-Race Kanak in “a World Cut in Two”: Contemporary Experiences in Kanaky/New Caledonia

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article interrogates how the profound history of spatial segregation across colonial, racial, and cultural lines appears in contemporary narratives of mixed-race people in Kanaky/New Caledonia (K/NC). By tracing the moments that specific spaces, such as “the city” and “the tribe,” are mentioned in these narratives, the article shows how the colonial divide structures selves, relations, spaces, and society and manifests itself in discussions with self-identified métis/ses Kanak-White people, especially in the context of the formal decolonization process K/NC is going through. The research draws primarily on interviews with self-identified métis/ses Kanak-White people that took place a few months before the 2018 referendum for independence. The primary question this article seeks to answer is: how does French colonialism spatially determine the lives of métis/ses in K/NC? For this purpose, it analyzes how métis/ses Kanak-White people navigate the variety of spaces they inhabit...

About the Contributors

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Bios of the contributors to this special issue on mixedness and Indigeneity in the Pacific.

Mixed Race, Mixed Identities, and Indigeneity: Context and Theory

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the opening piece of this special issue of the Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies, “Mixedness and Indigeneity in the Pacific,” Zarine L. Rocha provides context and theory for the issue’s unpacking of mixed race, mixed identities, and Indigeneity.

Cover Art

Tue, 9 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This cover art is by Norweigian photographer Stein Egil Liland.

From ‘Something in Between’ to ‘Everything All at Once’: Meditations on Liminality and Blackness in Afro-Finnish Hip-Hop and R&B