Thesis (M.A.L.S.)--East Tennessee State University, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-62). Original full text .pdf file available via the Internet. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader software.

In April 1952, Japan emerged from Allied occupation free, peaceful, and democratic. Japan’s presses marked the occasion by declaring a state of crisis: the “konketsuji [mixed-blood children] crisis.” By all accounts, Allied soldiers had sired and abandoned two hundred thousand “mixed-blood” orphans in Japan. However, Chapter One reveals this to be a fabricated crisis or “moral panic.” Surveys found only a few thousand konketsuji nationwide, very few of them orphans. Yet these discoveries did little to change the tenor of “crisis.” Opposition politicians deployed wrath and fear over “blood mixing” to discredit the dominant Liberal Party and its alliance with the United States. They were abetted by an array of postwar activists who used the “crisis” to reconstruct Japanese nationalism, laid low by defeat and occupation, on a new basis: the “pure” race rather than the failed state. Chapter Two explores how the panic over “blood mixing” inevitably embroiled not just children but women as well. Japanese women were subject to intense pressures to eschew sex and family formation with Western men, and to abort “mixed” fetuses on eugenic grounds rather than bear them to term. 1948 marked the beginning of the end of criminal prosecution of abortion in Japan. The law that inaugurated this shift, the Eugenic Protection Law (EPL), is generally viewed as an advancement in women’s rights, despite the fact that the EPL envisioned and promoted the use of abortion as a means of managing the “quality and quantity” of Japan’s population. Scholarship on the links between eugenics and the decriminalization of abortion in Japan is vast, but scholars have yet to probe deeply into how eugenic abortion was applied tocontrol—or forestall—“race mixing” after the war. Although it was politically impossible for the government to impose abortions outright on women who might be pregnant with the children of Japan’s conquerors, such women were nonetheless targeted for eugenic intervention. For these women, abortion was not an option granted in a liberal democracy concerned with women’s rights. Abortion was an imperative imposed by a diverse array of governmental and non-governmental actors united behind an ideology of “pure blood.” Chapter Three explains how postwar scientific presses framed konketsuji born in the wake of World War II as an unprecedented presence. Geneticists, physical anthropologists, clinicians, and other researchers from the late 1940s through the 1970s deployed a “system of silences” to erase Japan’s prewar konketsuji community from view. They thereby not only constructed the Japanese as a racial community bounded by “pure blood,” but denied that the racialized nation ever had or ever could assimilate foreign elements. Scientific spokesmen effected the discursive purification of Japan despite resistance from “mixed-blood” adults who organized to contest the rising tide of racial nationalism. In the process, these scientists severely undercut the “mixed” community’s advocacy of a civically rather than biologically constituted nation. Chapter Four contrasts the decline of race science and eugenics in the West with their efflorescence in postwar Japan, where conditions of occupation heightened the relevance of racial eugenics as a prescription for national unity and strength. It is well known that Anglophone genetics and physical anthropology were led at the mid-century by immigrants and minorities, prominently including Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ashley Montagu. Yet without comparative analysis, it is difficult to weigh the significance of this fact, or of the fact that minorities did not lead the Japanese sciences. Japanese geneticists and anthropologists whoidentified as having “pure Japanese blood” never questioned that biopolitical category or the costs it imposed on those it excluded. I argue that who practiced science counts for much more than is allowed by objectivist narratives of self-correcting scientific “progress.” My project explains for the first time why racial nationalism and an ethos of ethnic cleansing triumphed in Japan at the very moment these forces receded in other contexts.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Japanese Studies / Master / Master of Philosophy

The goal of this descriptive/exploratory study was to examine the behavior and attitudes of eleven white and five non-white mothers involved in raising multiracial, preschool-aged, biological children. A theoretical framework based on research carried out with multiracial individuals was used to define interracial parenting strategies that promoted strong racial and personal identities in their children. Through individual interviews, using a questionnaire, an opinion survey, and four vignettes that described racially complex situations, two areas of parenting were examined: contact maintained by mothers with the child's minority background, and the mothers capacity to effectively problem-solve. / Little difference was found between the responses of white and non-white mothers. However, among white mothers, the younger, less educated mothers had considerably more contact with the minority culture than did the older, highly educated mothers. The latter, however, performed significantly better than their younger counterparts in providing responses that displayed more of the attitudes and parenting strategies recommended in previous research.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1994. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 29, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Larry Kennedy (chair), John Godbold, Ione Garcia, Charles Morris, William Tolone. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-195) and abstract. Also available in print.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Boston University, 1994. / It has been estimated that there are between one and ten million "biracial persons living in the United States at this time, yet a paucity of empirical data exists as to how those with mixed racial heritages manage the developmental tasks associated with identity formation. This project studies racial identification and parental similarity as they relate to psychological well-being in a non-clinical sample of biracial persons. Well-being served as the independent variable in the analyses and was assessed with the Affect Balance Scale which measures both positive and negative affective experiences in subjects' daily lives. Greater wellbeing is attributed to those for whom positive affect is not outweighed by negative affect. All subjects were adults with one black (African-American) and one white (European-American) parent. [TRUNCATED]

Racial identity invalidation is a social identity threat that occurs when a person’s racial or ethnic group membership is denied by others. While this phenomenon can be experienced by people of all backgrounds, it is particularly prevalent among multiracial people, whose mixed-race identities do not neatly fit the categories typically used to define race. Racial identity invalidation has been associated with several negative effects on mental health, social relations, and physical and emotional well-being; yet, because multiracial issues and experiences often go unnoticed in our largely monoracial society, this form of multiracial microaggression has been overlooked in discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Moreover, little research has explored how identity invalidation plays out specifically in the workplace setting—an important context tied to one’s livelihood—making it unclear what downstream effects invalidation may have on work outcomes such as job satisfaction, engagement, and team cohesion. The present study expands on prior research by exploring how multiracial identity invalidation unfolds in various work contexts, with a focus on how multiracial people respond to instances of invalidation at work and what consequences these events might have for their professional relationships and career advancement. Qualitative data were collected through an online questionnaire and one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with multiracial people of diverse backgrounds and industries. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, the study aimed to better understand the experiences, responses, outcomes, and contextual factors related to this phenomenon, with the ultimate aim of inductively developing a comprehensive model of multiracial identity invalidation in the workplace. Findings from this study suggest that multiracial people experience similar types of invalidation incidents (e.g., being asked to prove one’s heritage) in the workplace as they do in other arenas of life, yielding similarly negative intrapersonal responses (e.g., hurt, resentment, self-doubt). However, due to the power dynamics at play in most workplaces, their options for how to outwardly respond to these invalidation incidents are often limited, with responses ranging from passive (e.g., laughing it off) to more active approaches (e.g., trying to create a learning opportunity), depending on the perceived risk and likelihood of change. Although repeated invalidation experiences can lead to several negative work outcomes (e.g., strained coworker relationships, disengagement, self-silencing), some of the study participants also made changes for the better, by seeking new work opportunities at organizations that embraced their full and complex identities, aligned with their personal values, and recognized the strengths of having a mixed-race perspective. Finally, this study noted several contextual factors that appeared to influence the process of invalidation, with a particular emphasis on the need for social support systems and inclusive organizational practices. These study findings and the resultant comprehensive model offer practical insights for individuals, teams, and organizations, and suggest avenues for future research into the topic of multiracial identity invalidation in the workplace.

An estimated 22,000 children were born in England during the Second World War as a result of relationships between British women and .American GIs. Of these children, around 1,200-1,700 were born to African .American servicemen. These figures are estimates only; the actual number of births will never be known. / The research study is based on personal interviews with eleven members of this cohort. The interviews explore their life experience and examines their sense of identity as ex-nuptial children, of mixed-race parentage, who had no contact with and usually little information about their GI fathers. Of the eleven mothers, over half were married with at least one other child at the time of the birth. Nine participants/respondents were raised by their mother or her extended family. Two were institutionalised. At the time of the interviews all of the respondents were either searching for, or had found, their black GI fathers. / This is a qualitative study which aims to bear witness to the lived experience of this cohort and to analyse the meaning individuals gave to their experience. Data collection involved personal interviews with the eleven participants. The data was then subject to a thematic analysis and the major themes and issues identified. Content analysis was undertaken using a constructivist approach. / The interviews are presented as elicited narrative relayed through an interpretive summary. Consistency was maintained by using common questions organised within a loose interview framework. The findings were organised around the major conceptual issues and themes that emerged from the case summaries. Common themes, including resilience, racial identity, self esteem and stress were identified. / The researcher has professional qualifications as a social worker and clinical family therapist. She has ten years experience in the field of adoption, including the transracial placement of Aboriginal and overseas children in Australian families. She is also a member of the researched cohort. Issues arising when the researcher is also a member of the researched cohort are discussed in the methodology. / The experience of this cohort suggests that despite the disadvantages of their birth, they fared better than expected. The majority demonstrated high levels of resilience, successfully developing a sense of identity that incorporated both the black and white aspects of their racial heritage. However, for some this success was only achieved at considerable personal cost, with several participants reporting relatively high levels of stress and/or stress related symptoms, such as anxiety, mental illness and heart disease.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-129).