My dissertation, "America's New Racial Heroes," is the first full-length intellectual history examining the fascination with mixed race people that has been concurrent with the stereotypes that pathologize them. Through five moments in United States history, this project asks what the idea of racially mixed people does for America, uncovering a set of vanguards who suggested that, rather than fear racial mixing, we should embrace it as a means to live up to ideals of equality and inclusion, thus benefiting the nation as a whole. Whether the subject is abolitionist Wendell Phillips's defense of racial amalgamation, the popularity of the Melting Pot trope, Time Magazine's 1993 New Face of America issue, or the promises of a "Multiracial" category on the 2000 census, similar notions regarding novelty, progress, and utopia repeat themselves. Rounding out "America's New Racial Heroes" is an examination of contemporary praise of ambiguity at the same time Americans wish for quantifiable racial makeup. Overall, this project warns against the giddy hope that racially mixed people alone can solve America's racial problems. I have several models in bringing together these five cases, including George M. Fredrickson's The Black Image in the White Mind, Philip J. Deloria's Playing Indian, and Robert Lee's Orientals. Each of these shows how discourses of science, nationality, and popular culture shape the identities of dominant and minority groups concurrently. Like these works, my project brings together archival research, cultural studies readings, and theories of racial formation to examine how pro-mixing advocates situate themselves within their own contexts and resonate through time. This work on mixed race identity has many intersections with both fields, accentuating the richness that can result from comparative, ethnic studies work across disciplinary boundaries. / text

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 (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Merrill Swain.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-166). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 28-31).

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

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 264-268). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

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.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, November, 2001. / Title from PDF t.p.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of English, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references.