THROUGH ANOTHER’S EYES
ASHLEY ADAMS
Through Another’s Eyes
Through Another’s Eyes By Ashley Adams
A Project Presented to The Graduate Faculty of California College of the Arts In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts in Design
Chair of CCA MFA in Design Jon Sueda
Thesis Advisor Brett MacFadden
Thesis Writing Advisor Stuart Kendall
May 5th, 2017
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For all those involved and who participated in the process of accomplishing this project, who believed in my practice and supported my decisions: Thank you. My journey, from the start of my formation as a designer to my time here at CCA, was paved with lessons and strong mentors to help bring everything together; it took dedication from those who knew more than I did. Special thanks to my thesis advisor Brett MacFadden who allowed me to experiment but steered me in the right direction whenever he thought I needed it, to my writing advisor Stuart Kendall for the guidance and thought provoking discussions, and to my mentor Arnold Holland who is my guiding light in my academic journey. I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents–dad, Desmond Adams, for your loving support and mom, Diana Barreneche, for providing me with unfailing encouragement throughout my years of study and process of completing this thesis. And to my allstar partner Romell Smothers who showered me with love 450 miles away. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you. To the loving memory of my grandmother, Gladys Mosqueda
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Introduction
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The Other
The Other: On paper
Balancing the “Other”s
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W.E.B. Du Bois
The Other: In society
Double Consciousness
The Viel
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Process + Methodology Reflection | Pt. 1
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Colorism
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What Are You?
What are you?
The map is not the territory
The Changing Face of America
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Process + Methodology Reflection | Pt. 2
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Conclusion
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Appendix
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Endnotes & Reading List
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“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.�
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 1952
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There are multiple spaces a biracial woman inhabits and the perceived self is always in competition with the true self. What results is a multifaceted, fragmented identity that shifts in relation to my environment. The existence of my identity is dependent upon others and is often reductive in nature. 13
The disruption of receiving a whole identity is the shift from true self to perceived self. I am both but neither.
Through Another’s Eyes I have been allowed into this realm almost exclusively as a subject of representation, where the power to construct and name belongs always to an-�other�1 and not myself.
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44th President Barack Obama
The Other
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The Other: In society Being the Other is a phenomenological manifestation. The term Othering describes the reductive action of labelling a person as someone who belongs to a subordinate social category defined as the Other2. The practice of Othering is the exclusion of persons who do not fit the norm of the social group, which is a version of the Self. The Western Colonial fabrication is one that had and continues to have dominance in producing this identity. Therefore, the condition of Otherness is a person’s non-conformity to and with the social norms of society.
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Embracing otherness is embracing myself. I am a multicultural, biracial woman of color but I am Other. My skin color isn’t right. My hair isn’t right. My history isn’t right. Myself becomes defined by otherness, which means that, in the social world, I don’t really exist. I am “other” before being anything else–even before being a woman. Existence precedes identification regardless of how a person self identifies, the mixed person does not exist3. Therefore, our existence is vehemently denied because mixed existence is logically incompatible with existing definitions of race. If pure races occur and if all persons are categorizable in terms of pure races then mixed races cannot exist. Monoracial identity forced upon mixed race people is only acknowledging their partial identity.
A mixed person must essentially adopt a false existence, a partial existence, an interim existence or be willing to embody a shifting existence that changes according to context and environmental need. This means altering behaviors or mannerisms to suit the situation at hand. My self-understanding is based on this fluidity of changing identity yet to the outside world, it is a fragmented self. This chameleon effect is a gift, a way to move more comfortably through the world, though it gets complicated. The core need of the human condition, essential for our path to self-realization, is belonging; it confirms existence and importance. I am an Other that is just familiar enough to be valid in the eyes of some, though to others not enough. My complexion can be comforting for those that look similar to me. But I am an anomaly and myself am rooting around for definitions and trying to plug into something that makes sense.
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Too proper for the Black kids, too black for the Mexicans. I never feel like I belong, I wanna feel like I belong, somewhere. What’s Normal Anyway by Miguel
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3D Pixel Portrait
photograph can be optimized for, I
these are colors I can encompass
A fine art piece, meant to be gazed
‘asked’ Photoshop to read me as
in different worlds. However, you
at in an exhibition space with the
one and four colors respectively
will never see one true color at the
viewer able to walk around. This is
from a photograph. The ratios of
same time.
a life size spatial portrait of myself
height of each color correspond
as read by Photoshop. Using
to the percentage of pixels in the
the ability to change the colors a
photograph. When looked upon,
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The Other: On paper Although having parents of different racial and ethnic backgrounds has a long history in the United States, the 2000 Census was the first “official” opportunity for mixed race individuals to identify as biracial or multiracial. Prior to that census, the only option available was to check ‘Other race’.The opportunity finally arose to ‘Mark one or more races’. Before this instance, having a racial identity that did not neatly fit into this reality, meant unknowingly navigating your experience in the world. How do others see you? How do you see yourself? The all-knowing, mixed race person’s favorite question: What are you?
A proposal to add a multiracial category to the 2000 federal census set off a contentious debate before it was rejected. Supporters of the new category said its addition would help to accurately represent shifting demographic trends while also providing a true reflection of biracial people’s understanding of their identity. Opponents argued that a multiracial category would ultimately make it more difficult to monitor racial discrimination and enforce civil rights legislation. The census controversy might be seen as an indication of the growing self-advocacy among biracial people, especially those in their 20s or younger. Susan Lambe, co-leader of the Boston chapter of SWIRL, a social and educational support group for families, couples and individuals of mixed race, says that unlike in the past, “passing for white” is less of a concern for biracial persons. Being able to claim and identify yourself on paper carries more weight than is given credit. The act of self identification versus conforming encourages mixed race people to create their own communities instead of being forced into a category—a category that only includes their partial identity and not the whole.
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“One Drop Rule� Pixel Genealogy
I selected spots from each
This is a family portrait of
of our faces to make each
my parents and I. It is a
composition. The result
commentary on the history
exemplifies the merging of
of the One Drop Rule and
two things into one, a result
labeling those only Black if
of a mixture.
they are mixed.
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Balancing the “Other”s In society’s eyes I am Other because of my phenotype. Statistically I am Other because of my background. The pressure to choose one or the other is about people just wanting you to be on their team. Claiming to be biracial connotes to others in their racial community a question of being “better than” or “beyond” that race. But these are not my intentions at all. I can’t accept one world without the other. I refuse to choose one, it would feel akin to ranking my mom over my dad or vice versa. We are also beyond the days of previous racial attitudes that maintained the “one-drop” rule— a rule solely based in the United States. The rule declares that a mixed person with one black ancestor or one drop of black blood should be categorized as black. Rules, however are meant to be broken. So what exactly is my background? My race and ethnicity? I am Hispanic and African American. Federal policy defines “Hispanic” not as a race, but as an ethnicity. A new Pew Research Center survey of multiracial Americans finds that, for two-thirds of Hispanics, their Hispanic background is a part of their racial background. For example, 69% of young Latino adults ages 18 to 29 say their Latino background is part of their racial background, as does a similar share of those in other age groups, including those 65 and older.4 So I juggle these two Others because I want to. These are perceptions and labels placed upon me that make me who I am. Yes, I may be more Latina in one way or more Black in another instance, I however will always be both and not either/or.
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Mildred and Richard Loving Loving v. Virginia decision of 1967 unanimously ruled that bans on racial intermarriage in Virginia were unconstitutional.
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Defending intra-ethnic identity and fighting against the powers of institutionalized racism is and forever will be a battle I am proud of.
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W.E.B. Du Bois
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Double Consciousness In the opening chapter of his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois describes Double Consciousness as follows: “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strifethis longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.” To put it simply: Who you think you are versus what other people perceive you as or define you to be.
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This theory which is still relevant today, was the spark to my thesis investigation. I was interested in unraveling this theory in a design context to further understand the relationship it had in my own life. Taking a critical approach to this question allowed for deep reflection. It’s given me an insight into the whole notion of self, which I think is worth sharing. The self is a projection based on other people’s projections. Is it who we really are? Or who we really want to be, or should be? Where does our true self reside? Although we are aware of it, along with our natural longing to belong and fit in, there’s really no room for your true self if it isn’t already accepted. What then happens to the true self that is not accepted? The result is, our true selves are lost. We struggle to figure out who we are and define ourselves but what we’re really working on is our image. What other people want us to be. We’re struggling to find purpose and definition with other people’s standards and not our own. Trying to merge our several selves into one and forging it to be something ‘whole’5. And when we’re set in that, when we think we finally did it, we wonder why we still have that same lost feeling 5,10, 20 years later. Is it because our true selves have been to the wayside for a long time? It hasn’t been touched or tapped into. It hasn’t been developed into its true definition and we have not become who we really want to be. Thus, we have become and developed this “projection”.
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Is there a way then to accept the double consciousness for what it is and not try to fight the urge of conforming? The double consciousness creates a jarring contrast of the two selves or several selves and the uncomfortableness of dealing with them. The challenge is to accept the ‘projected self’ and true self living within the same body.
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Using design to model and unwrap the double consciousness, it allowed me to formulate these questions. I created pieces that examined the spaces I myself am inhabiting. Through ways and method, I investigated ways to change what a viewer sees, how they think and who controls what they see. In doing this, I essentially recreated a fragmented self replicating the actual experience of a biracial woman within this body of work.
Shifting Perceptual Tones
within the work allows the perceptual
gave me a better understanding of our
Made from found objects: toned
shift of colors. The optical effects are
interpretation of color. Josef Albers’s
colored paper—Interwoven pieces of
activated when the observer moves
Interaction of Color served as a great
paper serve to mimic the fabrication
side to side with the aid of a light
inspiration for this piece. Our perception
of humankind and complexities of
source. Studying color relationships
of something is framed by our position
multiculturalism. Creating dimensions
in space and with the technical eye
and context at which we look at it.
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Hank Willis Thomas Zero Hour, 2012 In collaboration with Sanford Biggers Digital C Print And Plexi With Lumisty Film
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You will always see a part of me but never the whole me.
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“Du Bois intended the divided self to be a phenomenon that was spiritually and socially evolving–one that would define itself through struggle and attain “self-conscious manhood” through “strife.” David Levering Lewis, quoted in Randall Kenan’s “Introduction,” The Souls of Black Folk, pg.xxxvi-ii
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The Veil “After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.” The veil, a visual and symbolic wall of separation, returns again and again in The Souls of Black Folk to emphasize racial boundaries (social and psychological) and black “invisibility” in U.S. history. The veil for me was a defining aspect of the double consciousness. It is a literal and figurative phenomenon that I have had the pain of knowing and experiencing. Acknowledgement, in my opinion is the first step to understanding it. For people of color, in particular Black people, the veil can dictate your life. The lack of ‘removal’ makes it that much more powerful.
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The veil suggests the literal darker skin of Blacks, which is a physical demarcation of difference from whiteness. There is no hiding this difference that so many are not blind to. This aspect is the easiest to understand and know, for we live in such a multicultural society. The human species has been conditioned to see this difference with feelings of discomfort or comfort. No person of color can hide this difference although there are scenarios of “passing�. Passing: Racial passing occurs when a person classified as a member of one racial group is also accepted as a member of a different racial group. The term was used especially in 56
the United States to describe a person of multiracial ancestry assimilating into the white majority during times when legal and social conventions of hypodescent classified the person as a minority, subject to racial segregation and discrimination.
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I examine the notion of physical difference in the book, “Maid’s Daughter” by morphing the question that was once asked of my mother by a stranger: “Is that your maid’s daughter?” Whether this question stemmed from ignorance or curiosity, the remark was clearly based on the difference of skin colors they saw. I have a veil that my mother does not have, which leads to unparalleled social interactions between us. However, when we are together my veil dominates our experience in society.
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Maid’s Daughter
Using text, language and imagery as
previous phrase or image. Allowing
“Is that your maid’s daughter?” Stated
a strategy to convey the weight and
the imagery and text to live separately
1994 in Medellin, Colombia. I took this
importance of the question, the reader
but within the same object creates a
very pivotal statement that was told to
is left with a glimpse into my world.
space for the reader to reflect on the
my mother, in reference to her holding
I shifted both language and imagery
message.
me, as a defining piece for my thesis.
by changing only one thing from the
Is that your maid’s daughter? Is this your maid’s daughter? Is that your daughter’s maid? Is this your daughter’s maid? Is that your daughter? Is this you daughter?
Is that your maid? Is this your maid? Is that yours? Is she yours? Is that you? Is this you?
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Secondly, the veil is a reminder of white people’s lack of clarity in seeing Blacks as “true” Americans. If we are not ‘true’ Americans, then what are we? Culturally this stigma has deep roots in the days when our nation was built. From the 1600s to the Jim Crow laws and now the Black Lives Matter movement, Black people have been seen and treated differently. For those born and raised here, with generations making their marks in the land, it is still not enough to be a real American. So when will Blacks finally be true Americans? Well that is the day when the veil becomes see-thru and the clarity to see a person emerges. This can happen, only if we move toward a progressively accepting, nonracialized society and culture.
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Colin Kaepernick takes a stand by kneeling during the national anthem in the 2016 season for social issues including police brutality.
And lastly, the veil refers to Blacks’ lack of clarity in seeing themselves outside of what white America describes and prescribes for them. Being repeatedly told throughout hundreds of years who they are, how they should be, what their worth is, and why they should act a certain way affects their psyche. These things often seep into the inner psyches and become permanently internalized, battering them from within even if they’re able, for a time, to wriggle free and live the truth. Stereotypes based on race, gender, and social class make it hard to trust oneself and to trust others who look or behave like you do. They set confusing parameters on who you think you are, and what you believe you should or can become. They often dictate what you expect, what seems real, and what seems possible.
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Black women are routinely defined by a specific set of grotesque caricatures that are reductive, inaccurate, and unfair. Everyday I am conscious of these stereotypes and persevere in breaking the mold and rising above. Believing what I know and not what I’m told, and beginning to understand the divide, starts to lessen the power of the veil.
Taxonomy of Labels, Not Individuals Ashley Adams, 2016 Media Matters
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Process + Methodology Reflection | Pt. 1 abstraction / repetition / perspective / framing
In order to effectively convey a message visually, many decisions are made along the way of the design process. My process and methodologies have been an integral part of my thesis exploration that led me to new findings and opening conversation to new approaches. Without process, I fail to understand my subject matter in depth. It helps in conceptualizing the ideas I am exploring by using different materials and mediums. 68
The process of communicating a message clearly must be a conscious technique for a designer. We hold the forms of persuasion. We hold the frame.
Throughout this thesis journey, researching my subject and finding pivotal entry points to explore created experimental artwork. With times of reflection and sorting out my thoughts, I was able to get to the core of my message.
The method of abstraction and reduction in speaking about the nuances of a biracial person is relevant in showing fragmented identity because the goal is to get away from direct association. The idea of abstracting an identity parallels the core meaning of what it means to be abstract—I exist only in thought.
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Subtle shifting of perspective plays with the idea of a hidden and revealed self. The position of the viewer dictates how the piece is read. The perceived self and true self are only understood when the question of “Who is holding the frame?” is asked. Repetition aids in solving this question while trying to reinforce the question at the same time.
OXFORD DICTIONARY
abstract
adjective | ab·stract | \ab-`strakt, `ab-.\
existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence.
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Colorism
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Colorism
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Unfortunately, we live in a country and world that perceives dark skin as evil, threatening, foreign, exotified, and objectified. Thus, people with darker skin are often looked askance, deal with psychological prison of self-loathing and envy. Comments such as, “You’re pretty...for a dark skinned girl” or “I hope the baby comes out light” are frequently stated. Because of these external statements, discrimination has seeped into our communities and familial circles causing internal turmoil. There is a double standard with light skin “beauty” in communities of color as well. I know from first hand experience and stories from others, that being light skin can be a target and an outlier within your own racialized group. Because of preferential treatment, some think light skinned people feel entitled or better than others. In return, feelings of animosity arise from those with darker skin. Some blame Eurocentric beauty standards.
Skin color matters because we are a visual species. It can sway thinking, change actions, and cause reactions. There is a perception that light skin is always seen as “better” in countries such as: Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and Africa. Those with light skin do have advantages in society. The privileging of light skin over dark is at the root of an ill known as Colorism. Author and activist Alice Walker is the person most often credited with first using the word Colorism, out loud and in print. In an essay that appeared in her 1983 book, In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens, Walker defined Colorism as “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.” The funny thing is the word Colorism doesn’t even exist. Not officially. It autocorrects on one’s computer screen. It does not appear in the dictionary but it is alive and well in our communities.
Searching Colorism on the internet, April 2017
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Instances of questioning if you belong in a certain ethnic or racial group because of your skin tone is an everlasting confusing battle for mixed people. I was deeply confused and pained by the lack of acceptance and the judgement that I experienced; primarily by African American girls in my school and I knew it was because of my color. Entering into a space where you don’t belong is a recurring theme in a mixed person’s experience. However, in order to create dialogue there must be a disruption. Breaking into the high-brow art sphere of post-war fine art and creating these new mash up paintings featuring mixed race women, expands Colorism into a whole new spectrum. These appropriated pieces serve to interrupt the mainstream conventions. Will these skin tones be accepted as widely as the Red, Blue, Green series from Ellsworth Kelly?
I intentionally chose the three dominating males in this area (Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Piet Mondrian) who used primary and secondary colors for their paintings to interject skin tones into this environment. Would MoMa or The De Young museum allow these revised compositions based solely on the painter or aesthetic of the piece? How receptive would the audience be and would they even care?
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Piet Mondrian Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue, 1921 (Left) Ashley Adams Mixed Mondrian, 2017 Gabriela Yates X Piet Mondrian (Right)
Colorism
our society, having light skin has
as a foundation to then change
Colorism: prejudicial or preferential
its advantages and is looked upon
famous post-war painters artworks.
treatment of same-race people
as being more beautiful. I asked
This disruption in a high-brow art
based solely on their color. Colorism
three female friends to contribute
sphere starts to create a dialogue
is a topic not typically talked about
photographs of themselves as
about the importance of acceptance
within communities of color however
subjects for each section. Creating
or lack thereof.
it is very much seen and felt. In
color palettes off their photos served
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Ashley Adams Mixed Stella, 2017 Kiana Kinechelow X Frank Stella
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Ellsworth Kelly Red Blue Green, 1963 (Left) Ashley Adams Mixed Kelly, 2017 Alicia McDaniel X Ellsworth Kelly (Right)
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In the 21st century, as America becomes less white and the multiracial community—formed by interracial unions and immigration—continues to expand, color will be even more significant than race in both public and private interactions. From day one, parents of every color should begin to celebrate color differences in the human spectrum instead of praising one over the other or even worse, pretending we’re all the same.
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America in 2050, National Geographic
What Are You?
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What are you? Who are you? W w are you? You are? What are y e you? How are you? You are?W When are you? Why are you? H Who are you? When are you? W What are you? Who are you? W You are? What are you? Who a When are you? How are you? Y What are you? Who are you? W w are you? You are? What are y e you? How are you? You are?W When are you? Why are you? H ho are you? When are you?W What are you? Who are you? W You are? What are you? Who a When are you? How are you? Y 96
When are you? How are you? you? Who are you? When are y What are you? Who are you? How are you? You are? What a Why are you? How are you? Yo When are you? Why are you? are you? When are you? How a You are? What are you? Who a When are you? How are you? you? Who are you? When are y What are you? Who are you? How are you? You are? What ar Why are you? How are you? Yo When are you? Why are you? are you? When are you? Why a You are? What are you? Who a 97
What are y
What are you? What are you? 98
What are you?
you?
What are you? I am a dulce de leche-colored woman, browner still in the summer. Short, with large eyes the color of Coca-Cola. My hair twirls and curls into ringlets that have hints of red and blonde. My lips are brown. What are you? My ancestors hail from West Africa and the southern part of Europe. What are you? I am a person.
What are you?
What are you?
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You are?
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Why are you?
Who are you? Who are you? My name is Ashley Desiree Adams. How are you?
How are you?
I’m doing quiet well actually. Although I am stressed trying to finish this thesis book. When are you?
I am most myself when I am with my family and loved ones. They experience the bubbly, dancing, laughing Ashley– geeking out over Harry Potter–seeing the fascinated face when learning about medical conditions–hearing the screams during a scary horror film–the unfiltered Ashley. 101 Why are you? I am the product of love from my mother and father, established in 1989. I am the product of the strength my grandmother had and her influence in my upbringing. I am the product of her passing away. You are? I am Ashley Adams, a designer and graduate student of California College of the Arts.
When are you?
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I am a biracial person, but I experience the world as a black woman.
What are you? Not How are you? Or Who are you? This question has been a running theme in my life, but is not unique to myself. Many racially ambiguous people are faced with this inquiry. I have learned that while the words stay exactly the same, the intention has shapeshifted as we’ve entered into a time of hate, as the country’s demographics have changed, and as a stigma has become attached to the dark-skinned. Sometimes the question is posed with curiosity, sometimes with darker intent. Sometimes it’s hard to know. 104
In certain eyes, I’m not always easily placed in the single preconceived racial category, so the interrogation ensues. Depending on who, how, and where the question is asked, I also intentionally shift in response. Why you may ask? Because it’s psychologically being conscious of the perceived self. It also has to do with my mood at the time, or the reaction of an onlooker. The question ‘What are you?’ is the framed notion of being categorized different ways, by different people, put in different boxes, while I am trying to emancipate myself from boxes.
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What Are You?
to truthfully know who you are,
I collaged pictures that acted as visual
Part 2 and a follow up project to the
you must first look to the past. I
representations. My hope for this
Maid’s Daughter book, the What are
interviewed my father and mother
project is to provide a better picture
you? book addresses my personal
about their life and upbringing,
of “what” Ashley is. I am a product of
background history in an attempt
including things like their favorite
my parents. To know me, is knowing
to answer this question. I believe
dish. Based on their responses,
them first.
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— How was it growing up for you? I grew up in Southern California, my childhood was fun but had limited exposure to a good livelihood. I got along with my brothers, I am the youngest of three. I grew up poor, but I turned out alright. — What is one favorite memory from your childhood? My favorite memory was having the fastest bicycle among my friends. I rode miles and miles on my bike.
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— What is your ethnic background? I am Latina. — What were/are your passions? My passion has been to raising my daughter to know that education is the key to success. -Coming from a big family, I was taught that food is love. Cooking has always been apart of my life and sharing my food with loved ones is my way of showing my appreciation to them.
How would you describe me? An artist, passionate, loves life, determined, hardworking, and a beautiful young woman. –Diana
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How would you describe me? A progressive, forward thinking young woman! –Desmond
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“The map is not the territory.” Alfred Korzybski
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Rachel Dolezal, a former NAACP leader from Spokane, Washington, who made headlines in 2015 after she was exposed as a white woman who had been representing herself as Black.
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The map is not the territory is the idea that the way we see the world isn’t reality itself. We don’t respond to reality. We respond to our internalized map of reality. How we represent things are our interpretations. Interpretations may or may not be accurate. Your interpretation and representation of a race is just that, an interpretation. The map you place upon me and others will never be accurate. What is often presented is the map of the map. Not at all what the idea of the territory actually looks like or is. Gregory Bateson states in “Form, Substance and Difference,” that what is on the map is “a retinal representation of the man who made the map.” This idea of phenomena are literally appearances. Is it possible for the individual to construct a map of themselves without applying any filters that they feel is necessary?
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I am a woman. I am a scholar. I am moral. I am intelligent. I am kind. I am resilient. I am lovable. I am valuable. But the majority of the messages I get all say that I’m not.... So, What Am I? What does it matter? I’m American and I’m black.
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Asked at his last news conference whether there would be another black president, Obama stated, “I suspect we’ll have a whole bunch of mixed-up presidents at some point that nobody really knows what to call them.”
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The Changing Face of America By Lise Funderburg Photograph by Martin Schoeller What is it about the faces on these pages that we find so intriguing? Is it simply that their features disrupt our expectations, that we’re not used to seeing those eyes with that hair, that nose above those lips? Our responses can range from the armchair anthropologist’s benign desire to unravel ancestries and find common ground to active revulsion at group boundaries being violated or, in the language of racist days past, “watered down.”
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Out in the world, the more curious (or less polite) among us might approach, asking, “Where are you from?” or “What are you?” We look and wonder because what we see—and our curiosity—speaks volumes about our country’s past, its present, and the promise and peril of its future. The U.S. Census Bureau has collected detailed data on multiracial people only since 2000, when it first allowed respondents to check off more than one race, and 6.8 million people chose to do so. Ten years later that number jumped by 32 percent, making it one of the fastest growing categories. The multiple-race option has been lauded as progress by individuals frustrated by the limitations of the racial categories established in the late 18th century by German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who divided humans into five “natural varieties” of red, yellow, brown, black, and white. Although the multiple-race option is still rooted in that taxonomy, it introduces the factor of self-determination. It’s a step toward fixing a categorization system that, paradoxically, is both erroneous (since geneticists have demonstrated that race is biologically not a reality) and essential (since living with race and racism is). The tracking of race is used both to enforce antidiscrimination laws and to identify health issues specific to certain populations.
The Census Bureau is aware that its racial categories are flawed instruments, disavowing any intention “to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically.” And indeed, for most multiple-race Americans, including the people pictured here, identity is a highly nuanced concept, influenced by politics, religion, history, and geography, as well as by how the person believes the answer will be used. “I just say I’m brown,” McKenzi McPherson, 9, says. “And I think, Why do you want to know?” Maximillian Sugiura, 29, says he responds with whatever ethnicity provides a situational advantage. Loyalties figure in too, especially when one’s heritage doesn’t show up in phenotypical facial features, hair, or skin. Yudah Holman, 29, self-identifies as half Thai and half black, but marks Asian on forms and always puts Thai first, “because my mother raised me, so I’m really proud of being Thai.” Sandra Williams, 46, grew up at a time when the nation still turned on a black-white axis. The 1960 census depicted a country that was still 99 percent black or white, and when Williams was born six years later to parents of mixed black and white ancestry, 17 states still had laws against interracial marriage. In Williams’s western Virginia hometown, there was only one Asian child in her school. To link her own fair skin and hair to her white ancestry, Williams says, would have been seen by blacks as a rejection. And so, though she views race as a social construction, she checks black on the census. “It’s what my parents checked,” she says. In today’s presumably more accepting world, people with complex cultural and racial origins become more fluid and playful with what they call themselves. On playgrounds and college campuses, you’ll find such homespun terms as Blackanese, Filatino, Chicanese, and Korgentinian. When
Joshua Ahsoak, 34, attended college, his heritage of Inupiat (Eskimo) and midwestern Jewish earned him the moniker Juskimo, a term he still uses to describe himself (a practicing Jew who breaks kosher dietary laws not for bacon but for walrus and seal meat).
about one-tenth of a second, even before they discern gender. In May researchers reported that political conservatives are more likely than liberals to categorize ambiguous black-white faces as black. We assign meaning in the blink of an eye.
Tracey Williams Bautista says her seven-year-old son, Yoel Chac Bautista, identifies himself as black when he’s with her, his African-American parent. When he’s with his father, he’ll say Mexican. “We call him a Blaxican,” she jokes, and says she and her husband are raising him in a home where Martin Luther King, Jr., is displayed next to Frida Kahlo. Black relatives warn Williams about the persistence of the one-drop rule, the long-standing practice of seeing anyone with a trace of black “blood” as black. “They say, ‘He may be half, but he’s still the N word.’”
When people ask Celeste Seda, 26, what she is, she likes to let them guess before she explains her Dominican-Korean background. She points out that even then she has revealed only a fraction of her identity, which includes a Long Island childhood, a Puerto Rican adoptive family, an African-American sister, and a nascent acting career. The attention she gets for her unusual looks can be both flattering and exhausting. “It’s a gift and a curse,” Seda says.
Certainly, race still matters in this country, despite claims that the election of Barack Obama heralded a post-racial world. We may be a pluralist nation by 2060, when the Census Bureau predicts that nonHispanic whites will no longer be the majority. But head counts don’t guarantee opportunity or wipe out the legacy of Japanese-American internment camps or Jim Crow laws. Whites, on average, have twice the income and six times the wealth of blacks and Hispanics, and young black men are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed. Racial bias still figures into incarceration rates, health outcomes, and national news: A recent Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial family prompted a barrage of negative responses, including claims of white genocide and calls for “DIEversity.” Both champions and detractors of that ad based their views on what’s known as the eyeball test: A study of brain activity at the University of Colorado at Boulder showed that subjects register race in
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It’s also, for the rest of us, an opportunity. If we can’t slot people into familiar categories, perhaps we’ll be forced to reconsider existing definitions of race and identity, presumptions about who is us and who is them. Perhaps we’ll all end up less parsimonious about who we feel connected to as we increasingly come across people like Seda, whose faces seem to speak that resounding line from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself ”: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Published: October 2013 National Geographic
Don’t call me black no mo’ That word is only a color, it ain’t facts no mo’
41.3 % West African
YAH by Kendrick Lamar
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10.4 % Native American
5.4 % Broadly European
0.3 % Ashkenazi Jewish
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33.7 % Southern European 15.6% Iberian
0.6 % North African
2.6 % Unassigned
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“Whoever’s holding the frame gets to tell us the story and shape our vision. Trying to break the frame or at least blur the lines, so people could realize that truth is maybe a little more complicated than the simple story we’ve been told.” Hank Willis Thomas
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Process + Methodology Refections appropriation / collage / blending & duality
Appropriation is an impactful and powerful action. Adopting or using the same elements in a form and slightly changing it, creates a transformation. This is the same transformation and chameleon effect used when navigating between two worlds for a mixed person. Appropriation allows for a type of acceptance and seeing the similar form in a new light.
The process of interviewing my parents brought me closer to understanding things about myself. Memories and history of family create an assemblage of my parents that is true to a collage. Visually representing this history is another perspective of my identity.
In the process of doing explorations, I was analyzing and researching blending and duality. Although it may seem like an oxymoron, this methodology was essential. Translating that to a visual medium is always challenging, some explorations worked and others didn’t.
Through it all, I have come to understand that every gesture must be defendable and the more iterations there are, the more experimental and successful you will be.
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Conclusion My intention for this thesis was to create a body of work that would give a voice to my pain, struggles, darkness and history. To confront issues that make us uncomfortable. It’s important to me to speak about these issues, being a woman of color, because it is the only way to instigate an expansion of discourse and provoke new thoughts. What is a self portrait of someone who is mixed? To be both and neither, belonging in an in-between third space. So with this, I hope that those who find themselves living a similar experience–to my little cousins and to my future children– they see themselves and have no doubt that they’re beautiful, intelligent and capable.
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“All my life I had been looking for something and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.” Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 1952
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ENDNOTES THE OTHER 1 Nelson, C. (2010). Representing the Black female subject in western art. New York, NY: Routledge. 2 The founder of Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, identified the Other as one of the conceptual bases of intersubjectivity, of the relations among people. 3 Philosophy and the Mixed Race Experience– Edited by Tina Fernandes Botts 4 Multiracial In America. Chapter 7: The Many Dimensions of Hispanic Racial Identity. 11 June 2015. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/chapter-7- the-many-dimensions-of-hispanic-racial-identity/# W.E.B. DU BOIS 5 “You’re also accustomed to the idea of having several selves, and of trying to forge them into something whole. That task of self-creation isn’t unique to biracial people; it’s a defining experience of modernity.” NY Times. What Biracial People Know. 2017 03 4 160
READING LIST Albers, J. (2013). “Interaction of color.” New Haven: Yale University Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). “The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Dover Publications. Hall, Stuart. (1997). “Why Does Difference Matter?” “Signifying Racial Difference,” “Representation Difference and Power.” In Representations: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Hall, ed.226-34, 244-29, 259-62. London: Sage and the Open University. HoSang, Daniel Martinez and Oneka LaBennett. (2014). “Racialization” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies, 2nd ed., ed. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler, 212-14. New York: NYU Press. Ifekwunigwe, J. O. (2004). “Mixed Race Studies: A reader.” London: Routledge. Lott, T. L. (1999). “The invention of race: Black culture and the politics of representation.” Malden, Mass: Blackwell. Meyer, Richard. (2003). “Identity.” In Critical Terms for Art History, 2nd ed., ed. Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, 345-57 Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nelson, C. (2010). “Representing the Black female subject in western art.” New York, NY: Routledge. Thompson, B. W., & Tyagi, S. (1996). “Names we call home: Autobiography on racial identity.” New York: Routledge. Womack, Y. (2010). “Post Black: How a new generation is redefining African American identity.” Chicago, Ill: Lawrence Hill Books.
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she believed she could, so she did.
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