Book contents
- A History of African American Autobiography
- A History of African American Autobiography
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- A Chronology of African American Life Writing
- Contributors
- Chapter 1 Crafting a Credible Black Self in African American Life Writing
- Part I Origins and Histories
- Part II Individuals and Communities
- Chapter 12 Spiritual Autobiography, Past and Present
- Chapter 13 Life Writings of Contemporary African American Women
- Chapter 14 The Autobiography of Malcolm X as a Transitional Black Arts Text
- Chapter 15 Black Queer Life Writing
- Chapter 16 African American Celebrity Auto/Biographies
- Chapter 17 Mixed-Race Autobiographical Narratives
- Chapter 18 Black Biography, Past and Present
- Chapter 19 Black Lives in Contemporary Persona Poems
- Chapter 20 Depicting African American Life in Graphics and Visual Cultures
- Chapter 21 Life Writing for Black Children and Youth
- Chapter 22 Black Life Writing for Young Readers
- Chapter 23 Can Cups Be Books? Or, Other Ways to Recognize African American Autobiography
- Index
Chapter 17 - Mixed-Race Autobiographical Narratives
from Part II - Individuals and Communities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2021
- A History of African American Autobiography
- A History of African American Autobiography
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- A Chronology of African American Life Writing
- Contributors
- Chapter 1 Crafting a Credible Black Self in African American Life Writing
- Part I Origins and Histories
- Part II Individuals and Communities
- Chapter 12 Spiritual Autobiography, Past and Present
- Chapter 13 Life Writings of Contemporary African American Women
- Chapter 14 The Autobiography of Malcolm X as a Transitional Black Arts Text
- Chapter 15 Black Queer Life Writing
- Chapter 16 African American Celebrity Auto/Biographies
- Chapter 17 Mixed-Race Autobiographical Narratives
- Chapter 18 Black Biography, Past and Present
- Chapter 19 Black Lives in Contemporary Persona Poems
- Chapter 20 Depicting African American Life in Graphics and Visual Cultures
- Chapter 21 Life Writing for Black Children and Youth
- Chapter 22 Black Life Writing for Young Readers
- Chapter 23 Can Cups Be Books? Or, Other Ways to Recognize African American Autobiography
- Index
Summary
Streeter’s chapter examines mixed-race life narratives that emerged in significant numbers in the mid-nineteen nineties and continues in the present time. Streeter contends these mixed-race narratives are a publishing trend begun after a distinct cultural turn in the nineteen-nineties, when the first generation of what she names post-Loving children, born just before and after interracial marriage became legal in 1967. The chapter focuses on black and white race mixture because, among the book-length life narratives investigating racially mixed ancestries and articulating mixed identities, most are authored from that perspective. Blackness and mixed-ness are, at the most fundamental level, overlapping discourses of identity in the United States. The fear of and fascination with race mixture between white people and Black people is a distinctly US American cultural trope. The color line – a tool of separation - and the one-drop rule – a deeply ambiguous barometer of Blackness – are contradictory imperatives. Under these circumstances, Streeter contends, dichotomy becomes the repetitive mode appending attempts to pin down intrinsic Blackness as articulated in mixed-race life writing.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A History of African American Autobiography , pp. 272 - 291Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021