Boundaries of Love

Author(s):  
Chinyere K. Osuji

How do interracial couples negotiate ethnoracial boundaries? Boundaries of Love: Interracial Marriage from the United States to Brazil takes a novel approach to answering this question by examining how contemporary black-white couples make sense of ethnoracial boundaries in their lives. Based on over 100 qualitative interviews with husbands and wives in black-white couples in Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro, Boundaries of Love unpacks the cultural repertoires of race-mixing in these two post-Atlantic slavery societies and shows how different approaches to race mixture - celebrated in Brazil versus illegal for much of U.S. history - influence the meanings that contemporary interracial couples give to their lives and social interactions. Employing an innovative “critical constructivist” approach to race and ethnicity, Boundaries of Love compares the experiences of couples involving black men and white women with those of black women with white men in these two diverse, multicultural settings. It reveals the influence of ethnoracial boundaries on: dating preferences throughout the life course in their “romantic career;” comparisons between their own racial identity and how their spouse sees their blackness or whiteness; how parents identify their children and its implications for affirmative action eligibility; how white families handle the introduction of a black in-law; and the compromises couples make spending time together in public. Through its fresh qualitative comparative approach, Boundaries of Love provides a unique perspective on racial dynamics in the United States and Brazil and clearly illuminates the familiar adage that race is a social construction.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernice Kennedy ◽  
Chalice Rhodes (Former Jenkins)

Abstract Historically, during slavery, the international slave trade promoted normalization of violence against African American women. During slavery, African American women endured inhuman conditions because of the majority race views of them as being over-sexualized, physically strong, and immoral. This perception of the African American women as being highly sexual and more sexual than white women results in slave owner justifying their sexual violation and degrading of the African American women. The stereotypical representations of African American women as strong, controlling, dangerous, fearless, and invulnerable may interfere with the African American women receiving the needed services for domestic violence in the community. The Strong Black Women Archetype has been dated back to slavery describing their coping mechanism in dealing with oppression by developing a strong, less traditionally female role. The authors developed a model: The Multidimensional Perspectives of Factors Contributing to Domestic Violence of African American Women in the United States. This model depicts historically, the factors contributing to domestic violence of African American women in the United States. Also, this model addressed the African American women subscribing to the Strong Black Women Archetype to cope with domestic violence. Despite the increase in domestic violence in African American women, they focused more on the issue of racism instead of sexism in America. African American women have experienced the two obstacles of racism and sexism in America. However, African American women and men believe racism is more critical than sexism. Therefore, domestic violence in the African American population may remain silent because of cultural loyalty. However, the voice of silence of African American females is gradually changing with the upcoming generations.


1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén G. Rumbaut

In at least one sense the “American century” is ending much as it had begun: the United States has again become a nation of immigrants, and it is again being transformed in the process. But the diversity of the “new immigration” to the United States over the past three decades differs in many respects from that of the last period of mass immigration in the first three decades of the century. The immigrants themselves differ greatly in their social class and national origins, and so does the American society, polity, and economy that receives them—raising questions about their modes of incorporation, and challenging conventional accounts of assimilation processes that were framed during that previous epoch. The dynamics and future course of their adaptation are open empirical questions—as well as major questions for public policy, since the outcome will shape the future contours of American society. Indeed, as the United States undergoes its most profound demographic transformation in a century; as inexorable processes of globalization, especially international migrations from Asia, Africa, and the Americas, diversify still further the polyethnic composition of its population; and as issues of immigration, race and ethnicity become the subject of heated public debate, the question of incorporation, and its serious study, becomes all the more exigent. The essays in this special issue of Sociological Perspectives tackle that subject from a variety of analytical vantages and innovative approaches, covering a wide range of groups in major areas of immigrant settlement. Several of the papers focus specifically on Los Angeles and New York City, where, remarkably, fully a quarter of the total U.S. immigrant population resides.


Hypertension ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (5) ◽  
pp. 1089-1095 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cande V. Ananth ◽  
Christina M. Duzyj ◽  
Stacy Yadava ◽  
Marlene Schwebel ◽  
Alan T.N. Tita ◽  
...  

We estimated changes in the prevalence of chronic hypertension among pregnant women and evaluated the extent to which changes in obesity and smoking were associated with these trends. We designed a population-based cross-sectional analysis of over 151 million women with delivery-related hospitalizations in the United States, 1970 to 2010. Maternal age, year of delivery (period), and maternal year of birth (birth cohort), as well as race, were examined as risk factors for chronic hypertension. Prevalence rates and rate ratios with 95% CIs of chronic hypertension in relation to age, period, and birth cohort were derived through age-period-cohort models. We also examined how changes in obesity and smoking rates influenced age-period-cohort effects. The overall prevalence of chronic hypertension was 0.63%, with black women (1.24%) having more than a 2-fold higher rate than white women (0.53%; rate ratio, 2.31; 95% CI, 2.30–2.32). In the age-period-cohort analysis, the rate of chronic hypertension increased sharply with advancing age and period from 0.11% in 1970 to 1.52% in 2010 (rate ratio, 13.41; 95% CI, 13.22–13.61). The rate of hypertension increased, on average, by 6% (95% CI, 5–6) per year, with the increase being slightly higher among white (7%; 95% CI, 6%–7%) than black (4%; 95% CI, 3%–4%) women. Adjustments for changes in rates of obesity and smoking were not associated with age and period effects. We observed a substantial increase in chronic hypertension rates by age and period and an over 2-fold race disparity in chronic hypertension rates.


Cancer ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 100 (5) ◽  
pp. 1035-1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia S. Wang ◽  
Mark E. Sherman ◽  
Allan Hildesheim ◽  
James V. Lacey ◽  
Susan Devesa

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uchechi A. Mitchell ◽  
Jennifer A. Ailshire ◽  
Jung Ki Kim ◽  
Eileen M. Crimmins

Objective: Improvements in the Black- White difference in life expectancy have been attributed to improved diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and declines in cardiovascular disease mortal­ity. However, it is unclear whether race differences in total cardiovascular risk and the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors have improved in the United States since the 1990s.Design: Serial cross-sectional design.Setting: Data from the 1988-1994, 1999- 2002, and 2009-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).Methods: We estimated total cardiovascu­lar risk levels, the prevalence of high-risk cardiovascular risk factors and the use of antihypertensive and lipid-lowering drugs among US Black and White men and women to determine whether differential changes occurred from 1990-2010.Results: Total cardiovascular risk declined for all races from 1990-2010. The Black- White difference was only significant in 2000 and sex-specific analyses showed that trends seen in the total population were driven by changes among women. Black and White men did not differ in risk at any time during this period. Conversely, Black women had significantly higher risk than White women in 1990 and 2000; this dif­ference was eliminated by 2010. Improved diagnosis and treatment of high blood pres­sure and high cholesterol reduced risk in the total population; improved blood pressure and lipid profiles among Black women and increasing obesity prevalence among White women specifically contributed to the nar­rowing of the Black-White difference in risk among women.Conclusion: Cardiovascular risk and racial disparities in risk declined among US Whites and Blacks due to greater use and effective­ness of lipid-lowering and antihypertensive medications.Ethn Dis. 2019;29(4):587-598; doi:10.18865/ed.29.4.587


2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (8) ◽  
pp. 1087-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Deuchar ◽  
Simon Harding ◽  
Robert McLean ◽  
James A. Densley

To date, there has been a paucity of comparative, qualitative research exploring the nuances of women’s gang involvement beyond the United States. In this article, we seek to address this gap by drawing upon qualitative interviews with small samples of self-nominated female gang members in Los Angeles, California (United States) and Glasgow, Scotland (United Kingdom). The emerging insights indicated that two key models of entry into the “social field” of the gang emerged in the data: a deficit model entry linked to drugs and debt and a credit model of entry where women were considered to bring social skill, expertise, and agency into the gang. Implications in terms of testable hypotheses for future research as well as for future practice are outlined.


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