Passing (race relations)
Passing in race relations refers to the act of concealing one's racial identity or ethnicity to gain acceptance or benefits from another racial or ethnic group, primarily the dominant white community. This phenomenon has been notably practiced by African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latino Americans, especially during periods marked by legal segregation. Individuals who could pass often possessed lighter skin tones and features aligned with societal perceptions of whiteness, allowing them to navigate spaces that were typically closed to their racial group.
The act of passing can be temporary—such as when one seeks employment—or permanent, which may involve entirely severing ties with one’s heritage. However, both forms come with significant challenges, including the psychological strain of living dual identities and the potential loss of familial connections. Historically, passing has been influenced by rigid societal definitions of race, exemplified by concepts like the "one-drop rule," which classified individuals with any Black ancestry as Black. While the prevalence of passing may have diminished following desegregation, the legacy of this practice continues to shape discussions around racial identity and belonging in contemporary society.
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Passing (race relations)
Passing is the concealment of one’s racial identity or ethnicity to gain access to another racial or ethnic group, usually to obtain social and economic benefits. Passing has been used by African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latino Americans as a means of transcending racial stigmatization and marginalization, especially during the period of de jure segregation. Most commonly, individuals of biracial or multiracial descent who had certain characteristics associated with whiteness broke from their minority heritage and lived within the dominant white community. These characteristics included a light skin tone, “European” facial features, and a high level of acculturation to white society. Because the differences in skin tone and facial features are typically less dramatic, Asian Americans and Latino Americans generally had an easier time passing for white than did African Americans. Asian Americans and Latino Americans who wished to pass as white and have the necessary physical characteristics might only have had to anglicize their names or adopt white surnames. African Americans unable to pass as white often passed as Asian Americans or Native Americans to achieve a slightly higher status in society.
Passing could be temporary or permanent. It was a largely urban phenomenon, since individuals in rural areas were more likely to be recognized and hence were less able to escape their racial identities. The most common form of passing involved a temporary leave from one’s racial identity, possibly to enter a white establishment or to hold a job; cases of individuals who permanently left their racial identities to assume lives within white society were probably less common.
There were drawbacks associated with both temporary and permanent acts of passing. For example, those who passed temporarily in order to hold jobs were faced with the constant pressure of operating in two different and antagonistic worlds while keeping their two identities separate. Those who chose to pass for white permanently were generally forced to leave behind their families and friends, and they lived with the constant fear that someone might learn their secret. Because of the secretive nature of the phenomenon, it is impossible to assess with any accuracy the number of individuals who have engaged in passing. It is also difficult to know whether passing has actually decreased in the era of desegregation, though the greater access that racial minorities have to all realms of society has probably removed the immediate impetus behind the act of passing.
The concept of passing is based on ideas of racial purity and the drawing of rigid racial boundaries by which individuals of biracial or multiracial descent are considered part of the minority group. An example of this is the “one-drop rule,” which stipulated that any individual with even one drop of black blood was black. The idea of passing thus has meaning only within a society that defines race as mutually exclusive categories. Two important works that deal with the issue of passing are Paul R. Spickard’s Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in Twentieth-Century America (1989) and Maria P. P. Root’s Racially Mixed People in America (1992).
Bibliography
Davis, F. James. "Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition." Frontline. WGBH Educational Foundation, 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
Guterl, Matthew Pratt. "Passing." Seeing Race In Modern America. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2013. Print.
Hobbs, Allyson. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. Cambridge: Harvard U, 2014. Print.
Mahtani, Minelle. Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting The Romanticization of Multiraciality. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2014. Print.
Norwood, Kimberly Jade, ed. Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Postracial America. New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.
Puente, Henry. "Racial Passing: Images of Mulattos, Mestizos, and Eurasians." Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. Ed. Paul Martin Lester and Susan Dente Ross. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2011. 121–32. Print.