Hyperdescent
Hyperdescent is the practice of classifying a child of mixed race ancestry in the more socially dominant of the parents' races.
Hyperdescent is the opposite of hypodescent (the practice of classifying a child of mixed race ancestry in the more socially subordinate parental race). Both hyperdescent and hypodescent vary from, and may not be mutually exclusive with, other methods of determining lineage, such as patrilineality and matrilineality.
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[edit] Examples of hyperdescent
[edit] Australia
Until well into the 20th century, Australia, under the Aborigines Act, engaged in a program of forcibly separating mulatto children from their Aboriginal families and raising them in what were essentially "whitening" re-education schools or white foster homes to prepare them for menial jobs under white employers and eventual marriage to whites. This was being perpetrated on the theory that it was improper for even part-white children to live as Aborigines (then perceived as not only squalid but dying out, while mulatto births were actually on the rise); and that their offspring would be nearly or completely indistinguishable from 100%-whites within 1-3 generations. The anti-miscegenation laws of much of the U.S. took the exact opposite tactic, and forbade mixed marriages specifically to prevent the "whitening" of mulatto populations.)[1][2][clarification needed]
[edit] Latin America
[edit] Brazil
Brazil is an example of a country with a history of European slavery of black Africans somewhat analogous to that of the United States of America. However, while for black Americans, hypodescent became the dominant rule for determining lineage, in Brazil, the practice of hyperdescent was followed. Thomas E. Skidmore, in Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought explains that many of the Brazilian elite encouraged a national process of "whitening" through miscegenation. Skidmore writes (p. 55): "In fact, miscegenation did not arouse the instinctive opposition of the white elite in Brazil. On the contrary, it was a well-recognized (and tacitly condoned) process by which a few mixed bloods (almost invariably light mulattoes) had risen to the top of the social and political hierarchy."
[edit] Hispanic America
Hyperdescent is the rule in the rest of Latin America as well. The mestizo populations of Latin America usually consider themselves to be of European culture rather than American Indian. This is also apparent in the United States, where the practice of hypodescent is the rule among the non-Hispanic population contrasting with hyperdescent among Hispanics. Nearly half of U.S. Hispanics called themselves "white" in the 2000 Census, along with 80% of the population of Puerto Rico. Non-Hispanics, on the other hand, if they are of mixed race, will usually call themselves white only if they are a small fraction (1/8 or 1/16) American Indian, but otherwise will claim being of mixed race or even of the minority race. In the 2000 Census, of 35,305,818 Hispanics, only 407,073 (or just over 1%) called themselves American Indian, and only 2,224,082 (just over 6%) claimed to be of mixed race, even though these Hispanic groups (such as Mexicans) are majority mestizo in their home countries.[3]
About 41.2% of U.S. Hispanics identify as "Some other race" as of 2006, but government agencies which do not recognize "Some other race" (such as the FBI, the CDC, and the NCHS) include this group, and therefore over 90% of Hispanics, within the white population. In such cases, such as with the NCHS, separate statistics are often kept for "White" (which includes whites and over 90% of Hispanics) and "non-Hispanic white".
[edit] Arab conquests
Hyperdescent was also practiced by the Arabs when they overran the Middle East and North Africa in the early expansion of Islam. This is the explanation for the inhabitants of Egypt, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries considering themselves "Arab" instead of the successor population of the ancient Egyptians (Copts), Chaldeans, Assyrians, and so forth, which is limited to their surviving Christian minorities. In the Maghreb, a large portion of the population calls itself Arab but there remains a large population of indigenous Berbers without Arab ancestry.[citation needed]
[edit] Iceland
Another example of hyperdescent is in Iceland, which was populated by Norsemen who had taken Gaelic women. Icelanders are considered a fully Norse culture despite this matrilineal descent.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Doris Pilkington & Nugi Garimara, Follow the Rabbit-proof Fence, University of Queensland Press, 1996 (republished as Rabbit-proof Fence in 2002 and 2004)
- ^ [Australian] Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's "Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families" (1997)
- ^ http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-_lang=en&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_P008&-format=&-CONTEXT=dt
- Christine B. Hickman, "The Devil and the One Drop Rule: Racial Categories, African Americans, and the U.S. Census," Michigan Law Review, Vol: 95, March, 1997, 1175-1176.
- Ian F. Haney Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (NY: New York University Press: 1996)
- Thomas e. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Durham: Duke University press, 1993
