Race, memory and family history

Bibliographic Data

ID2962136
AuthorsAngel Adams Parham (Loyola University New Orleans, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume14
Issue1
Pages13-32
Publication date2008-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Identities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-4630 • E-ISSN: 1363-0296
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13504630701848465
OpenAlexW2068625281
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited29

Attempts to grapple with the complicated tangle of race and memory are more prominent than ever in the public discourse of the United States. In 2006, public intellectual Henry Louis Gates sought to popularize the search for roots and meaning with his project African American Lives, and in 2007 the black and white descendants of the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case met in New Orleans to discuss the past and present significance of their ancestors’ lives. As the crafting of identities around increasingly fluid notions of ‘race’ proceeds apace, the activities of family historians provide a useful entrée into struggles over race, identity, and collective memory in the United States. The research reported here illustrates how the shared history of the multi-racial descendants of eighteenth and nineteenth century St Domingue/Haiti in Louisiana is encountered in racially distinct ways. Participant observation is used to examine how race is dealt with in the activities of two groups: 1) a mainly European American genealogical society, called the St Domingue Special Interest Group; and 2) the LA Creole cultural and genealogy group, made up primarily of Louisiana creoles of color. Preliminary findings indicate that while the process of engaging in family history research provides an opening for some participants to better understand others across racial and ethnic divides, this kind of cross-racial dialogue was limited by the organization of family history activities into racially distinct social networks. As the popularity of genealogy increases, the findings here point to the need to recognize the public significance of these private histories

Aesthetics · Art · Collective memory · Creole language · Ethnic group · Family tree · Genealogy · Identity (music) · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Political science · Race (biology) · Sociology · White (mutation) · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis · Psychology