Boundaries of Whiteness
Boundaries of Whiteness
Flexibility and Shifting Meanings
Chapter 3 examines how white spouses understand their own whiteness in these relationships as well as how their black partners see them as white. In Rio de Janeiro, white spouses redrew, pushed against, and bridged over ethnoracial boundaries through emphasizing race mixture in their ancestry. In Los Angeles, whites had less flexibility in navigating ethnoracial boundaries, yet bridged over class differences. They also completely changed the meaning of the boundary by converting it from a racial one to an ethnic one full of many “ethnic options.” In both sites, there were whites with an affiliative ethnicity for blackness, but this was more prevalent among white Carioca wives who understood themselves as negra frustradas or frustrated black women-frustrated because of their whiteness. Black partners in both research sites largely considered their white spouses unquestionably white. As a consequence, this chapter reveals that ethnoracial boundaries were more flexible and permeable for white spouses than black spouses in both societies.
Keywords: Whiteness, Ethnicity, Boundaries, Interracial Marriage, Brazil, Intersectionality, Race, Constructivist, Affiliative Ethnicity, Casais interraciais, Mestiçagem
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