What signifies race?  Is it the color of one’s skin?  Is it the texture of one’s hair?  What is the relationship between race and culture?  How is race performed on and through the body?  What are the signifiers of race that we subconsciously interpret as we move throughout the world and try to make sense of our place in it and our relationship to others?

The images in the banner of this blog are photos taken during various holidays, such as the the Muslim religious commemoration, Hosay, or the Hindu festival of Phagwa, as celebrated in Trinidad, and of everyday people engaged in everyday life.  Racial, ethnic, and religious boundaries are fluid in this multi-ethnic island, and challenge us to think about the taken for granted nature of race as conceptualized and reified in the United States of America.  Attention to the politics of race and ethnicity, the history of how ideas of race evolved, and the ways in which race and ethnicity are performed in various locations open our eyes to the complicated role of race in our world.

Mixing It Up is a repository of the thoughts, observations, questions, and feelings about race, ethnicity, and hybridity documented by Dickinson College students enrolled in the Spring 2018 semester of Race, Ethnicity, and Hybridity, a course taught by Professor van Leeuwaarde Moonsammy.