Tashiro gives voice to older mixed-race Americans

With U.S. President Barack Obama as the most powerful mixed-race man on earth, what could possibly be left to be said about the experiences of mixed race people in our society? Plenty, according to author Cathy Tashiro, who will discuss her new book, Standing on Both Feet: Voices of Older Mixed-Race Americans, at book talks on the UW Tacoma campus and at King's Books in Tacoma.

In the book, the first to focus on the experiences of older Americans of mixed race, Tashiro explores identity, the significance of family experiences, aging, class, gender and nationality. Her interview subjects were all mixed African-Americans and mixed Asian-Americans born between 1902 and 1951, and all had one white parent. At a time when interracial marriage was still illegal in most parts of the United States, the very existence of these people violated deep cultural beliefs in the distinctiveness of the races.

"To understand mixed race now, we must understand it in the past, and these stories of older people of mixed race provide a powerful living link," said Tashiro.

Tashiro is associate professor emeritus in Nursing and Healthcare Leadership at the University of Washington Tacoma. She herself is an older mixed-race American, having been born in Cincinnati to a second-generation Japanese-American father and a white mother. Her Ph.D. is in sociology; her teaching and research work has focused on community and population health, sociology of health and illness, diversity in aging, and the meaning of race in healthcare and research.