The Politics of Racial Identity

“Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York…” 
William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act-I, Scene-I

No matter how much we try to avoid it, racial politics around the world seems inevitably to raise its head during our darkest hours. We need look no further than the rise of right-wing movements in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and the recent attack on January 6th against the United States Capitol instigated by white supremacists and fringe conspiracy groups. Even with a global pandemic raging, the threat of economic collapse, and the rise of autocratic governments, we seem to sink to our lowest depths when the level of debate often comes down to who should be vaccinated first, be given stimulus checks, or allowed to vote. We can always hope is that this winter of discontent will not be prolonged, but many fear that a “summer” of more equitable politics may be more distant. We shall see.

The preferences made evident by selective enforcement and the language of “spin” that often favor some over others provides a thin veneer that attempts to hide the fact that race and racial identity are now in play. The roots of racial politics include the loss of position and status, political entrenchment, scarce opportunities, the fear of losing cultures and symbolic forms of past glories, and a suspicion that some people simply are not respected as human beings because of their race. Many of us have learned these lessons at a young age.

The Immigrants’ Lament

Arriving in the United States in the late 1950s, for example, my parents’ first experience with intolerance was in finding a place to live. One day my father went to look at a small rental in Los Angeles, and asked the owner about its availability. She abrupted told him it was already rented, and added “we don’t rent to your kind anyway.” My father smiled and quicky responded “That will change. Just wait until we take over.” I was told the woman frowned and turned away in disgust.

My father probably understood that it was inevitable the number of non-whites in the United States would increase, but his response must have touched a fear in the woman that people like us could one day overwhelm people like her. When it happens, slowly or like some dreaded zombie apocalypse, is beside the point. That fear, when carried over several generations, and left unchanged by a lack of opportunities for housing, jobs, and education, as has occurred, leads directly to our present dilemma. I now realize that even then, the “sides” of this racial divide had already been drawn.

The Woman without a Family

To take another example, my professional work as an author and researcher rests on an acknowledgement of my own ethnicity. My family members are Portuguese from Asia, that is, Luso-Asians with ancestors from Northern Portugal, Goa, Macau, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Ethnically, I identify as “Macanese”, historically those who settled for several generations in Macau before dispersing again in later years. Like some, I have conducted genealogical and historical research into my ancestors’ histories, including using records kept in both family and national archives around the world.

My ability to assert a cultural identity, however, was placed in sharp relief after receiving an email a few years ago from a woman who was looking to reconnect with her own relatives. It turned out that she is related to a well-known family from Macau, but was born the illegitimate daughter of a Macanese woman and an Irishman. As a result, despite the documentation of her birth, several attempts by her to correspond with family members were rebuffed. I even asked a member if he was aware of her existence, but was abrupted told his family would not acknowledge her connection, implying that the “shame” of her birth to a “foreigner” somehow disqualified her from membership. The woman in question ran a successful marketing company. But she seemed traumatized from a young age by the absence of family ties and the “disconnection”, in her words, to her mother’s culture. In this case, she was not allowed to belong, despite her personal need to be part of it.

The Cultural Gatekeepers

The denial of such connections also can be based on attempts by insiders to preserve what they view as a culture in decline. A few years ago I was invited to participate in a meeting in Macau for “web masters” to assist the Chinese government in gathering information on Macanese history. Knowing the sentiments of some in the community who fear “incorrect” interpretations of Macau’s history, I was wary of attempts to “vet” those who seek access to information.

As I learned during the meeting, the vetting process extended to any Macanese who wished to subscribe to their websites. When I enquired about this policy, one web master stated that several people he encountered who could not provide “adequate documentation” were denied access. Another reason given was that others who claimed to be Macanese simply adopted Portuguese family names, but were actually Chinese from the mainland. While this reasoning seemed questionable, I pointed out that there may be other factors affecting the lack of documents. Illegitimacy or unregistered births are two possibilities, as were Macanese women who took the surnames of husbands from outside the community. The Portuguese and Macau archives were also notorious for lapses prior to World War II. Many family documents were also missing as the result of the Japanese invasions of Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The roots of this “gatekeeper” mentality, I learned, had as much to do with “contaminating” the data collected as it was with determining who could participate in the culture. Among the web masters there was the false impression that the global population of Macanese was only about 2% of which it actually is.[1] That is, without having “adequate documentation”, these guardians of their own history assumed the size of the community remained small, while attempting to preserve it in some pristine form, and save what they could before it was “lost” in the void of Chinese mainland culture. This irrational fear also determined, for them at least, who belonged and did not belong in the community, setting up a hierarchy in the same way other groups separated themselves from less desirable “others”.

Strength, Honor, and Cultural Denial

A final example involves the self-denial of culture, even as outward appearances suggest otherwise. While the presumption of race for many is literally only “skin deep”, it can influence how some reject elements of their own identity. One regrettable marker among racially-mixed descendants and a remnant of Portugal’s colonial history is an emphasis on degrees of European lineage. The standard once called “pureza de sangre” (purity of blood) was first used by the Roman Catholic Church and the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies in the 15^th century.[2] Adherence to this tradition among some Luso-Asians today remains a line of demarcation for those who aspire to higher positions in Portuguese society.

During research conducted in my work, I often find examples of racially-mixed descendants claiming only Portuguese heritage, despite physical appearances and birth records in Macau, Hong Kong, or Shanghai that suggest genealogical ties to Asia. These claims were common before World War II among Macanese in Hong Kong whose families were granted British passports, and others in Macau who became Portuguese citizens. Such tests of allegiance were often an early requirement for administrative positions in government and trading companies.

More recently, however, there is a rising class of Luso-Asians operating in Portugal and Macau who refute any association with the Chinese side of their families, while ironically aligning with conservative leaders who call for the expulsion of immigrants in Europe. Some even advocate the return of the monarchy, a strong military presence in former colonies, and an absolutist view of Roman Catholicism. The most troubling agendas uncritically glorify Portugal’s “Age of Discovery” while calling for a return to nationalist policies first introduced in 1932, which were rejected by the “Carnation Revolution” of 1974.

Conclusion

Whether the refusal to acknowledge Asian lineages among this group is calculated for social mobility or a sincere personal decision is difficult to determine. But the association of cultural denial with anti-democratic and far-right policies, as well as the prejudices discussed earlier, suggests that race and politics can create a volatile mix with far reaching consequences.

Most of us realize that overcoming racial strife requires political consensus and equitable policies. For many that translates to such “bread and butter” issues as more employment, universal healthcare, and cultural respect, which are often lost in ideological debates between left and right. All of this takes time, of course. But none of these remedies will be achieved, in the end, until each of us learn to listen to people outside our circles and to think rationally before we move forward as a society.

[1] Longitudinal surveys conducted by the Portuguese and Macanese Studies Project at U.C. Berkeley from 2013 through 2020 estimate that the population of Luso-Asians and Macanese around the world is approximately 1.67 million. Roy Eric Xavier, The Macanese Chronicles: A History of Luso-Asians in a Global Economy, Far East Currents Publishing, 2020:183.  According to demographic research conducted by John Byrne, over 462,700 Luso-Asians resided outside Asia by 2006. John Byrne, “The Luso-Asians and Other Eurasians: Their Domestic and Diasporic Identities”, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2011:147, in The Making of the Luso-Asian World: Portuguese and Luso-Asian Legacies in Southeast Asia, 1511-2011, Laura Jarnagin (ed.), ISAS, Singapore, 2011. Portuguese genealogist Jorge Forjaz has identified over 500 family names with over 65,000 citations. Familias Macaense, International Institute of Macau, 1996 and 2017.

[2] See Rachel L. Burk, “Purity and Impurity of Blood in Early Modern Iberia”, in The Routledge Companion to Iberian Studies, Javier Mufioz-Basols, Laura Lonsdale, and Manuel Delgado (eds.), London, 2017:173-183. Angela Barretto Xavier also has written: “The Portuguese nobleman (in Goa) was also reticent …, refusing, in most cases, to unite by marriage to Indian women, albeit white and of good shape, considering that this would contaminate their generation.”  “Purity, Race and Hierarchy Dossier in the Portuguese Colonial Empire”, Tempo vol.16 no.30 Niterói 2011, https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1413-77042011000100004&script=sci_arttext&tlng=pt.