J. Lo, Melungeons and the Future of America

The other night I was watching a feature film starring Ms. Jennifer Lopez. Now, I won't get into any description of the film, other than to say that Jane Fonda is in it (so please keep it away from any Vietnam Era veterans) and it's so bad I felt like I'd been repeatedly hit in the head. However, some interesting sociological observations came to me as I attempted to dull the pain of watching this contemporary romantic comedy.

For starters, how easily Ms. Lopez' character was portrayed interacting with other characters from different ethnic groups and backgrounds. So what? You may ask. Well, such portrayals in American media are rare: usually films and television shows opt for standard cliches of one type or another, like same-race couples, "token" ethnic characters, etc. And this is not a left-leaning screed: when was the last time you've seen an interracial couple in a movie that was explicitly not about race relations? Yet an actress such as Ms. Lopez is not as easily cliched: she can fit into different settings without controversy.

The reason came to me when my wife (a newcomer to American society) looked confused, turned to me and asked: "Is Jennifer Lopez black?" Of course, the answer is: she's Puerto Rican, and Puerto Ricans are a little of everything (and have an especially strong yet overlooked matrilineal connexion to Tainos). Since such people have such a cosmopolitan background, they seem to be able to act as "interfaces" in American society. What other public figure could have Sean "Puffy" Combs as boyfriend, a Cuban [first] husband, and ueber white-boy Ben Affleck as a fiance?

I only mention this because when you look at US culture, racial categorizing from the 19th century has not died, if anything, with modern identity politics it has become more entrenched. The "one-drop" rule makes someone either white or black and the "pure blood quanta" rule makes someone an American Indian: this was true 100 years ago, and shockingly it's still true today. The idea of people being a racial mix where all parts are weighed equally by society has been historically disparaged in much of the US as being a "melungeon" (known in anthropological parlance as a "triracial isolate"). As stated in a certain history book, that touches on the subject, Lies My Teacher Told Me, this is sad because it represents a complete potential historical path of development in America that was shut out in favor of the disasterous policies that still divide Americans from one another. Perhaps greater acceptance of mixing would have made American society more like a Latin American one such as in Puerto Rico (although such societies do still suffer effects of racism, and a centrist review of said book shows that the author is perhaps selling his political agenda a little too strongly). It seems only now do we have such figures as Jennifer Lopez or Tiger Woods who defy the traditional classification and offer hope for a mixed, common "American" identity.

The former Soviet Union certainly does not have an American-style obsession with race or ethnicity: while there is much ethnic pride, and nationalism, and sadly in Russia even increasing racism, it still does not seem to be as much a day-to-day level of thinking as it is in America. This is especially true in Kazakhstan. A mixed Kazakh-Russian is not considered either "white" or"not white" and wouldn't be criticized as "acting white" for speaking Russian and living or working in Moscow. Conversely a Russian with Kazakh or Tatar roots wouldn't be seen by Kazakhs as being a "poseur" or "stealing our culture" for speaking Kazakh or practicing Islam (although such people are admittedly a rarity). If anything, countries attempting to introduce American-style identity politics threaten to tear apart whatever social cohesion that they have.

But then maybe I just seem to be reading too much into a J Lo movie. I blame the stresses of my job search.