I berate myself for such a nave hope. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and she received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago. Sometimes one whole side would be blank. Photo credit: Jennifer Pottheiser Photography. If I close my eyes, I am back in the car, and my head is resting on one of my sisters shoulders. Her grandmother died just as she was finishing A Chosen Exile, but the stories stayed with her. He saw race as superficial, a physical covering, and argued for an American identity that could not extricate its black elements from its white components. In this critically vigilant work, Hobbs refuses to accept any one identity as true. Toomer, in his resistance to being pigeonholed, comes across here as not so much self-loathing as ahead of his time. Highlights from the week in culture, every Saturday. In 2017, she was honored by the Silicon Valley chapter of the NAACP with a Freedom Fighter Award. She also has taught classes onHamilton(the musical) and Michelle Obama. Anyone can read what you share. Im a white woman now. She was married to a white man; she had white children. Ellen Craft, a slave in Macon, Ga., successfully escaped to freedom in 1848 dressed as a white man, accompanied by her accomplice, her darker-skinned husband, who pretended to be her servant . Hobbs earned her Ph.D. in American history from the University of Chicago. Du Boiss double consciousness that sense of being in two places at the same time. . The book was selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors Choice, a Best Book of 2014 by the San Francisco Chronicle, and a Book of the Week by the Times Higher Education in London. She served on the jury for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in History. My mom would smile and slowly shake her head and my dad would chuckle fitfully as the words tumbled out. Later, post-Reconstruction, people passed as white in order to go to work at better paying jobs, returning home to the black community at night in what Hobbs refers to as 9-to-5 passing., She also tells us about those who went white in more permanent ways, like Elsie Roxborough, an upper-class socialite who briefly dated Langston Hughes. What 22-year-old is equipped to help when the pain is so searing and so deep? They anticipated the punch lines of jokes that they already knew, sometimes bursting into laughter before the joke was complete. She doesnt know what became of the cousin in Los Angeles. She served on the jury for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in History. But they get the gist of the main question of the song: Should old friends be forgotten? Here are some tips. The lighthouse that never failed to guide me home is now out of service. Between the late eighteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families, friends, and communities without any available avenue for return. And surely youll buy your pint cup and surely Ill buy mine! Allyson Hobbs, an assistant professor of American history at Stanford University, discussed research from her award-winning book, A Chosen Exile: A History on Racial Passing in American Life, at a Women's Studies Colloquium. Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of history and director of African and African-American studies at Stanford. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Her aunt responded by telling her the story of a distant cousin from the South Side of Chicago who disappeared into the white world and never returned. I drift into my own misty reveries: a childhood when the excitement of Christmas would not let me sleep; years later, watching my brother-in-law assemble elaborate and exquisite floral centerpieces as his generous gift to us; the games played; the joy and laughter before my sisters illness and untimely death, at thirty-one; even the hectic but happy balancing act of celebrating two Christmasesone with my family and one with my husbands familybefore our marriage collapsed, four years ago. The New York Times Sunday Book Review of 'A Chosen Exile", 450 Jane Stanford Way In her histories of globalism, migration, families, and children, Tara Zahra reveals the fine cracks in foundational stories. But the cousin, of course, wasnt there. Listen to these stories, maybe you can imagine. It was protected by a boundary that no black person (aside from domestics and other workers) dared to cross. Her work has appeared in. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Lifehas beenselected as: Winner, Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for Best First Book in American History (Organization of American Historians), Winner, Lawrence Levine Prize for Best Book in American Cultural History (Organization of American Historians), ANew York TimesBook ReviewEditors Choice, 2017 Summer Reading Lists for The Paris Reviewand Harvard University Press, Recommended Reading on "Racial Boundaries" by theNew York Times, ASan Francisco ChronicleBest Book of 2014, ATimes Higher EducationBook of the Week, The Root, Best 15 Nonfiction Books by Black Authors in 2014, 450 Jane Stanford Way A Chosen Exile Allyson Hobbs | Harvard University Press And she says to her mother, I cant come home. Internal Mail Code: 2152 Her plan in part is to follow the Green Book. She has won numerous teaching awards including the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, the Graves Award in the Humanities, and the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award. Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. Hobbs book,A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, explores the phenomenon from the late 18th century to the present. Her father was dying, she could never come back, she would never see her brothers again., Over the next decade or so while she worked on her dissertation and then the book, Hobbs suffered her own series of losses as people close to her diedthe aunt who told her the story about the cousin and three first cousins who were like brothers and sisters to Hobbs. I was in college at the time, and it felt like the ultimate inside joke handed from one racially ambiguous person to another. Allyson Hobbs is elected Class of 1997's chief marshal Author, scholar and educator is a prominent voice on race, politics "My connection to Harvard is fundamental to who I am today," said Allyson Hobbs '97, who will serve as chief marshal. Allyson Hobbs is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at Stanford University. She also has taught classes on Hamilton (the musical) and Michelle Obama. She has appeared on C-SPAN, MSNBC and National Public Radio. Whats at Stake in the Fisher v. University of Texas Case? Lombardos band played Auld Lang Syne just as the clock struck midnight. So most New Years Eve revellers just mumble or hum along. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile. "Auld Lang Syne" and Four Generations of My Family So she never goes back, Hobbs says. From left: a portrait; Jean Toomer Papers: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; The Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library. Its the early nineteen-fifties, and he sits by the radio with his family, looking at the frosted Christmas tree with bubbly lights. Now hes telling their storiesand his own. Stanford Historian Allyson Hobbs has written a history of racial passing in America, "A Chosen Exile." "There's probably a time when we all engaged in some form of passing," she said. Ad Choices. Though scholars have widely argued that Toomer passed as white, Hobbs depicts him as not so much rejecting blackness as rejecting racialized thinking. Allyson teaches courses on American identity, African American history, African American womens history, and twentieth century American history. She committed suicide in 1949. Ten or 15 years later, her cousin got what Hobbs calls an inconvenient phone call. Her father was dying. Hobbss cousin was 18 when she was sent by her mother to live in Los Angeles and pass as a white woman in the late 1930s. Once in a while, I hear her playing those songs and I wonder what she is thinking. We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies fine; But weve wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne. Could a California Christmas with yards of garland, a lively rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and a signature Christmas cocktail substitute for our traditional New Jersey one? Many of them, Hobbs found, reading his papers, couldnt do it. He remained close to the other Harlans but never tried to take on their whiteness. David Fulton, SB64, has owned some of historys most treasured violins, violas, and cellos. Alumni will be able to reconnect in person for Harvard Alumni Day, reunions, and other alumni programs across the campus, after the pandemic kept many from visiting for two consecutive years. She is currently writingtwo books,Far from Sanctuary: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights, which examinesthe road trip through the lens of 20th-century African American motorists,and To Tell the Terrible, which explores the collective memory of sexual violence among generations of Black women. The 1963 album Christmas with the Platters plays, and a dreamy version of Auld Lang Syne wafts through the living room. In 2017, she was honored by the Silicon Valley chapter of the NAACP with a Freedom Fighter Award. The book was also selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors Choice, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2014, a Best 15 Nonfiction Books by Black Authors in 2014 by The Root, a featured book in the New York Times Book Review Paperback Row in 2016, and a Paris Review What Our Writers are Reading This Summer Selection in 2017. I am in a small boat, too fatigued to pick up an oar, lost at sea. Allyson is currently at work on two books, both forthcoming from Penguin Press. As the youngest of two children and the only boy in his family, my father was doted on, adored, and treasured. Following a tradition that goes back more than 120 years, Hobbs was elected by her classmates andwill play a number of ceremonial roles in celebration of their 25th reunion. My father slowly takes off his glasses and dabs his eyes. Certainly there is increasingly a language for mixed identity. But we can follow the poignant instructions offered in Auld Lang Syne: to remember the past, the stories, the scenes, the settings, the friendships, and the family. Inside the Home of the New Years Eve Ball, A Hundred Years Later, The Birth of a Nation Hasnt Gone Away, Our Fifteen Most-Read Magazine Stories of 2015. Obviously its a very different kind of loss, but passing is often equated with death, she says. When his father died, his farm was on the brink of failure, and Burns and his brother moved the family to a new farm in an effort to stay afloat. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Traveling from New Orleans to Nashville, she found that most of the places listed in the guide no longer exist. The Root named A Chosen Exile as one of the Best 15 Nonfiction Books by Black Authors in 2014., View details for DOI 10.1017/S1537781419000690, View details for Web of Science ID 000529084900011, View details for Web of Science ID 000431473400019, View details for Web of Science ID 000299143500019, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Stanford University (2008 - Present), AAAS/CCSRE Faculty Research Fellow, Stanford University (2014 - 2015), Postdoctoral Fellowship, Ford Foundation (2013 - 2014), Hoefer Faculty Mentor Prize, Stanford University (2013), Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, Stanford University (2013), The Graves Award, Humanities, Stanford University (2012), Clayman Institute for Gender Research Fellowship, Stanford University (2011 - 2012), Diversity Dissertation Fellowship Alternate, Ford Foundation (2011), CCSRE Junior Faculty Development Program, Stanford University (2010), Hoefer Faculty Mentor Prize, Stanford University (2010), St. Clair Drake Teaching Award, Stanford University (2010), Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Department of History, Stanford University (2007 - 2008), Diversity Dissertation Fellowship, Ford Foundation (2007), Von Holst Prize, Lectureship in History, University of Chicago (2006), Trustee Fellowship, University of Chicago (2000 - 2006), Advisory Committee Member, African and African American Studies, Committe-in-Charge Member, American Studies Program, Core Affiliated Faculty, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Researcher, Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, Faculty Affiliate, Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Faculty Advisor, Masters in Liberal Arts Program, Member, Transnational, International, and Global History Initiative, Department of History Urban Studies, Advisory Board, Spatial Legacy Academy, East Palo Alto, CA, Faculty Advisor, Mellon-Mays (2010 - Present), Pre-Major Advisor, Department of History, Stanford University (2010 - 2011), Expert Reviewer, Bedford/St. After my sisters death, there were an intolerable number of losses in our family grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins but somehow, my parents pulled through. But the crevice opened wider when she read the papers of sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, PhD31. Ill remember my dad putting up the volleyball net in the backyard, securing the swing set and carrying home kids who had taken hard falls on the Slip N Slide. The study found that 18 years after the death of a child, bereaved parents were more likely to have experienced a depressive episode and marital disruption than other parents. Nowhere to Run: African American Travel in Twentieth Century Americaexplores the violence, humiliation, and indignities that African American motorists experienced on the road andTo Tell the Terrible, which examines black womens testimonies against and collective memory of sexual violence. Allyson Hobbs | Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity About Allyson Hobbs Excerpt: Lost Kin (University of Chicago Magazine, MayJune/15). She is a contributing writer to The New Yorker.com and a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. It is to feel like an embodiment of W. E. B. The authors father in 1943, at age three. We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine; But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne. I tell new friends, I wish you could have known my parents before. Look at these pictures look at their high school prom picture maybe you can understand. Events will be simultaneously live-streamed for those who cannot attend in person. He laughs as he describes the suit that he wore, with a skinny tie, when they were first married, my mothers fancy dresses, and the special holiday outfits purchased for my older sisters and brother. She was a master of improvisation, the original mother of invention. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? I bought a flocked Christmas tree, just like the ones that my grandmother chose when my father was growing up. Many threads weave through A Chosen Exile, released last fall to glowing reviews: the meaning of identity, the elusive concept of race, ever-shifting color lines and cultural borderlands. Then one day, when their eldest son made an off-the-cuff comment about a black student at his boarding school, Albert blurted out, Well, youre colored. It was almost as if Albert had grown weary after 20 years of carefully guarding their secret. Allyson Hobbs is an Associate Professor of United States History, the Director of African and African American Studies, and the Kleinheinz Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. Their stately home served as the community hub, and there they raised their four children, who believed they were white. They seemed to relish sharing the smallest and most mundane moments of life: running errands to the grocery store, the post office, the mall. Biomolecular archaeology reveals a fuller picture of the nomadic Xiongnu. I dont have to shuttle between two homes, I wont have to endure remarriages, I dont believe that I am at fault. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and she received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago. Many of the songs are from the road trip playlists. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com. Allyson Hobbs is elected Class of 1997's chief marshal Allysons first book,A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, published by Harvard University Press in 2014, examines the phenomenon of racial passing in the United States from the late eighteenth century to the present. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and she received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago. Storytelling Matters to Historian Allyson Hobbs, Stanford Historian Re-examines Practice of Racial 'Passing. Like so many of the people in her book, her own family tree has a gap. When there is tragedy in these pages, Hobbs locates its source not in the racially ambiguous figure himself or herself, but in the reductive culture into which he or she is born. Try as I might, I cant relive my childhood or young adulthood in Morristown. She is a contributing writer to The NewYorker.com and a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians . But by far the books most potent thread is about loss. Countless African Americans have passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and communities. The book was also selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors Choice, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2014, a Best 15 Nonfiction Books by Black Authors in 2014 by The Root, a featured book in the New York Times Book Review Paperback Row in 2016, and a Paris Review What Our Writers are Reading This Summer Selection in 2017. But my mother wasnt joking. The book was also selected as aNew York Times Book ReviewEditors Choice, aSan Francisco ChronicleBest Book of 2014, a Best 15 Nonfiction Books by Black Authors in 2014 byThe Root, a featured book in theNew York Times Book ReviewPaperback Row in 2016, and aParis ReviewWhat Our Writers are Reading This Summer Selection in 2017. I wont go back. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. After the publication of Cane, which celebrated Southern, rural black life, Toomer became reticent, even hostile to the notion that he was Negro, body and soul. . Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, wrote Auld Lang Syne, in 1788. Its a story weve of course read and seen before in fictional accounts numerous novels and films that have generally portrayed mixed-race characters in the sorriest of terms. Like gay characters, mulattoes always pay for their existence dearly in the end. In 2017, she was honored by the Silicon Valley chapter of the NAACP with a Freedom Fighter Award. . Another family will live in our house. I wantedto get rid of my possessions, because possessions stood between me and death. I thought their bond was indestructible. Because theyre so much a part of the story. My grandmother had told me incredible stories about the migration and moving to Chicago and her impressions of the journey, Hobbs says. Allyson is currently at work on two books, both forthcoming from Penguin Press. She has won teaching awards including the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, the Graves Award in the Humanities, and the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award. The phrase Auld Lang Syne translates to times gone by, and, while Americans expect to hear this song every New Years, few know what the Scottish lyrics actually mean. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, Nowhere to Run: African American Travel in Twentieth Century America, CCSRE 25th Anniversary Commemorative Book, Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Ph.D. Minor in Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity, CSRE Ph.D. Minor Frequently Asked Questions, CSRE Graduate Teaching Fellowship Program, Technology & Racial Equity Graduate Fellowship, Stanford Journal of Asian American Studies, Annual Anne and Loren Kieve Distinguished Lecture. Elsie changed her name to Mona Manet and wrote Hughes a letter bearing no return address stating that she intended to cease being colored. When she committed suicide years later, only her white-appearing relatives showed up to claim her body, allowing Elsie to remain white, even in death.. Fierce in her conviction that the past has much to teach us, Allyson is an example of the countless Harvard alumni who are shaping our world, like all of the chief marshals before her.. I lined the house with outdoor lights and hired a musician to lead the group in caroling. (Photography by Jennifer Pottheiser). My fathers grandmother had served the white folks at dinner parties, so she took great pride in making her own celebrations equally special. Anyone can read what you share. On road trips to see relatives in Chicago or to our favorite summer vacation spot, my dad would entertain himself by singing along with the most exaggerated intonations to the hits of the Commodores, the OJays and the Platters. Married to Thyra in 1924, Albert graduated from medical school but couldnt get a job as a black doctor, and passed as white in order to gain entry to a reputable hospital. That story opens Hobbss book, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life (Harvard University Press, 2014), a lyrical, searching, and studious account of the phenomenon from the mid-19th century to the 1950s. The marriage is over now. In letters, unpublished family histories, personal papers, sociological journals, court cases, anthropological archives, literature, and film, she finds a coherent and enduring narrative of loss.. Ill remember my bright pink bedroom with curtains that my mom made from Benetton sheets. As historian Allyson Hobbs explains in A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, scholars have traditionally paid far more attention to what was gained by passing as white than . It wasnt like I could go into a library and find a folder. The house where I grew up our sanctuary for 40 years is falling apart and will be sold soon. As a respected historian and storyteller, teacher, and scholar, and community-builder, Allyson Hobbs has spent her career helping us understand racial injustice, its complex human cost, and how its history is something that links and impacts all of us, said Vanessa Liu, HAA president. And in many ways, it is.. I wanted to make Harvard a welcoming place for all first-years, especially those who might otherwise have felt intimidated or apprehensive about starting their College experience, she said. One of the most interesting figures in the book is the novelist and poet Jean Toomer. His family did not have much money, but, as he would later tell us with a smile, We didnt know we were poor. His grandmother cleaned the homes of white families and often came back to the apartment with stories of what the white folks do. Setting the Christmas table with her best china, she would turn to my father and my aunt and say, with satisfaction, This is the way the white folks do it. The world of the white folks was just as remote geographically as it was in imagination and in experience. She was also involved with the Association of Black Radcliffe Women, Harvard Arbitration Association,Harvard Black Register, First-Year Outdoor Program, intramural crew, Institute of Politics, and the Phillips Brooks House Association. Published continuously since 1907.AccessibilityPrivacy Policy, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide. I am an adult. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and . Of course not. Allyson Hobbs is an Associate Professor of United States History, the Director of African and African American Studies, and the Kleinheinz Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. I am mourning a family and people who are still alive. When historians have taken on the subject, Hobbs points out, they have generally paid far more attention to what was gained by passing as white than to what was lost by rejecting a black racial identity. Hobbs, on the other hand, insists on seeing the history of passing as a coherent and enduring narrative of loss. We hear from the black family left behind. Perhaps the accumulated years of grief after my sisters death have finally become too much and this separation is the marital disruption that the N.I.H. The Johnstons maintained the pretense for more than a decade, until one day in the early 1940s, when Albert Jr., home from boarding school, made an unthinking remark about a colored student there, and his father said, Well, youre colored.. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories, Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of American history and the director of African and African-American studies at Stanford University. The spectacular collapse of my parents marriage has been too much for me. Slim and innocuous as a business card, it reads: Dear Friend, I am black. Her tragedy once again feels like mixed fate. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor.. They seemed to grow even closer as our once large family became smaller and summer family reunions petered out. It was kind of this obsession or intrigue with them, she says. As racial relations in America have evolved so has the significance of passing. I am sure you did not realize this when you made/laughed at/agreed with that racist remark. They cry as if these were their own parents. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. My connection to Harvard is fundamental to who I am today, Hobbs said. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. My gratitude for the opportunity to celebrate with my classmates, all in person, is boundless, and Im counting the days until we can all be together again on campus.. Hobbs calls it nine to five passing, although it required the passer to leave home before sunup and not come back until after dark to avoid being seen in their black neighborhoods. Despite the tradition of activism by black women, white women have often played the protagonists in the history of sexual violence, and black women have been relegated to the supporting cast. I regret any discomfort my presence is causing you, just as Im sure you regret the discomfort your racism is causing me., To be black but to be perceived as white is to find yourself, at times, in a racial no mans land. Merrick Garland is the 86th attorney general of the United States. My parents told the same stories of growing up on the South Side of Chicago hundreds of times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opinion/parents-divorce.html. Im bleeding out. His life was not an easy one. The after-dinner hustle and bustle do not disturb my fathers reverie. The University of Chicago Magazine 5235 South Harper Court, Chicago, IL 60615 Phone: 773.702.2163 Fax: 773.702.2166 uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu, The University of Chicago Magazine (ISSN-0041-9508) is published quarterly by the University of Chicago in cooperation with the Alumni Association. This history of passing explores the possibilities, challenges, and losses that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. Sometimes the passing Hobbs depicts is shown to be simply a practical choice what she calls tactical or strategic passing. In 19th-century America people passed as free first, white second. You know, we have that in our own family too. That was the bombshell, the offhand remark that plunged historian Allyson Hobbs, AM02, PhD09, into a 12-year odyssey to understand racial passing in Americathe triumphs and possibilities, secrets and sorrows, of African Americans who crossed the color line and lived as white. She has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity at Stanford. In 2017, she was honored by the Silicon Valley chapter of the NAACP with a Freedom Fighter Award. As this years chief marshal, Hobbs joins alistof illustrious alumni who have held the position, including former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith 94, who is this years featured Harvard Alumni Day speaker; astronaut Stephanie Wilson 88; Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter Linda Greenhouse 68; City Year co-founder Alan Khazei 83; former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan 86; and former Rhode Island Gov. Only her sister and aunt, both light skinned, traveled to New York to claim her body. We read about the individuals who looked white but consciously chose not to pass who, when given the choice, opted for black life and community. Or, perhaps in their mid-80s after all of the joys, the stories, the sorrows, after all of the life that they have lived together my parents find this final act too frightening and too disorienting.