I cling to my sister and childhood friends who remember the past. She has appeared on C-SPAN, MSNBC and National Public Radio. . The moment when I was handed the keys to Highlanders archive was the moment when I knew I wanted to be a historian., Hobbs was extremely active outside the classroom as well, including participating in the Crimson Key Society and the First-Year Outdoor Program. When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Nowhere to Run: African American Travel in Twentieth-Century America explores the humiliation and indignities as well as the joy, exhilaration, and freedom that African American motorists experienced on the road and To Tell the Terrible, which examines the collective memory of sexual violence among generations of black women. One of the best birthday presents anybody ever gave me was a calling card by the conceptual artist Adrian Piper. As she puts it, there is no essentialized, immutable or true identity . 25, 2016)A young Chicago girl awoke one summer morning in August in anticipation of the Bud Billiken Parade - the longest-running African American . There was a time when families got dressed up for holidays. Born a slave to his black mother and a white father, probably the master, James Harlan, he was raised in the same household as the white Harlan boys. 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.. It was kind of this obsession or intrigue with them, she says. Every year, as the hour grows late on Christmas night, my fathers eyes become misty. Perhaps it was more beloved by him because he knew the sacrifices that his mother had made to buy it. . His life was not an easy one. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. 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? Would you like to recieve our weekly newsletter? My father slowly takes off his glasses and dabs his eyes. An older boy would steal the jacket before its leather sleeves had the chance to crease. My connection to Harvard is fundamental to who I am today, Hobbs said. "Auld Lang Syne" and Four Generations of My Family 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. I wish I could hear the sounds of the crackling radio and join him, my aunt, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother around the dining table or next to the frosted Christmas tree. She is the recipient of Stanfords highest teaching prize. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and she received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago. The labor that the farm required seemed to leave Burns with a heart condition that afflicted him later in life. She teaches courses on American identity; African American history; African American womens history; American road trips, migration, travel and mobility; and twentieth-century American history and culture. Passing: On crossing the color line - CBS News edited by Grossman, J. R., Keating, A. D., Reiff, L. Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME), Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Office of VP for University Human Resources, Office of Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer, Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century, Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century Part II, Undergraduate Directed Research and Writing. Hobbsis an associate professor in Stanford Universitys Department of History,director of African and African American studies,and a Kleinheinz University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. The lighthouse that never failed to guide me home is now out of service. The car is cozy and my dad is singing again. A Chosen Exile has been featured on All Things Considered on National Public Radio, Book TV on C-SPAN, The Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC, the Tavis Smiley Show on Public Radio International, the Madison Show on SiriusXM, and TV News One with Roland Martin. 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. The marriage is over now. His probable father made him a free man and he went on to make a fortune in the gold rush in California. 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. Sarah Jane, a character in Douglas Sirks 1959 remake of the film Imitation of Life, denies her black mother in her attempt to be seen as white. Biomolecular archaeology reveals a fuller picture of the nomadic Xiongnu. Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews. Allyson Hobbs on the Chosen Exile of Racial Passing https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opinion/parents-divorce.html. She was honored by the Silicon Valley chapter of the NAACP with a Freedom Fighter Award. She committed suicide in 1949. Whats at Stake in the Fisher v. University of Texas Case? Allyson is currently at work on two books, both forthcoming from Penguin Press. My father cant go back to the Chicago of the nineteen-fifties. It is also to be perpetually aware of both the primacy of race and the bankruptcy of the race idea, as Allyson Hobbs, an assistant professor of history at Stanford University, puts it in her incisive new cultural history, A Chosen Exile., Hobbs is interested in the stories of individuals who chose to cross the color line black to white from the late 1800s up through the 1950s. 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. Like so many of the people in her book, her own family tree has a gap. 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. It is fair to wonder if each of Hobbss subjects from Elsie Roxborough to Jean Toomer to Albert and Thyra Johnston would have had an easier time had they been born today, in the era of Barack Obama and Tiger Woods. She has appeared on C-SPAN, MSNBC and National Public Radio. She never settled down, moving from California to New York, where she changed her name to Mona Manet. Lombardo brought in the new year with the song for almost fifty years, from the stock market crash in 1929 to his last performance, during the countrys bicentennial, in 1976. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. He remained close to the other Harlans but never tried to take on their whiteness. 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. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? As a professor at Howard University, where he taught from 1934 to 1959, he asked his students to assemble family histories. But I knew the sources were out there, because I knew there were stories like the one about this distant cousin of ours., Hobbs, who teaches American history at Stanford University, started by reading literature and going through the correspondence of Harlem Renaissance writers like Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen, picking out the gossip they exchanged about themselves and their acquaintances passing for white. 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. 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. Perhaps his suffering and hardships imbued his poetry with its signature passion and intensity. The house where I grew up our sanctuary for 40 years is falling apart and will be sold soon. Hobbs said she realized while at Harvard that a university would be my professional home. Im bleeding out. ever waiting to be found just below the surface.. Listen to these stories, maybe you can imagine. The Root named A Chosen Exile among its Best 15 Nonfiction Books by Black Authors in 2014., 2023 Cond Nast. One of the most interesting figures in the book is the novelist and poet Jean Toomer. The after-dinner hustle and bustle do not disturb my fathers reverie. A Chosen Exile grew out of Hobbss dissertation, and when she began her research, she says, at first it seemed like I wasnt going to get anywhere with it. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. 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. Stanford University, Main Quad A secret in her own family led Allyson Hobbs, AM02, PhD09, to uncover the hidden history of racial passing. One of the loved ones Hobbs lost helped spark her current book project, a study of the Great Migration through the experiences of travelers heading north through a segregated country. It is to feel like an embodiment of W. E. B. 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. 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. 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. Though scholars have widely argued that Toomer passed as white, Hobbs depicts him as not so much rejecting blackness as rejecting racialized thinking. 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. Another family will live in our house. And our cousinand this was the part of the story that my aunt really underscoredwas that our cousin absolutely did not want to do this, Hobbs says. When you talk to African Americans of a certain generation, everybodyeverybodycan remember the difficulty they had, how hard it was to find a place to stay and a place to eat, Hobbs says. It was protected by a boundary that no black person (aside from domestics and other workers) dared to cross. Ill remember my bright pink bedroom with curtains that my mom made from Benetton sheets. 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. Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, wrote Auld Lang Syne, in 1788. Both of Hobbss parents came to Chicago as children during the Great Migration, her mother from New Orleans and her father from Augusta, Georgia. Now Im mourning people who are still alive. I love the partnership between teachers and students, not only to engage with scholarship but to work to understand a changing world and to try to change the world ourselves. 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. Rich Murray, AB94, finds the stuff of life for beloved TV characters. Allyson Hobbs | Department of History - Stanford University 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. Hobbs reckons with the trauma, alienation, and scarsnot only for those who passed, but also for those they left behind. Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of American history and the director of African and African-American studies at Stanford University. A Chosen Exile won the Organization of American Historians Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for best first book in American history and the Lawrence Levine Prize for best book in American cultural history. She served on the jury for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in History. My dad, for his part, winced when my mom couldnt remember a name or asked the same question twice. Many of them, Hobbs found, reading his papers, couldnt do it. They seemed to relish sharing the smallest and most mundane moments of life: running errands to the grocery store, the post office, the mall. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. She has served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in history and as a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. If I close my eyes, I am back in the car, and my head is resting on one of my sisters shoulders. Allyson is currently at work on two books, both forthcoming from Penguin Press. Is it possible that it might be easier to live without each other by choice, to break that once indestructible bond now, rather than to wait until it is broken cruelly, against their will? After 60 years, my parents marriage is ending. 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. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. And well take a cup o kindness yet, for auld lang syne. 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. Highlights from the week in culture, every Saturday. When a child dies before a parent, such a loss defies the expected order of life events, leading many people to experience the event as a challenge to basic existential assumptions, a 2010 study by the National Institutes of Health explained. The pride that I felt in joining the Class of 1997 had to do with what Harvard means as an institution, to its long history of prioritizing scholarship in the arts and sciences, and with the commitment to lifelong learning as central to the lives of its graduates.. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. But by far the books most potent thread is about loss. Relatives whod passed as white and vanished from the family left wide gaps in the family tree. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. I notice my father as he muses silently about times gone by and wish that I, too, could go to that kitchenette that he has described so vividly and glimpse him as a little boy, dressed up in his Christmas finery. So most New Years Eve revellers just mumble or hum along. Hobbs 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. For those few minutes that Auld Lang Syne plays, he is far away from the dining table in Morristown, New Jersey, where he has celebrated Christmas for the past thirty-five years. Obviously its a very different kind of loss, but passing is often equated with death, she says. Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of American history and the director of African and African-American studies at Stanford University, and the author of " A Chosen Exile: A History of. And well take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne. As my mom, my sisters and I drifted off to sleep, hed croon: They said someday youll find/All who love are blind/Oh-oh when your hearts on fire/You must realize/Smoke gets in your eyes.. She is a contributing writer toThe New Yorker.comand a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. The arrival of these two ostensibly white women allowed Elsie to remain white, even in death, Hobbs writes. (Photography by Jennifer Pottheiser). And the answer, of course, is no, the past must be remembered. Allyson teaches courses on American identity, African American history, African American womens history, and twentieth century American history. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and she received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago. She is a contributing writer to The New Yorker.com and a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. 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. And that tells another story about black businesses and the decline of black businesses.