1/17/13
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Julie Williams Dixon |
Randolph-Macon College will present “Melungeon Voices,” by filmmaker Julie Williams Dixon, on February 18, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. in Room 212, Old Chapel. The film focuses on a little-known population of mixed ancestry native to the Appalachian mountain region. Dixon will introduce the film and lead a post-film discussion. This event takes place in conjunction with the
First-Year Experience course “Vanished Peoples, Untold Stories,” taught by Professors Reber Dunkel (
sociology) and Kimberly Borchard (
Spanish).
This event is free and open to the public.
Their origins shrouded in mystery, the Melungeons of Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee and other Appalachian mountain communities have various oral histories, some groups claiming their ancestors were here as early as the late 1500s.
“These family oral histories profess Melungeons to be descendants of Spanish, Portuguese and/or Turkish soldiers and sailors who intermarried with Native Americans,” explains Dunkel. “Academicians often consider them to be ‘tri-racial isolates’ of dubious origins. Even the origin of the name ‘Melungeon’ is disputed. During the eugenics and racial purity movements in Virginia, under the 1924 Racial Integrity Law state officials reclassified Virginian Indians as ‘black’ and persisted in accusing the Melungeons as using their traditional ancestry as a camouflage for African heritage.”
This film follows the search of Dr. Brent Kennedy, author of
The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People, for his ancestors’ true ethnicity and illustrates how his account set off a firestorm of controversy. Part genealogy, part genetics and part social geography, the story of the Melungeons is ultimately a story of how diverse Appalachian ethnoracial minorities banded together to survive racial discrimination in America.
In 2012, published reports of recent DNA testing indicative of African ancestry among many Melungeons precipitated another flurry of exchanges on social media and highlighted the disconnect between the test results and the oral tradition of southern European—not African—identity in the Melungeon community.
“The DNA test results of some Melungeon populations released last year will make Ms. Dixon’s presentation even more compelling,” says Borchard. “Our course is fundamentally about how the construction of individual and minority group identities feed into the construction of larger American identities as a whole. After exploring Spanish and Native American colonial narratives, the focus of the course this semester is how social media affects racial and ethnic groups’ self-identities, as well as those of gender/sexual minorities and people with disabilities. Our students have been doing genealogical research about their own ancestors and recording oral histories of their families as they reflect upon the multiethnic composition of America.”
Dixon will introduce the film and talk about the filmmaking process. After the screening of the hour-long film, she will address the controversy about the Melungeons’ identity and genealogy, drawing upon the example of her own family.
This event is sponsored by the
First-Year Experience program, the
Film Studies program, and by CASE (Committee on Assemblies and Special Events.)