"It took me [20 years] to map out the kind of broad boundaries of the different people who said that they were both Black and Jewish, and that long to decode what I was looking at," Haynes explains. "I spent a lot of time trying to piece together the historical context that shaped the categories of Black and Jewish in the United States."
Research
Not only will this research shine light on the experiences of adoptees of color, it will allow Jewish adoptees of color to connect with one another through recognition of their unique shared experiences.
To gather this knowledge of communal needs and interests, Metasabiya (Tammy) Habteyes, Program Director at TischPDX, created the 2023 Cultural Shift Survey. This grassroots survey aims to gather hyperlocal data to gain a comprehensive understanding of JoC experiences in the PNW.
Ronay-Jinich hopes the findings of this study will inspire communities to continue to offer and expand support to multi-ethnic Jewish families and communities, creating a community of inclusion and multiculturalism for future generations.
In their study, Rose Espinola will collect oral histories about traditions and spirituality among Jews of Color during pregnancy, birth, abortion, pregnancy loss, and post-partum. “As a data scientist, I love oral history,” Espinola said. “I know that data comes in many forms and that qualitative data is really rich.”
In Summer of 2022, Lingxuan Liang began digging into archives to investigate the history of American Jews adopting Asian children. Liang is a graduate student at Brandeis University where she studies American Jewish history. Her intersectional identity as a Jew of Color informs her research as she unearths forgotten histories and new narratives at the intersection of race and religion.
Merging her academic training with her community-building among Latino Jews, Ariela Ronay-Jinich developed a research study that explores how Latino Jewish parents navigate the process of transmitting culture, language, and values to their children.
Beyond the Count helps make clear for our professional and communal ecosystem the enormous value of nurturing Jewish spaces that center and honor JoC. And it was the national response to the report itself that communicated how important Beyond the Count is to American Jews, and the wider, religiously integrated national community.