quarter-caste

English

Pronunciation

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Adjective

quarter-caste (not comparable)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, derogatory) Having one "half-caste" parent; especially, having three Caucasian and one non-Caucasian grandparents
   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VII, in Capricornia‎^[1], page 107:

     So ignorant of her job was she that one quarter-caste kiddie I pointed out she said was a halfcaste, and to prove it called the child out and asked her, as one'd speak to a prisoner in jail, wasn't her mother a lubra.

   • 1962 October, The Crisis, volume 69, number 8, page 472:

     The issue of race discrimination in sport has been before the New Zealand public continuously for nearly four years. […] In 1959, the amateur golf champion, a boy just turned seventeen, described as a ' quarter-caste Maori,' withdrew from the New Zealand team to play in the Commonwealth championships in South Africa.

   • 2000, Anna Haebich, Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families, 1800-2000, North Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, p. 280, [2]

     Sister Kate's Quarter Caste Children's Home, opened in 1933, was the site for implementing the first stages of grooming young, 'nearly-white' children for 'ultimate absorption' into the white community.

Noun

quarter-caste (plural quarter-castes)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, derogatory) A person with one "half-caste" parent and one Caucasian parent
   • 2007, Ken Colbung in Sally Morgan, Tjalaminu Mia and Blaze Kwaymullina (eds), Speaking from the Heart: Stories of Life, Family and Country, North Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, p. 67, [3]

     I guess the sort of thing that happened to my mum has happened constantly to Aboriginal people over the years. That's why the whitefellas talk so much about which of us is full blood, half-caste, quarter-caste, and all that other rubbish. I reckon those kinds of images make people think that we are like that doll Pinocchio's father made out of a lot of different things. Who is going to come out with a long nose? Who is going to come out a dark colour, a light colour? Who is going to have curly, black, brown or blond hair? How are we supposed to answer when someone asks, 'But are you really an Aboriginal?' Of course we bloody are! Or when they say, 'Are you a quarter-caste or a half-caste?' Who cares? Why should I have to talk about which bit of me is black and which is white—it's all red when I cut myself.

See also

• quadroon