Picture Books for Mixed-Race and Multiracial Kids

January 12, 2017 by admin

We often get requests from parents for suggestions of books they can share with their kids that feature mixed-race characters. We’re working on developing an all encompassing resource, but for now we wanted to share some recent picture books that should definitely be part of your child’s library!

New Picture Books for Mixed Race and Multiracial Kids #multiracial

My Name is James Madison Hemings by Jonah Winter

This is the story of the son that Thomas Jefferson had as a result of a relationship with a woman who served as his slave. Publishers Weekly describes the book as a “poignant and personal dimension to the story of Thomas Jefferson’s family with Sally Hemings through the fictionalized first-person perspective of one of their sons . . . . candid narration, [and] emotive acrylic art underscores his perception of his life’s station.” Check it out.

Sound of Silence byKatrina Goldsaito

We were so lucky to have Katrina present at the Festival this year! Her book has since earned rave reviews everywhere. Get a copy of this great children’s book about a young mixed boy in Tokyo.

The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage by Selina Alko

This is a must-read book for mixed-race families. The beautiful film Loving out in theaters now tells the tale perfectly for adults, but don’t let the kids grow up without knowing the history of how the Loving’s fought for interracial marriage to be legal in every state.

Mixed Me by Taye Diggs Illustrations by Shane Evans

We were so thrilled to honor Taye Diggs and Shane Evans at the Mixed Remixed Festival in 2016 for this wonderful book about a mixed-race boy who is learning to embrace and cherish both of his parents’ cultures.

Dahlia’s Little Curls by Rachel Minniefield Ersing

I wish I had a book like this when I was a young curly-haired get so I could learn to embrace my curls before I turned 40! This is a sweet little book that was just released in December. Check it out now.

Top 10 List of Lists About Mixed Race and Multiracial People and Families

January 10, 2017 by admin

We’ve noticed that there are a lot of lists out there that have to do with mixed-race folks and families. We thought we’d do a round-up of our favorites here! So, in no particular order here is the Top 10 List of Lists About Mixed Race and Multiracial People and Families! Did we miss any of your favorites?

Top 10 List of Lists About Mixed Race & #Multiracial People & Families #mixedrace

11 Crazy Things You Hear When You’re a Biracial Woman via Cosmopolitan
14 Things Never to Tell a Biracial Person via The Odyssey
6 Things I Wish People Understood About Biracial People via Vox
17 Things Only Kids Who Grew Up In A Mixed Race Household Would Understand via Buzzfeed
26 Questions Mixed-Race People Are Really Very Tired Of Hearing via Buzzfeed
17 Struggles of Being Mixed Race via Thought Catalog
15 Things Never to Say to Parents of Biracial Kids via Huffington Post
10 Things Not to Say to Mixed Race Native Americans via Cecelia Rose LaPointe
5 Amazing Things About Growing up in a Mixed Race Family via Health and Parenting
Seven Reasons Why I Love My Mixed Race Family via Huffington Post

Join us for the largest gathering of multiracial and mixed-race families and people in June 2017 for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival.

Read Nella Larsen’s Passing: February’s On-Line Mixed Race & Multiracial Book Club Pick

December 9, 2016 by admin

We’re excited to read Nella Larsen’s Passing for our next on-line book club pick! Nella Larsen was a black/Danish writer of the Harlem Renaissance who was writing about issues of the Mixed experience way before her time. I have read the book at least a dozen times as has Jamie Moore. So please don’t miss this discussion that we’re planning for Feb. 5 at 4pm Pacific!

Read Nella Larsen’s Passing with @heididurrow & @mixedreader for our #multiracial on-line book club.

You can get a copy of the book here OR really anywhere (including used bookstores). You can also find it as an e-book. Make sure you join us for the on-going discussion over on Goodreads if you can’t join us on 2/5. And remember you can also email us questions or post them on Goodreads if you’d like to ask a question or make a comment and you’re not able to join us live.

Here is my synopsis of Passing in my NPR commentary on the book:

“Passing is set at the height of the Jazz Age — when Harlem was in vogue. It’s the story of two light-skinned black women whose comfortable lives unravel when they are reacquainted in a whites-only restaurant: Irene, the wife of a prominent African-American doctor and the mother of two boys; and her childhood friend Clare, who is passing as white.

Clare longs to be among black folks again. And at the risk of her racially intolerant husband discovering her real identity, Clare secretly joins Irene and her husband at the best clubs and parties where the Harlem literati and intelligentsia meet. Larsen’s slim book reads like a literary page-turner. Will Clare’s secret be exposed? Will she return to Harlem? Will the women’s friendship survive Clare’s renewed interest in her African-American roots?”

Read Nella Larsen’s Passing for our #mixedrace #multiracial stories on-line book club!

Learn More About the Mixed Remixed Festival On-Line Book Club

We choose books that we think will speak to you and deal with mixed-race and multiracial families and people. Each month we host a call-in podcast so that we can discuss the book together and if we get more interest we will start an on-line Twitter chat. Can’t make those events? Well then you can keep the conversation going in our new Goodreads Book Club all month long. Join the group now.

“What it’s Like to be Multiracial in a Black and White World”

September 19, 2016 by admin

Introducing Helen

Hey, everyone! I’m Helen, one of the newest guest bloggers on the Mixed/Remixed team. I live in gritty New York City, in the borough of the Bronx…one of the last places to be touched by the city’s relentless waves of gentrification. I have a huge and sunny room in the cozy neighborhood of University Heights, with picture windows gently framed by gauzy pale pink curtains and an inky-black dresser covered with crystals, head wraps, and prayer beads. I am a psychology student, spiritual practitioner and author who is working on her third book. And I am ecstatically biracial—African American (Igbo and Yoruba Nigerian, as well as Aztec Mexican), Czech and Italian.

I thought that, for my first guest post, I might break the ice by introducing you to an oldie-but-goodie article floating around on the Huffington Post. On September 21, 2015, the Huffington Post published a blog article called “What It’s Like to Be Multiracial in a Black and White World,” written by a mom named Danielle Campoamor. The article talks intimately about Danielle’s experience growing up as the child of two differently-born parents—her father is Puerto Rican, her mother Norwegian. I, for one, instantly identified with many of Danielle’s experiences, and found it so satisfying to hear her speak frankly about them.

Multiracial in a Black and White World

Danielle talks about what it was like to grow up bicultural as well as biracial, feeling the richness of being able to speak two different kinds of languages and eat two different kinds of food. She also shares what it was like to feel like an outsider in her family because of her coloring, which was different from most of her family’s. Finally—and this is where she really got me—she talks about never being accepted by other Latinos, who felt she was a privileged brat because she looked white and had different cultural experiences—she dressed differently, spoke differently, and listened to different music than the other kids.

Thoughts on the Article

Wow. That’s basically been the story of my life. I actually grew up in New York City, in the Times Square area. I went to neighborhood public schools and then to elite private schools on scholarship, but I never felt like I belonged in either environment. Race was a constant theme throughout those years, as I desperately tried to make my way socially in environments which refused to accept me as I was—the child of differently-born Buddhist hippie types, a fan of grunge music and fashion, abstract poetry and activism, spicy food, and spirituality.

Race was a constant theme throughout those years, as I desperately tried to make my way socially in environments which refused to accept me as I was. #mixedrace #multiracial

I was consistently pressured to conform to a more culturally-acceptable stereotype of what black was, even as the black kids in my environment scorned and rejected me for “not being black enough.”

It didn’t help that I landed on the streets shortly after my graduation from high school, and have struggled to escape them ever since. The streets are not kind to people experiencing racial identity crises, especially when they’re very conspicuously biracial, as I am. I have been consistently bullied during my time in this system, for the way I speak (like a “white girl”), the way I dress (either in corporate casual or hippie garb), and the way I think (I currently identify with both radical and conservative political views). It has been such a struggle for me to stay true to how I feel in the face of a system that says that the very reality of who I am is a mistake, almost a thought crime.

It has been such a struggle for me to stay true to how I feel in the face of a system that says that the very reality of who I am is a mistake, almost a thought crime. #mixedrace #multiracial

My activism basically keeps me alive. I look forward to sharing it with you! 🙂 See you next time.

—Helen O’Neil is a psychology student, spiritual practitioner and freelance writer living in New York City. She is exuberantly biracial (Igbo and Yoruba Nigerian, Aztec Mexican, Czech and Italian) and a devout metaphysician. She sews her own clothing, adheres to a vegan diet, and is devoted to a healing lifestyle. Helen overcame an excruciating childhood of homelessness and abuse and an adulthood spent in the shelter system to earn a college degree, and is now building a freelance writing career. http://bronxwarriorpriestess.wordpress.com Twitter: BxWarrPriestess

Guest Blogger Helen O’Neil

Join us for the largest gathering of multiracial and mixed-race families and people in June 2017 for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival.

Naming the Monsters: Christina Guillen on Teaching Microaggression Zine Workshop

June 19, 2016 by admin

We asked Christina Guillen who led the Microaggression Zine Workshop at the Mixed Remixed Festival about her experience. The workshop was a hands-down hit. We are looking at the possibility of doing this workshop again during the year so that more of our Festival followers can experience this. Plus I want to do the workshop too!-Heidi Durrow, Festival Founder

“Festival attendees filled the room. I introduced my background as Mexican and white and gave a definition of microaggression. I explained my story of first encountering the term. I shared my anger and the diffusion of pain upon hearing the word. I proposed to our group we give our microaggressions a shape, smell, or feeling. I demonstrated releasing a rough styrofoam ball on the table. The ball bounced and rolled away. I explained once we can see our microaggression outside of ourselves we can disidentify and observe it. This gives our power back.

I asked them to offer their own microaggressions. They spoke up shyly at first, but eventually there were enough responses to see an array of reactions. Some spoke with humor others let their anger and frustration be heard. It got pretty intense but I was prepared. I let them know it was a safe place, we’re in the same boat. We have a right to feel however we feel. I think the validating was really needed. Even though I’d said I was not the microaggression expert but more of a conversation facilitator, people still looked to me for validation of their feelings, to ask whether their experience was a valid microaggression. Some got tangled up with terms so we talked about what underlies the term microaggression. Our honest feelings underneath it all are telling us something doesn’t feel right. We want to name it because we want to disidentify from it. We went back to the beginning—give the feeling a shape and disidentify.

I passed around a bucket of shapes (screws, sandpaper, scissors, a zipper, a crab’s pinchers, a snarling chihuahua, etc). Each person kept one to represent their feeling as they filled out a worksheet about microaggressions. Later, I showed how to fold a single sheet into a small book. Afterward, the group transferred their ideas from the worksheet onto the zine book. They created with markers, stencils, and drawings. The result was a zine that physically showed their experience outside of themselves. Titles ranged from “You don’t like beans?” to “Don’t touch my hair!” to “Zen in the face of microaggression.”

The actual creative process allowed us to keep the conversation going while our hands were occupied. We talked about that many minorities transcend their experiences by doing creative projects. Myself and another woman wrote a novel, another sings, and all of us made a zine. We talked about seeing the positive angle of microaggressions, we found ways it was making all of us better more loving people.

At the end I suggested leaving their zine in their car as a communication tool. Several said they’d like to do so. I was overjoyed with the smiles, hugs, gratitude, and relief I felt in the room. It was an amazing feeling to validate and empower so many people! I think I’m still glowing.”-Christina Guillen

Christina Guillén is a diversity speaker, teacher, writer and the creator of Half Moon Jefa, the Mixed People’s Superhero. Her historical fiction novel and M.F.A. in Creative Writing focus on identity, feminism, and indigineity vs. colonialism. Christina will lead an exciting hands-on zine workshop to flirt with our perspectives on the topic of microaggressions. Find out what trucos she’s up to at halfmoonjefa.tumblr.com.

Coupleships: The Dynamics of Interracial Relationships

June 19, 2016 by Joy Stoffers

Coupleships: The Dynamics of Interracial Relationships

Where: Yuki Family Board Room at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, CA
When: Saturday, June 11, 1:30pm–2:20pm
What: panel to discuss the intricacies of interracial relationships
Who: moderator Lance Tango and panelist leader Christelyn Karazin

This panel at the 2016 Mixed Remixed Festival explored the dynamics of mixed coupleships and also touched on topics related to being a parent in a mixed-family.

Many of us partaking in the Mixed Remixed Festival were the children (literally and/or figuratively) of an interracial relationship. Those of us who are of dating age have either thought about or been involved in these pairings ourselves.

What does it mean to be in a “mixed” relationship? To hold different racial and cultural experiences than your partner? In this context, how do we view ourselves and each other, and how do other view us? Who judges whom, and why?

These are only the surface questions. Like most complex topics, mixed-race relations are layered. Therapist Lance Tango moderated a panel discussion on these dynamics. Heading the panel was Christelyn Karazin, author of Swirling: How to Date, Mate, and Relate Mixing Race, Culture, and Creed.

The Expectations of an Interracial Couple

We enter into any relationship, romantic or not, with expectations. Due to circumstance, previous experiences, or community-derived mentalities, we expect—we meet others with sandbags already tied to our ankles.

Of course, when discussing interracial relationships (I dislike this phrase; from here on out I’ll use “multicultural relationship”), we usually face conflicts of many kinds. There’s internal conflict. Or there’s familial conflict. Cultural conflict. Societal conflict. Each of these can stand alone, or they can mix for an uncomfortable cocktail.

But let’s gloss over the easily imagined racist/bigoted/ignorant parent(s), etc. Family dynamics are often complicated in and of themselves. Judgments are flung like snowballs, and depending on your relationship with said relative, you brush off the flakes and ice, you crumple, or you throw your own. Yes, some families will still disown relatives for marrying “outside” the cultural tribe. Arguably, though, the problems we create ourselves are more interesting—they tend to blindside us.

Christelyn summed this phenomenon up succinctly: “there’s often this internal conflict.” The internal struggle emerges from anxiety. And the anxiety? From a face-off between love and cultural expectations. For instance, upon reviewing Christelyn’s wedding album, her cousin noted that she’d worried about whether or not Christelyn was with her [white] husband for the “right” reasons.

And here we are. Reminded again of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case in which miscegenation was declared unlawful. (For those of you who’ve had the privilege of not knowing this word, the illness-inducing definition of “miscegenation” is “the interbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types.” Sorry if I made you lose your breakfast/lunch/dinner. Which word kills you most? For me, it’s “interbreeding.”)

But we’ve come so far, you say. Sure, but the road is long, and the bend continues ahead. A law case and nearly fifty years can’t undo centuries of internal and external strife. Misconceptions are passed down, generation to generation. Suspicions, stereotypes, prejudices. It’s hard to hold a civil dialogue about race when the other party is plugging its ears, shutting its eyes, and screaming its stance like a car alarm.

Also, as panelist Terry noted, “we impose some of those expectations ourselves. We need to separate the needs of our communities from our own.”

We need to separate the needs of our communities from our own. #mixedrace #multiracial

Racial and Gendered Norms In Interracial Relationships

Out of this layered, Leaning Tower of Pisa–style cake, let’s select two layers. Race and gender. (I’d also add sexuality, but then I’d triple the size of this article. Stay, readers, stay.) For Eric Robinson, a relationship is like a home. You return home seeking “sanctuary.” Your partner is supposed to provide you with refuge, and you’re supposed to provide the same. An equal exchange. An exchange between equals.

Fairy-tale romance aside, relationships—multicultural or not—require dialogue. Listening. Compromise. They can be rewarding, but they take work. Now let’s add outer pressures to the mix. That disagreement about the socks on the floor? Add the subtext derived from “because I married you, my mother thinks I’m a sellout.” The argument’s no longer about cleanliness and chores, is it?

There’s pressure to explain. Why’d you choose a black/white/Asian/Latin or Native American partner? Why’d you chose an outsider? Are we not good enough? Why are you complicating things? Don’t you realize that this person could be fetishizing/exploiting you?

For Christelyn, she felt pressure to “date black.” She felt that her community wanted her to ask for permission to “rewrite the Cinderella story.” Black men, she noted, weren’t questioned for dating who they desired and connected with. But black women were supposed to uphold “standards.”

What We Learn From Being Part of an Interracial Relationship

When we’re raised in a certain community, we’re inculcated with racial, cultural, sexual, and gendered norms. Parent to child. Community leader to community member. Media to consumer. We’re inundated. Sometimes a little self-awareness is all that’s needed to break the ties we don’t want to be bound by. Other times, the situation’s harder to escape from.

let’s all agree to ponder the prefix “inter” in the word “interaction.” #mixedrace #multiracial

Toward the end of the panel discussion, Erica gave audience members some thought gems. “Real-life experiences of oppression lead to solidarity.” This solidarity complicates already-complex generational familial differences and multicultural relationships. However, the uplifting end note: “I don’t think the differences are insurmountable.”

The salve can be found in open-minded communication. So let’s all agree to ponder the prefix “inter” in the word “interaction.”-Joy Stoffers, Festival Blogger-in-Chief

This is one story in a series about the programs held at the Mixed Remixed Festival 2016. Please read through them all by searching our blog with “2016 Festival Re-Cap.”

Our Mixed Voices: Sharing Our Stories

June 18, 2016 by Michael Maliner

Our Mixed Voices: Sharing Our Stories, the first workshop on the first morning of my first time at the Mixed Remixed Festival. Will I be the only Asian mix present? Do I look mixed enough? Will I fit on, or will this be just another event in which I find myself sitting on the periphery armed with polite nods and laughter conjured on cue?

There were 35 orange chairs arranged on the floor of the Japanese American National Museum’s Democracy Lab. I was among the first to arrive, but one by one people steadily stream in on my heels.

“I’m blogging for the festival,” I explained to Roxanne Kymaani, an expert in group dynamics and cultural construction, and one of the two workshop facilitators. (What I meant, of course, was “I’m going to watch (from a safe distance) but I’m not going to participate (or make myself vulnerable.)) Fortunately for me, she was having none of that. “Why don’t you participate?” was her response.

Dutifully, I took a seat, by which time most seats were already taken and the audience was still growing. Ultimately, the crowd swelled to over 50 many of whom had to sit on the floor despite the extra chairs were were able to find.

“What struck me were those faces – no two alike and every single one beautiful.” #mixedrace

What struck me were those faces – no two alike and every single one beautiful. Never in my life had I witnessed such diversity. Never in my experience had I been in a room filled entirely of mixed race folk. Never before had I occasion to use the word “us.”

As we begin introducing ourselves I began to realize just how mixed mixed can be. White, Black, Japanese, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Vietnamese, Pennsylvania Dutch, all mixed together in so many different combinations, resulting the stunning people in this room! Had I found a safe place, a place where I belong, a home?

Angelo Lewis, author, life coach and creator of the Dialogue Circle Method, shared facilitator duties with Ms. Kymaani. After introducing ourselves, he got us started with the following prompt: Describe a time when you experienced you mixed identity in a strong or powerful way. Mr. Lewis shared his experience first and it was a story about his struggle to claim his Japanese heritage.

Here was a man, who reads as black, describing how important it was for him to embrace his Japanese heritage. For the first time I saw being mixed, not as a burden, but rather as a rich experience resplendent in its complexities. And just as Mr. Lewis grew to embrace his mixed heritage fully, so too would I.

Never before had I occasion to use the word “us.” #multiracial

As we continued to share I heard stories of feeling pressured to choose a side, never fitting in, turmoil over self-image, of feeling called upon to prove one’s ethnicity. The group assembled were no longer strangers to me; they were kindred souls who have lived the experience I’ve lived but never had a name for, the mixed race experience.

Describe a time when you experienced a conflict between our public identity and a hidden identity.

His next prompt: Describe a time when you experienced a conflict between our public identity and a hidden identity.

I’ve ways been conflicted in sharing my Filipino heritage because I look more Spanish than Malay or Chinese. People don’t see me as Asian and as a result I almost feel as if I’m lying when I admit that I’m part Asian.

So many people in the room shared the same experience, which, up until then, had been a private struggle for me because I believed that it was mine and mine alone. I looked around the room at all of those striking mixed faces, and I realized I had found my people, that my experiences were, in fact, our experiences.

The workshop ended with a free-association exercise about what we had experienced during the workshop. Just as we did in the workshop, I end here with the words and phrases we shared: validation, synthesis, holding that space, connectedness, finally belonging, we are all different but we all have the same problems, I am home and i am here to aid in the healing, relieved, complexity, our stories matter and they deserve to be told.

–Michael Maliner, Festival Blogger, michaelmaliner.com

This is one story in a series about the programs held at the Mixed Remixed Festival 2016. Please read through them all by searching our blog with “2016 Festival Re-Cap.”

My Journey to Mixed Remixed Part 2: Religious Anatomy & Mixed Race Experience

April 24, 2016 by admin

My appearance is a rather off-putting enigma to those who like boxes with labels. I did not quite inherit the straight black hair or Malay features of my Filipino mother, nor did I inherit the slight figure or angular facial bones of my Eastern European Jewish father.

I’ve been mistaken for Italian, Middle Eastern, Eastern Indian, and every Spanish-speaking ethnicity on the planet. I am frequently addressed in Spanish on the streets of Manhattan, my English retorts met with surprise, if not suspicion. Once in my life – only once – was I asked if I was Filipino. Never has anyone asked me if I was white. But what I have been asked more times by more people than I can possibly remember is: “What are you?”

“Fit into a box with a label, or be wary.” #mixedrace #multiracial

Neither fish nor fowl, mixed race folk are a threat to tidy mental categories. Fit into a box with a label, or be wary.

My father wanted us to be a white family and saw Judaism as the surest way of getting us there. My Asian mother was a genetic aesthetic barrier to this fantasy, at least until she converted to Judaism, which was a fantasy unto itself.

By Jewish lore, to be recognized as a Jew one must be born to a Jewish mother. My mother didn’t convert until my sister and I were three and six respectively. In fact we were present at the ceremony, which was held in the dark Brooklyn apartment of my grandparents’ rabbi.

“I struggled with this state of ethno-religious limbo . . .” #mixedrace #multiracial

I’ll never know if that rabbi honestly believed that his ex-post-facto conversion of my mother made instant Jews of my sister and me, but by my reckoning the proverbial Jewish ship had already sailed. I struggled with this state of ethno-religious limbo until a dear friend of mine recently took pity and delivered me in a single sentence: “You didn’t come out of a Jewish vagina.”

Religious anatomy be damned, for after the night of the conversion, “Jewish!” is what my father answered whenever I asked “What am I?” And I did ask – often.

In retrospect, that is when I began my journey to Mixed Remixed.

-Michael Maliner, guest blogger

Michael Maliner is a writer and photographer who will be attending the Mixed Remixed Festival for the first time in June 2016. His blog, Tides ‘n’ Tudes, can be found here: www.tidesntudes.com. He will be blogging about our events throughout the the festival. If you want to attend, register here. It’s free!

Storytelling: Art & Activism Unite (Workshop) Mixed Race People Telling Stories & Creating Community

April 9, 2016 by admin

Storytelling: Art & Activism Unite as Mixed Race People Tell Stories & Create Community

June 11, 2016 11:00am-12:20pm

As mixed race people, we have many stories to tell. Interactive workshop 6/11 #mixedrace #multiracial

Storytelling is a powerful, historical, cultural practice that has the ability to create social change. As mixed race people, we have many stories to tell as we build within and between our various communities. This workshop is designed to engage us in sharing our stories in order to build accountability, interrupt oppression, address anti-blackness, create spaces for healing and lift up strategies to strengthen communities. We are excited to engage with storytellers, writers and artists who are committed to social justice and racial equity.

REGISTER HERE!

Amity Paye works in communications at a labor union and has written for various outlets including The Nation, NBC, The Root, The Amsterdam News and more. She is also the Communications Co-Chair of the NYC Chapter of the Black Youth Project 100 and does supportive communications work for various Black Lives Matter groups.Rachael Ibrahim, MSW; a passionate community organizer, trainer, and artist. Her work is rooted in a structural racial equity framework, the impact of intersecting oppressions, and her experience as a black mixed-race woman from the Midwest. She centers accountable relationships in movement building to create transformation.

Rachael Ibrahim, MSW; a passionate community organizer, trainer, and artist. Her work is rooted in a structural racial equity framework, the impact of intersecting oppressions, and her experience as a black mixed-race woman from the Midwest. She centers accountable relationships in movement building to create transformation.

Multiracial Artists Make it Happen with New Hip Hop Event Series

April 4, 2016 by admin

#CultureFix and Mixed-Race Mixtape present The Best Thing Since…hip hop event series at Angel City Brewery.

Los Angeles, CA – April 10, 2016 at 7PM

Created by and for up-and-coming Hip-Hop artists, enthusiasts, and new timers from all five elements, The Best Thing Since…Series is fostering community at the open mic, inspiring conversation by thought-provoking artists, and working up a sweat on the dance floor. Using hip hop, we’ll explore the complexities of navigating multiple identities. Beyond the socially-constructed confines of race, what constructs identity? How do we code-switch across the multiple worlds we exist in? Through the five elements of hip hop, we’ll have a multi-dimensional interactive conversation that will foster self-reflection, expression, and community. More than a show, The Best Thing Since…Series aims to reinforce the fifth element of Hip-Hop: knowledge. How do we do this? By utilizing the other four: Graffiti art, Breaking, Emceeing and DJing.

Angel City Brewery in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles is hosting the first installment, entitled, The Best Thing Since

White Bread and Guacamole: Navigating Multiple Identities, on Sunday, April 10, 2016 at 7PM. The night kicks off with an open mic followed by featured performers Omar Offendum, Medusa, Maya Jupiter, and Dyalekt and ending with a killer dance party by DJ Ervin Arana. Suggested donation of $14, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Can’t make it to the event but want to support what we’re about? Purchase “There In Spirit” tickets at

tbts.brownpapertickets.com

The Best Thing Since…Series is collaborative partnership between #CultureFix, Mixed-Race Mixtape and Dyalekt.

Don’t miss this awesome event 4/10 @tweetmrmt in the house! #multiracial #mixedrace

TypeError thrown

stristr(): Argument #1 ($haystack) must be of type string, array given