Growing up Biracial Archives - Page 4 of 7

The Ups and Downs of “Picking A Side”

March 8, 2016 by terri

The Ups and Downs of “Picking a Side”

With being biracial or multiracial comes the sometimes uncomfortable pressure to “pick a side.” Growing up, I found this concept really odd. As actress Michelle Hurd once put it, “I am created of my mother and my father and so it feels odd for me to choose.”

I do get the impression that most people could care less about hearing your story and what it “means” to be who you are and I get it. We all have our own stories to deal with and to work through and I can’t expect everyone to be interested enough to learn more about that side of me.

Therefore, instead of truly listening to each other and learning from each other, without any type of judgement, we quicker dismiss the grey areas of someone’s identity and paint them as we simply see them. Fair enough.

The only time this truly stings is when it seems laughable to people when you explain a certain situation from your “mixed” perspective, i.e. a perspective between the two and/or more.

Sure, I look more like Group A and can therefore never really identify with Group B as well as I can with the other, it doesn’t mean that my experiences and understanding of both groups is any less valuable or should be an excuse for mockery.

However, I would definitely like to highlight that there are some pros and cons to “picking” just one side of your very complex racial and socio-cultural identity.

I will state very honestly that as a person of mixed black and white heritage, I feel most empowered and at peace when I almost only embrace my black or “African” heritage. When I watch interviews and read up on the history and everything that has happened within Africa as well as within the African diaspora, I can’t help but feel a warm sense of self and a fiery passion that inspires me to want to stand up against ignorance and prejudice. It’s easy to then, point a finger and view things as a “we vs. them” scenario, however, through examining your own identity and in this instance for me personally, it is always a wake up call that I need to check myself and truly define the person I want to be in this world. The ignorance and prejudice can often come from within and that’s where the first leg of the battle begins.

Now as it relates to the downside of just “embracing on side”, on occasion I find myself not being able to identify with every single aspect of the “true black” experience and I have had experience with people questioning “how black I was,” which often made me question everything I thought I was now able to be and believe in. There are certain conversations that you will not be able to fully engage in on either side, but admittedly it’s fulfilling to be able to take part where you know your voice will have some weight.

By just picking one side, you often turn off the light to a certain aspect of your identity and by doing so, admit that there’s something wrong with just being who you truly are. I always say, “what you are, doesn’t have to define who you are” and that’s definitely true – do not let societal expectations, stereotypes or even your own circumstances define the type of person you are.

It’s interesting that we live in a world where your race, that is the colour of your skin and your ethnic origin play such an integral role in the way we are treated and perceived. “You gotta take the good with the bad.” At the end of the day, the journey to self-discovery is never ending – mixed or not and I think that is part of the beauty of being alive and exploring this diverse planet of ours.

So go out, explore and learn from each experience! #MixedRemixed

Written by Theresia “Terri” Rogers

TV & Film Star Taye Diggs and Collaborator to Receive Storyteller’s Prize at Annual Festival Celebrating Mixed-Race Stories

March 2, 2016 by admin

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MIXED REMIXED FESTIVAL

STORYTELLER’S PRIZE PRESENTATION HONORS:

TV & FILM STAR

TAYE DIGGS

AND AWARD-WINNING ILLUSTRATOR SHANE W. EVANS FOR

GROUND-BREAKING CHILDREN’S BOOK, MIXED ME

(Los Angeles, CA) Mixed Remixed Festival will present the annual Storyteller’s Prizes to television and film star Taye Diggs and award-winning illustrator Shane W. Evans on June 11, 2016 at 6:30pm at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles, 100 N. Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012.

The Festival, which takes place June 10-11, celebrates stories of the Mixed racial and cultural experience and stories of multiracial Americans, the fastest growing demographic in America. A free public event, the Festival brings together film and book lovers, innovative and emerging artists, and multiracial families and individuals for workshops, readings, and film screenings.

“We are ecstatic to honor Taye Diggs and Shane W. Evans for their work creating Mixed Me!, a ground-breaking children’s book that features a mixed-race character,” says Durrow who calls herself an Afro-Viking because she is African-American and Danish.

“Growing up I didn’t have any images of families that looked like mine or any affirmation that I could claim the whole of my complicated heritage. Diggs’ and Evans’ book Mixed Me changes that for this increasingly multiracial generation.”

The wonderful @TayeDiggs will accept a Storyteller’s Prize @mixedremixed 6/11! #multiracial #mixedrace

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The Storyteller’s Prizes are awarded each year to artists, scholars, and community leaders who have shown a dedication to celebrating and illuminating the Mixed experience. Past honorees include Comedy Central’s hit comedic duo Key & Peele, The Daily Show’s Al Madrigal, New York Times bestselling writer Jamie Ford and Cheerios.

The Festival is produced by New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow (The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, Algonquin Books) and a wonderful group of volunteers.

The event is free and open to the public. Honorees have confirmed their attendance for the prize presentation, which will be presented as part of the Festival’s dynamic live performance, featuring some of the best comedians, musicians, and spoken word poets. Registration will open April 22, 2016. For more information and the complete festival schedule, visit www.mixedremixed.org.

Festival sponsors include: Japanese American National Museum, Zapier, Zevia, Total Wine, Algonquin Books, My Family Builder.

The 2016 Storyteller’s Prize recipients are:

Taye Diggs is an actor whose awards include the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. His performance credits include motion pictures (The Best Man Holiday, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Chicago), stage (Rent, Wicked), and television (The Good Wife, Murder in the First, Private Practice). He lives in Los Angeles and New York with his son, Walker.

Shane W. Evans in the illustrator of numerous aware-winning books for children, including Underground, winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, We March, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012, and Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. He is also the illustrator of The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teens finalist. He lives with his wife and daughter in Kansas City, Missouri.

Taye Diggs and Shane W. Evans’s first book together, Chocolate Me!, was praised as “Sure to strike a chord with many young readers/listeners, and a variety of subjects, not just race,” by School Library Journal, and as “embracing a difficult topic with wide arms” by Essence magazine.

An Enlightened Pizza Guy and My Multiracial Crew

March 2, 2016 by Amy Hayibor

As a part of a mixed race family, I have observed that often times when we speak out about our “mixed race experiences,” we relay the negative stories. Sometimes we do so to offer support to one another or to share how we handled certain situations. Perhaps we are trying to educate, or maybe we just want to vent. I am certainly guilty of telling and retelling stories about the intrusive and ignorant comments that I have received. If you would like to read one of my many mixed family rants, please check out “So are they yours or….?”

However, today I would like to share the positive. It was a minor and insignificant experience. The young man working the cash register at the Little Caesars Pizza location in South County St. Louis had no idea how his words impacted me. Nevertheless, I walked away with a sausage pizza, spicy barbecue wings, and warm fuzzies inside of me.

As mixed race families, let’s share our good experiences, not just the bad. #mixedrace #biracial

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I will begin by explaining that many, many random people walk up to me and say, “Your girls are so cute.” Sometimes I wonder if these people really find my kids to be that stunning or perhaps they simply want a pat on the back because they think that they are so hip and socially aware to recognize that my brown-skinned children are actually my children. Of course, I prefer the “Your girls are so cute” comments over the “Are they adopted?” experiences; nevertheless, the encounters still frequently seem awkward…or forced…or just somehow weird.

But a few weeks ago at Little Caesars Pizza, it was different. I was with my four-year-old daughter, who is biracial but probably “looks black” to the untrained eye, and my eleven-year-old Chinese-American neighbor girl. We were picking up pizza while my older daughter and her best friend (the younger sister of the eleven-year-old neighbor girl) were having tennis lessons together. While waiting for the pizza, the cashier nonchalantly asked me, “Would your daughters like some cookies while you wait?”

I must repeat. He said:

“Would your daughters like some cookies?”

I apologize for being melodramatic, but I literally could have cried.

One time I went grocery shopping with both of my girls, ages 4 and 7, and our Chinese-American neighbor girls, ages 8 and 11. A random dude in the aisle looked at my crew and said, “Wow! How many kids do ya got?!” Do you think this guy would have said anything if I had brought four white children with me to the grocery store? I highly doubt it. Four kids is not an exorbitant amount of off-spring. They easily could have all been mine. The factor that was so mind-boggling to this man was the white woman with the two black children and the two Asian children.

But the Little Caesars employee saw past that. He didn’t view our trio as a white/black/asian anomaly that he needed to grapple with and resolve. He saw a mom and her daughters. Even though they were not actually both my daughters, I was so happy that he could imagine them being my daughters. “Happy” does not even appropriately describe my emotion. I was elated, overjoyed…….hopeful.

Thank you, Little Caesars guy, for giving me this experience. I needed it. I can look back on it, and I can be reminded that the world is slowly changing. Five days ago I remembered you at the Rollercade because a classmate roller-skated up to my daughter in the middle of the rink and said, “Is that your real mom?” As I hugged and reassured my crying daughter that this classmate was not intentionally being mean, I thought of you. I will hold onto my Little Caesars story and proudly tell it and retell it. I hope every mixed race family has a Little Caesars story.

by Amy Hayibor, Festival Blogger, Mother in the Mix

Follow Amy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/motherinthemix

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Connecting across Difference: The Limits of Intellect

March 1, 2016 by Joy Stoffers

How do we learn? Through observation. Education. Experience.

What do we privilege? Reason or perception; objectivism or subjectivism?

Arguably, since the Age of Enlightenment, we’ve privileged science over stories. Can you prove it by data? By hard, steely facts? If not, you’re biased. Your words hold no weight.

Here’s what I believe to be true. Race isn’t “real.” Yes, we’re a sundry people. But we’re one human race. We think in categories, and we socialize one another. So while race isn’t real in the same way a rock seems to be, we feel its effects. Race has real implications. We experience tangible consequences.

We use race and other abstract notions to codify and to assign meaning. To create an ontology. To be able to “know” what’s “good” or “bad”; what’s “better” or “worse.” We fall back on these rules like dew onto earth. So when we can’t understand through logic, we think we understand through social “truths.”

In our desire to coalesce, we divide ourselves.

In our desire to coalesce, we divide ourselves. #mixedrace #multiracial

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Connecting. We desire connection and will achieve it through different means. We connect through shared interests…and sometimes this means sharing experiences over and against other people and groups. We’re quick to talk and slow to listen. We want to hear similar versions of our own experiences. This sharing is familiar. Comfortable. Binary.

Confusion and complexity and questions and ignorance—what a terrifying combination. We’d rather avoid new connections in the interest of maintaining old ones.

But what about challenge? The opportunity to change?

I’m mixed one way, and you’re mixed in another. I can’t hold your experiences under my skin—not like you can. And you can’t hold my experiences under your skin. It’s not fair to ask one another to feel how the other’s blood sings.

It’s beneficial to just listen. To understand, to the best of one’s ability. Some truths can’t be understood unless directly experienced. That’s real. Limitations. Also real.

Reason and logic can’t replace empiricism. Let’s dig to connect. Here’s to connecting through difference, and understanding in the ways we can. Here’s to making room for stories. They’re as legitimate as the people telling them. —Joy Stoffers, Festival Blogger

Stories: they’re as legitimate as the people telling them. #mixedrace #multiracial

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Crossing 79th Street: An Early Biracial Memory

February 19, 2016 by Lisa Rosenberg

As a kid, I always got a big charge from being out and about with my parents. Sometimes people stared at us; sometimes they didn’t. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, when I was growing up in New York City, an interracial family wasn’t earth-shattering but it was still notable. I knew there were widely held stereotypes that families like ours fell apart. That interracial marriages bred confused, unhappy children.

People were curious. About me, the odd progeny, the spawn of two races. Was I confused? They wondered about my parents too. Did they really get along? Did they have anything in common?

I also knew that some people had opinions about my parents being together in the first place—a white woman and a black man—but we were a unit without a doubt.

There was strength in being us three. We laughed together, talked constantly, were the picture of a happy family.

With every step we took, each joke we shared, we shattered stereotypes. #mixedrace #multiracial #biracial

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That was what made me most proud, the reason the stares didn’t bother me. And there was something else that cheered me. When I was with both my parents, no one questioned that I belonged to them. As the common denominator of their wide-ranging physical traits, I made us look like we belonged together.

When I was alone with my mother, unless we were holding hands, it was a different story. I remember being very, very small, twirling around, close to my mother’s side, but not physically connected to her.

Someone demanded in a loud, irritated voice, “Whose child is that?”

I stopped twirling as my mother—indignant, nearly combative—stated, “She’s mine.”

I hadn’t understood before this: our lack of resemblance made people think I wasn’t hers. #mixedrace

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That concept really hit home on a particular day when I was in kindergarten and my mother picked me up from school along with a playmate. My friend’s name was Lynn and her coloring was the same as my mother’s. Here is that memory.

My mother had her purse and some Zabar’s bags draped over one elbow, leaving only one hand free for my friend Lynn and me to share. We were crossing busy 79^th Street, heading down Broadway to where Mom had parked the car. Between quick-stepping shoppers, Sabrett men pushing carts, and taxicabs swinging around the corner, not holding hands wasn’t an option.

Barely hip-level to passers-by, I remember nevertheless catching the eye of a woman a generation older than my mother. She smiled warmly, first at Lynn and then at my mother. Only I noticed the smile; they took it for granted. And, though I was just five, I guessed what the woman was thinking. She saw their matching, straight brown hair and narrow, angled noses. Lynn, to the eyes of the world, was my mother’s child. I, the brown girl with wild curls (my mother had no idea how to tame them), was just the friend, the outsider. In any case, I got no smile.

I let my gaze drop to the pavement: grey, rubbery, dank and moist. The rain had stopped an hour earlier, but the heaviness remained in the air. The sour smell of a wet, city spring rose to fill my nostrils. The soles of my navy blue Mary-Janes made a pleasing slap-slap-slapping sound on the sidewalk, spattering oily drops as I tread. Lynne’s Mary-Janes were pink.

Lisa W. Rosenberg – Festival Blogger

Racial Catch-22: Between Color and Blindness

February 17, 2016 by Amy Hayibor

At the end of January, my daughter M came home with her first real school project. My second grader needed to do a report on a famous American. My husband and I felt both excitement (“Woohoo! First school report ever! She is growing up!”) and nostalgia (“What? How did she get so old? She has to do a real report?”). We enthusiastically huddled around the computer to search for the lucky person who would receive the honor of being the subject of her big project. However, M could not find anyone who was just right.

The next morning, M thought of Mildred Loving. I was ecstatic. How perfect. I asked my daughter if she wanted to put herself on display like that because it would be obvious why she had selected this person. However, M was certain. She was the product of an interracial marriage and proud of it!

Later that night, while updating my husband on the day’s events (he works late shifts sometimes), I excitedly told him that M had selected Mildred Loving for her famous American. My husband’s response was, “What?! Why did you have M pick her? Is that the type of family that we are now? The family where everything is racial?”

Is that the type of family that we are? The family where everything is racial? #mixedrace

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I was taken aback a bit by his disapproval, but I was not completely surprised. My husband is not a big fan of discussing racial issues or attributing occurrences to race. A person wearing a confederate T-shirt carrying a sign with the N word would have to march up to his face before he would claim racism. With regard to the school project, I assured my husband that Mildred Loving was our daughter’s idea. M wanted to research Mildred Loving, and she was aware that her project would place the spotlight on the racial makeup of our family. My husband shrugged his shoulders and said, “I guuuueeeesssssss.”

This incident underscores the razor thin boundary that I am constantly laboring to delicately walk along. If I don’t talk about race, its history in America, progress in race relations, racial identity, areas of racial tension, and racism, then I’m the white mom who has denied her children of their heritage and has not prepared them to face a race-conscious world. However, if I choose to embark upon the conversation of race (and all that such a conversation entails) with my children, then I run the risk of creating division where none exists, accentuating the “differentness” of my daughters from the majority of their classmates, and “making everything racial” as my husband would say.

As a white mom in a family of color I am always navigating a razor thin boundary. #mixedrace

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No matter what I elect to say or how I decide to act, I will garner both criticism and praise. I understand this reality, but I must admit that I do not enjoy the pressure. As a white mother in a family of color, I sense that I am under the microscope. Each move that I make is open to other people’s opinions. Perhaps I am being paranoid, but I feel like people are sometimes thinking:

“Hmmm, how is she going to conduct herself in this setting when she’s the only one white person?”

“Hmmm, what is she going to do to make her family feel comfortable in this setting, where they are the only people of color?”

“Is she going to know what to do with their hair?”

“Oh, she does know how to do their hair. How does she know?”

“Will she be ‘weird’ about racial stuff?”

The list could go on.

All I know is that I want to make the choice that is “right” and to say what is “best.” But how do I figure out what “right” is? How do I properly navigate this sensitive subject of race? My family represents the beauty that can result when we stop fixating on race and instead place our attention on more important matters. Nevertheless, that does not mean that I can ignore race. I must strive to discover the proper balance. Unfortunately, this balance often eludes me.

Everyone in my family has operating eyeballs. We are not color blind. Yet here is the puzzle that I would like to solve:

How can this white mom help her family of color to see color, and yet color is only an inconsequential quality that we see?

Only God has the answers for me. I know that’s right.

by Amy Hayibor, Festival Blogger, Mother in the Mix

Follow Amy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/motherinthemix

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Mixed Feelings about Mixed-Race Images

February 16, 2016 by Joy Stoffers

We realize that people look at us with the same scrutiny we use to look at them. #mixedrace #multiracial @joyhuangstoff

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To the right is a picture of my family, taken in the early ’90s. During the heyday of America Online—the dial-up version. The ’90s, long before We Are the 15 Percent, Mixed Families on Tumblr, Stunning Portraits of Mixed-Race Families, and Mixed Race Babies on Facebook. Before you could Google anything, let alone “mixed-race family/baby/women pictures.”

Children tend to love posing for photos. Childhood is often the period of time you experience before gaining self-awareness. “I feel self-conscious” usually isn’t part of a child’s thought process. But then we grow up. We realize that people look at us with the same scrutiny we use to look at them.

We become entirely self-conscious.

This self-consciousness develops in different forms for different people. Some hide from the camera while others run toward it. Still others are ambivalent or apathetic. The majority, however, seem to either hate or love photographic documentation.

Then came the advent of the internet (as we know it today) and social media. Then came selfie nation. We became inundated with images. With advertising. With self-advertising.

The virtual world exploded with images of mixed and biracial people—with and without the context of family. People took pictures of themselves, of others, and posted them as models (or not) of multiracial success (i.e., beauty).

Of course, changes in racial demographics are likely tied to this photographic phenomenon. (I won’t make any data-based claims, but I imagine tracing U.S. Census data and the virtual release of multiracial images would make for an interesting doctoral dissertation.)

Many a Facebook page/group, website, or Tumblr was created to share photos of multiracial people. Whole forums (I refuse to link to these) popped up devoted to celebrating or disparaging the people represented by these images. For public consumption and exchange, there exist mixed-race images of celebrities; babies; families; men; and women and girls—the last of which are often conflated.

Yes, celebrating representations of ourselves is self-esteem boosting and generally positive. (You know what’s coming next, don’t you?)

But.

There is a fine line between celebration and fetishization. Between celebrating and essentializing. The problem with defining people by images lies in the definition of image.

À la OED, an image, noun, is “An artificial imitation or representation of something, esp. of a person.” Note the key words “artificial imitation” (I know, rather redundant, but this isn’t a grammar post) and “representation.” Moreover, an image is a particular interpretation of a person, grounded in time, space, and camera angle.

Take, for instance, the Facebook community Mixed race girls. If you scroll through the pictures, as fellow blogger Terri pointed out, the women (because they appear to be adults, not children or adolescents) seem to look the same. The images are arguably sexualized. It gets better (read: worse). Here’s what the community’s “About” section states: “Mixed race girls can be known as, Mulatto, Biracial, Mixed race, they look like light-skinned black girls, but enjoy the page, pictures and videos.”

It’s not my place to judge the images, the women they represent, or the community founders. But I will make an argument.

The problem with images is that we tend to forget that they stand for more. They are placeholders for people. For flesh and blood and feelings and tears and stories. We cannot be reduced to images, no matter how great the camera taking them or the resolution of them, no matter the DPI.

An image is a snapshot of us. A glimpse into the window that is our outward appearance. Let’s try to remember this. We can and should celebrate our likenesses. But we should remember that an image is simply one time-bound component of our ever-shifting, full selves. —Joy Stoffers, Festival Blogger

An image is simply one time-bound component of our ever-shifting, full selves. #mixedrace #multiracial @joyhuangstoff

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Thinking Outside the “Other” Box: An Inclusive Mixed Identity

February 6, 2016 by Lisa Rosenberg

When I think about my own multiracial identity, when I talk with other biracial writers and friends about the state of being mixed, I usually think of the cultures we inherited from our parents—what was represented in our homes and along the roots of our family trees.

But a question posed to The Ethicist in last week’s New York Times Magazine made me consider blended racial identity on a broader scale.

“Can I call my Nonbiological Twins black because my Husband is?”

The author of the question was a white woman, married to a black man. When she and her husband had been unable to conceive naturally, she had carried to term a donor embryo—the biological parents of whom were said to be Caucasian and Hispanic. The mother noted:

I am not comfortable being open about the origin of my children, except with family and close friends, until they are old enough for me to explain it to them.

But, when a pre-k application form asked the children’s race, failing to provide a “mixed race” or “other” box, the mother identified her children as black. “Was this the right choice?” She wondered. The Ethicist—Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah, who is himself multiracial, white British and Ghanaian—devoted much of his response to what he would have responded had the twins been the biological children of their parents, going into depth about this country’s frequently challenged “one drop” rule. He concluded:

…our system of racial classification … presupposes an extremely oversimplified picture of the relationship among ancestry, appearance, biology and culture …

Dr. Appiah correctly faulted the preschool for not having a “mixed-race” or “other” box to check, and suggested that the mother demand one. He also affirmed the twins’ right to claim their non-biological father’s black heritage.

But what Dr. Appiah didn’t mention is an error the parents made long before the pre-k form appeared. Waiting until the children are “old enough” to have their heritage explained implies that there is something shameful about joining their family through donor insemination, something wrong with having a different racial background from their parents’. The time to broach such information is right away, using the simplest language possible—the same way you might talk to a baby about bedtime or the toys in his room.

Years ago as an adoption caseworker, I encouraged families adopting from China and Vietnam to learn about and incorporate their children’s cultures of origin into their family life. Even in domestic adoptions where the child could “pass” for their parents’ biological offspring, I urged families to begin sharing the adoption story immediately—before the child could understand. Talking about difference and culture becomes as natural as breathing. This is your nose, those are your toes, this is a photograph of the day we met you in a place called Guangzhou, where you were born.

This way, there’s no fraught moment in the child’s life when parents must sit them down and reveal the Momentous Truth. Though less has been written about children born via donor insemination than adoption, I believe this same openness should prevail.

Where it gets tricky is the discussion of appearance. Going back to the twins in the Ethicist’s question, what will it be like for them to identify as black if they don’t look black? As Dr. Appiah points out in his response, there are many people whose African features are not visible—he names early N.A.A.C.P. director, Walter White—who identify as black. Besides, these twins are Hispanic, which is not a race, but in many cases includes some African ancestry.

My own experience is somewhat reversed. Many people perceive me as black—not mixed—so when I identify as biracial, I am often corrected: you’re black. In graduate school, when I identified as Jewish—an ethnicity as well as a religion—it meant to some African American students that I was denying my blackness. But to identify as black and only black would be to disregard my mother’s ancestry and half of my own.

We all have the right to our full stories, our full heritage from the beginning. #mixedrace #biracial

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Another troubling issue: the mother who wrote to the Ethicist was given few specifics about the embryos’ heritage. Only Caucasian (Swedish? Dutch? Irish?) and Hispanic (Dominican? Venezuelan? Puerto Rican?). The parents are not to blame for this oversight. I know from my friends who have had children through donor insemination that you don’t get much control over how much genetic information you’re given, if any. But in an ideal world, these parents would be able to share the twins’ whole heritage—genetic and adoptive— with them.

One of my closest friends had her twin sons with the aid of an egg donor. Before her boys could understand the word “fertility,” they knew that somewhere in the world was a Very Special Lady who had made it possible for Mommy and Daddy to be their parents. Now the boys are three and the special lady is part of their family dialogue, as is her country, which the twins may visit someday. As they grow, these boys will have more questions which my friend and her husband will be happy to answer. These twin boys will know who they are genetically as well as culturally. One day, they too will be faced with boxes to check. They may choose one or more; they may choose to leave them all blank. Either way, by the time they are old enough to hold a pencil, my friend’s sons will understand that no box will ever truly define who they are.

-Lisa W. Rosenberg, Festival Blogger

Celebrating MLK for the First Time

February 3, 2016 by Amy Hayibor

I feel like I grew up with a fairly typical white-family-viewpoint of Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month. Don’t get me wrong. We believed that MLK was an amazing man. We very much appreciated his work. Thank God for MLK and for all of the other strong, intelligent, brave, creative and inspiring black men and women who changed American history….but now let’s go enjoy this freebie day off from school. I do not recall learning about black history outside of school. I do not recall snuggling up with my mom and reading books about famous black heroes. I do not recall “celebrating” MLK day.

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Well, at age 35, I truly celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. for the first time. My daughters and I (my husband had to work) visited the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis on Saturday January 17th for their MLK Family Celebration. We attended a story time that featured books about diversity, inclusion, and famous black Americans. My girls participated in peace-inspired crafts such as fingerprinting a dove, designing a peace sign sun catcher, and decorating a crown. We attended a lively presentation of “King Family Kids” by St. Louis story teller Mama Lisa. With her vibrant demeanor, powerful voice, and vivid words Mama Lisa painted a picture of MLK that I had never seen or heard before (all the while keeping the children in the audience highly entertained).

There were so many people at this event. White families. Black families. Asian-American families. Latin-American families. Mixed families – so many mixed families that I could not help but notice them! Families with toddlers, families with grandparents, and a few groups of teenage friends. They were all at the Missouri History Museum honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream.

So many families here to honor MLK – white, black, Asian, Latino, and #multiracial #mixedrace www.mixedremixed.org/celebrating-mlk-for-the-first-time/ via @mixedremixed

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I observed all of the time and hard work that went into planning this event. So many people who still found Martin Luther King Jr. to be so important, that they wanted to honor him with a celebration. I regarded Mama Lisa and how she has dedicated her entire career to the telling of pan-African legacies.

It was then that a mixture of emotions hit me. I felt ashamed that I had never before made any gesture to demonstrate my appreciation for this historic day. I felt intrigued by the wide variety of people who already knew that this day was a day worth celebrating. I felt happy that my daughters were able to experience this celebration and know the importance of black history at an early age.

And I wondered. What if I were not a part of this mixed race family? What if I had not fallen in love with and married a black man? What if I did not have two biracial daughters? What if I were part of just another white family? Would I be here? Would I be in one of those “culturally aware” white families that were walking around the Missouri History Museum? Or would I be at home cluelessly enjoying my long weekend?

What if I were not a part of this mixed race family? Would I be here? #biracial #mixedrace www.mixedremixed.org/celebrating-mlk-for-the-first-time/ via @mixedremixed

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To be honest, I do not know.

But I am so grateful for these two young ladies who brought me here.

Mixed race family enjoying MLK day — My daughters: celebrating, honoring, and observing Martin Luther King Day

by Amy Hayibor, Festival Blogger, Mother in the Mix

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Loop of Jade: Longing & Belonging with a Biracial Poet

January 28, 2016 by Clare Ramsaran

Mixed Brit poet wins TS Eliot Poetry Prize #biracial

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sarah howe

I first heard of Sarah Howe during the controversy over her winning the UK’s top prize for poetry, the TS Eliot Prize for her book ‘Loop of Jade’. I’m all for debate and discussion of the merits of literature, but was discomforted to read that an article in Private Eye magazine asked if she was awarded the prize “for extra-poetic reasons” going on to cite these reasons as her being “a successful and very “presentable” young woman with a dual Anglo-Chinese heritage.” Hardly worth engaging with, except that this tired trope keeps doing the rounds.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFIQyPEnfLg[/youtube]

Moving from the ‘controversy’ to the content… Sarah Howe’s poetry deals her heritage, as well as other themes. One article describes the 32-year old poet as “a Cambridge-educated academic currently at Harvard, (who)… is half Chinese. Born in Hong Kong, she came to the UK when she was nine; Loop of Jade deals with her dual cultural heritage and her mother’s difficult family history”. A reviewer from The Guardian comments that “the Hong Kong of Howe’s early years is a fecund territory for a poet seeking to reconcile a quintessentially English life with a starkly contrasting eastern heritage”. Previously her work has garnered prizes including Young Poet of the Year.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQS-DGJ2ZM4&list=PL76aclLiSkhL5NH3ig0j9G9cpB6IML6TL[/youtube]

At the writing workshop I ran at Mixed Remixed last year one of the issues that came up was people craving a sense of belonging. Howe talks about the same issue in reference to one of her poems.

Rather as I spent my first seven years staring at a tiny Union Jack blutacked to the pink triangle of England on my bedroom wall, the speaker’s son imagines China’s ‘blue flower on the map’… as the place where he will perfectly belong. I’ve experienced that same elated sentimental fiction of belonging all three times I’ve walked off the plane into Hong Kong airport – it even smells like home! That is, until I get a bit further down the arrivals corridor and realise that, though I might, from behind, for a second, mistake one of the older women for my mum because of the way her hair falls along her chin, they would never make the same mistake with me. On a flight from Lanzhou to Chengdu last week, the very nice stewardess asked me where I was from (‘Oh, Engelan!’), and then told me I looked like Lady Mary from Downton Abbey.

We also talked about how people experienced a sense of being an outsider but how we might harness this in our writing, and I was glad to see Howe talk about this same issue in this quote .

“(i)t’s funny how being ‘caught between two worlds’ is such a prevalent theme in my writing […] I began to realize how that tension – endlessly hopping back and forth across a dividing line – might actually be something productive, crucial even, to my sensibility.”

Congratulations to Sarah Howe on winning this latest, prestigious prize and I look forward to reading more of her work.

by Clare Ramsaran (@clareram)

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