Mixed Remixed Festival

Day 42 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival

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Mildred Jeter was just 18-years old when she married Richard Loving who was 6 years her senior.  They married in 1958 and it wasn’t until 9 years later that their right to marry was acknowledged by the Supreme Court.

Join us June 10, 2017 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival, the biggest celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision with a film, book and performance festival that showcases stories of the mixed-race and multiracial experience. FREE!

23andMe Joins as Benefactor Sponsor of Festival Celebrating Mixed-Race Families

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23andMe Joins as Benefactor Sponsor of Festival Celebrating Mixed-Race Families

LOS ANGELES, CA, April 28, 2017  — 23andMe, the leading personal genetics company, has signed on as a Benefactor Sponsor of the Mixed Remixed Festival, the nation’s largest gathering of mixed-race and multiracial families and artists. The Festival will take place at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles (514 S. Spring Street), June 10, 2017.

Now in its fourth year, the Festival celebrates stories of multiracial Americans and families, the fastest growing demographic in the U.S. A free public event, the Festival brings together film and book lovers, innovative and emerging artists, and multiracial and multicultural families and individuals for workshops, readings, performances, and film screenings. Families can enjoy interactive craft activities, free face painting, and interactive storytelling time.

“We are extremely pleased to have 23andMe as a sponsor,” says Festival Founder Heidi Durrow who calls herself an Afro-Viking because she is African-American and Danish. “The company provides a valuable service that helps people discover the complexity of their backgrounds. The DNA stories 23andMe reveal highlight how the Mixed experience is one that we all share.”

“We are excited to support such a wonderful event,” said Joanna Mountain, PhD, population geneticist and Senior Director of Research at 23andMe. “Our country’s rich and diverse history is reflected in our DNA. Exploring your family’s genetics is just one way to connect with and discover more about your family’s unique story.”

The Festival, a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization, is produced by Durrow a New York Times best-selling writer, and a talented team of entertainment professionals and artists.

Registration opens May 1 for the fourth annual Mixed Remixed Festival, a free event that is open to the public. The complete Festival schedule will be available when registration opens at www.mixedremixed.org.

Festival sponsors and funders include: 23andMe, Mixed Chicks, the Leo Buscaglia Foundation, and the Puffin West Foundation.

The Mixed Remixed Festival, a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization, celebrates stories about mixed-race and multiracial experience and identity with an annual film, book and performance festival.

 

23andMe Joins as Benefactor Sponsor of Festival Celebrating Mixed-Race Families #multiracial #mixedrace #mixedremixed

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Day 43 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival

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Loving v. Virginia is an Important Story for Kids to Know

 
Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s as part of a multiracial family, I seemed like our family was an aberration.  I would have loved to know more about the history of mixed-race and multiracial families.
 

Today, there are two wonderful children’s books that help explain the story of the Lovings and the Supreme Court case: 

The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage by Selina Alko and Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case by Patricia Hruby Powell.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Join us June 10, 2017 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival, the biggest celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision with a film, book and performance festival that showcases stories of the mixed-race and multiracial experience. FREE!

Day 44 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival

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Photo: Grey Villet, [Richard Loving kissing wife Mildred as he arrives home from work, King and Queen County, Virginia], April 1965. © Estate of Grey Villet.
The Loving v. Virginia decision made it legal for people of different races to marry nationwide, but anti-miscegenation laws stayed on several states’ books for many years later.  Alabama was the last to strike anti-miscegenation laws from its statutes in 2000.  Source New York Times November 12, 2000. 

Join us June 10, 2017 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival, the biggest celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision with a film, book and performance festival that showcases stories of the mixed-race and multiracial experience. FREE!

 

Day 46 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival

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50 Years after Loving v. Virginia People Still Express Aversion to Mixed-Race Marriages

In a study published by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, University of Nebraska researchers discovered that photos of mixed-race couples were viewed with derision.  The participants were young people whose brain activity was monitored while looking at interracial couples.  According to the Washington Post: “Researchers found that the insula, a part of the brain that registers disgust, was highly active when participants viewed photos of the interracial couples, but not was not highly engaged when viewers saw the images of same-race couples, whether they were white or black.”

What do you make of that “fun” fact?  Are young people still tied to racist ideas of the past even though they express a more enlightened attitude?

Join us for the Mixed Remixed Festival at the Los Angeles Theatre Center 6/10. FREE! Registration opens 5/1.

 

Day 47 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival

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Loving v. Virginia Is Important to Mixed Race Families Today

The Loving v. Virginia decision continues to play an important role in the lives of interracial couples and mixed-race people.  Here are quotes from moving essays about what the Supreme Court decision has meant in the personal lives of these writers:

Do you have a story about how Loving v. Virginia affected your family? #multiracial #mixedrace

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Do you have your own story of how the Loving v. Virginia decision has affected you or your family?  Let us know info(at)mixedremixed.org.

Join us for the 4th annual Mixed Remixed Festival at the Los Angeles Theatre Center 6/10. FREE! Registration opens 5/1.

Day 49 Fun Fact Countdown to 50th Anniversary Celebration of Loving v. Virginia at Mixed Remixed Festival

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Mildred Loving Was Mixed Race

mildred loving mixed raceI was surprised to learn last year that that Mildred Loving did not consider herself African-American.  While researching her excellent book That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia, Arica Coleman had a chance to interview Mildred Loving.  Loving told Coleman emphatically: “I am not black . . I have no black ancestry. I am Indian-Rappahannock.  I told the people when they came to arrest me.”

Mildred Loving did not consider herself black. #mixedrace #multiracial #50thanniversary #mixedremixed

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Arica Coleman has done some great writing about this subject and all of the implications.  You can read her Time Magazine article The White and Black Worlds of Loving v. Virginia and her scholarly piece Mildred Loving The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Woman. 

What do you make of that fun fact?  Let us know by leaving a comment or email us at info(at)mixedremixed.org.

The countdown continues! 

Join us for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival June 10, 2017 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown LA. FREE!

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Join us for the 4th Annual Mixed Remixed Festival June 10, 2017 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown LA.  FREE! 

We’re Reading Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon Join us 4/23 5PM Pacific

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Multiracial, mixed race, biracial, growing up biracial, biracial identity, multiracial identity, multiculturalism, biracial family, blasian, hapa, mixed race adoption

Join us for our On-Line Book Club Discussion About Mixed Race and Multiracial Books!

We’ve been having so much fun reading together since we launched our on-line book club last fall.  This month we’ve been reading Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything, a heart-wrenching and fast-paced read.  The book has been made into a major motion picture starring Mixed Remixed Festival fave Amandla Stenberg.

Join us this Sunday April 23 at 5pm on the phone (it’s a community call), listen live on your computer, or talk with us in the chat room to discuss this wonderful book.

We’re talking about @nicolayoon Everything, Everything! Listen in!

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Our Literary and Workshop Director Jamie Moore and Festival Founder Heidi Durrow lead the discussion.  If you can’t join us live, you can always download the podcast from itunes.  You can also submit any questions or comments you have on our Goodreads book club page.  What’s your favorite line from the book?  What’s your favorite scene?  We’ll read your comments on the air!  We can’t wait to talk with you about another great book about the Mixed experience. 

Multiracial, mixed race, biracial, growing up biracial, biracial identity, multiracial identity, multiculturalism, biracial family, blasian, hapa, mixed race adoption

 

 

4 Lies About Why People Identify as Biracial or Mixed Race

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Identifying as Biracial or Mixed Race is Not a Pathological Stance

1. We think we are (or really want to be) white.

 
If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve read a comment like this.  It’s really an offensive comment too.  How on earth do YOU (read random hater) know what I want for myself.  When I say that I am biracial or am specific about my racial and cultural background, it means that I want to be all of what my experience makes me. Period.
 

2.  We are uncomfortable around people of color.

 
This comment is also so thoroughly offensive.  Half of my family is made up of people of color.  In fact, I’m a person of color.  Just because I don’t buy into the idea of race as America insists I should doesn’t mean that I feel alienated from my own family or my own people.
 
 

3. We don’t understand the reality of white or light-skinned privilege.

 
Yes, we do.  Can we just start the conversation there?  
 

4. We harbor self-hating beliefs.

 
Okay, I did struggle with that growing up hearing that I didn’t belong anywhere.  But as an adult I understand that my psychic health demands that I embrace and accept all of who I am–even if that identification makes other people uncomfortable! 

5 Things That Will Make You Feel Like You Can Embrace a Mixed Race or Biracial Identity

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1. Recognize that your psychic health may require self-acceptance of your mixed race and multiracial identity.

Multiracial, mixed race, biracial, growing up biracial, biracial identity, multiracial identity, multiculturalism, biracial family, blasian, hapa, mixed race adoption

A study published in 2015 in Current Directions in Psychological Science by Sarah Gaither found that multiracial children who are “raised to identify with both parents and to understand their complex racial heritage [can] have higher self-esteem than mono-racial people. They are adaptable, able to function well in both majority and minority environments. They are more likely to reject the conception that race biologically predicts one’s abilities, which may, in turn, insulate them from the negative impact of racism or bias.” Source: New York Magazine.

5 Things That Will Make You Feel Like You Can Embrace a Mixed Race or Biracial Identity #multiracial

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2. Learn about historical figures who were mixed.

One of the things that helped me start to accept the fact that I could not hide from my complicated cultural and racial identity was learning about other mixed-race people of the past.  For me, Nella Larsen who also wrote about being black and Danish (like me) back in the 1920s became an important figure.  I saw her bravery about talking about being mixed in a racially divided world as a kind of permission.  It’s important to feel like you have a history.  Seek out mixed historical figures.  Here’s one fun resource in The Mixed Experience History Month.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

3. Read books about biracial people (fiction and non-fiction).

 
Multiracial, mixed race, biracial, growing up biracial, biracial identity, multiracial identity, multiculturalism, biracial family, blasian, hapa, mixed race adoptionThere is an ever-growing literature about biracial and mixed-race characters and people.  Read those stories and find yourself!  We have a couple of resources here if you’re looking for memoirs or kids’ books.  The Mixed Remixed Festival also has its own on-line book club.  You should join us and read some great books!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

4. Watch films featuring biracial and mixed race characters.

 
Multiracial, mixed race, biracial, growing up biracial, biracial identity, multiracial identity, multiculturalism, biracial family, blasian, hapa, mixed race adoptionDitto films!  It’s an amazing experience to be in a theater and see families that look like your own like the wonderful film, Loving, and now more recently A United Kingdom.  Heck, you can find our stories on Netflix too.  Stream one now! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

5. Connect on-line and in-person with other mixed race and biracial people.

 
Multiracial, mixed race, biracial, growing up biracial, biracial identity, multiracial identity, multiculturalism, biracial family, blasian, hapa, mixed race adoptionIt’s been so amazing to connect with other mixed folks and families on line in various Facebook groups and on Twitter and Instagram.  Our favorite way to connect though is the Mixed Remixed Festival.  It’s the largest nationwide gathering of mixed families and people held each year in June.  You should join us! It’s free! 
 
 

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