growing up mixed race Archives - Page 5 of 6

Please Contain Your Curiosity About My Biracial Child

April 21, 2016 by Amy Hayibor

In the past three months, four different schoolmates have asked my biracial eight-year-old about the relationship between her mixed self and her white mom. The first occurrence was in January at the start of the day while hanging up backpacks, and a young lady asked M, “Are you adopted?” The second scenario took place in February during a school event at the skating rink, and a fellow second grader rolled up to M in the middle of the rink and blurted out, “Is that your real mom?” The third infraction occurred in March in a friend’s car on route to an after school activity, and M was again asked if she was adopted. Finally, the last inquisition took place on a playdate by an older sibling who also asked, “Are you adopted?” This almost teenager has been with our entire family one to two times per month for the whole school year! How could she have not figured it out on her own? Hmmm….something weird is going on here, and I am desperate to understand.

In light of these recent events, I have come to many conclusions. In this space, I will deal with one. Here we go.

In life we frequently encourage curiosity. Babies enthusiastically push aside hands to find that peek-a-boo face, which was previously covered up by a veil of fingers. Does your toddler want to know what ketchup and chocolate sauce taste like on a slice of multigrain raisin bread? Sure! Go ahead and try it. You only live once. Parents spend hard earned dollars on creepy crawly insects trapped in a jar so that they can show their children how caterpillars become butterflies. Do you want to know Ben Franklin’s middle name, how many spaghetti noodles could wrap around the earth, or the noise of an aardvark? Let’s google it.

However, should there be a limit to curiosity? Do we sometimes need to keep our curiosity in check? Have we taught our children the boundaries of curiosity? Here’s a fun fact that may not be on the top ten list of golden nuggets to pass down to one’s off-spring (but perhaps it should):

Just because you want to know, does not always mean you get to know. #mixedrace #biracial

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In the words of Laura Horwitz of We Stories (a St. Louis not-for-profit organization designed to raise diversity awareness among white families through children’s literature), “examining our own curiosity, managing it, and sitting with not knowing are big parts of becoming more thoughtful about whiteness. All families in all forms are beautiful and have lots of stories! I don’t need access to every family’s story (nor would I expect to offer mine) at a whim.”

Children need to know that sometimes it is not okay to ask. Sometimes you do not get to satisfy your curiosity.

Since age 3, I have taught my children to stay quiet when they notice a person who does not fit their tiny little definitions of “normal.” They can either wait until later to discuss what they saw or whisper in my ear if they just can’t restrain themselves. As a result of this rule, I have received whispers about pink and green hair, different body shapes, tattoos, piercings, wheel chairs, service dogs, missing limbs, birthmarks, vitiligo, accents, and the list could go on. Their observations frequently lead to wonderful dialogues about the beauty of differences, and sometimes our talks end in unanswered questions. For example, I don’t know why your friend has a misshaped ear, and we will never get to know unless that person decides to tell you.

My biracial family may be the subject of some other child’s whispering. I can imagine a hushed voice in the grocery store, “Mommy, why is that little girl black and her mommy is white?” That’s totally cool. I hope that whispering leads to an eye-opening discussion. I just wish that some people could teach their eight-year-olds the rule that my four-year-old already knows:

Contain your curiosity. Just because you want to know, does not always mean you get to know.

by Amy Hayibor, Festival Blogger, Mother in the Mix

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Seeking Help When Mixed Race

April 19, 2016 by Joy Stoffers

As a writer who champions researchers like Brené Brown for their work on vulnerability and shame, I’m now ready to publicly admit that I can be a hypocrite. In my fiction, through my characters, I embody vulnerability. But in my own life, and in my “personal” blogging, I shirk it (hence, the scare quotes). I want to always be strong and fierce. Seeking help has never been my forte, and in my experience, being mixed plays into this.

My mother—who juggled seven jobs simultaneously for seven years—taught me to depend on myself. For every grammar school project that dealt with family history, she insisted my brother and I showcase her immigration story. My brother and I used to roll our eyes. We elbowed each other and spoke without speaking: Mom’s so dramatic.

But now, as a twenty-four-year-old woman, I’m in awe. That in Taiwan, from age twenty to age twenty-seven, Mom’s life was seven jobs for seven years. All to earn the $20,000 required for two years of American study.

Gaining perspective can happen suddenly, or over time. For me, I suddenly realized what I’d known since childhood: my mother was and still is a force to be reckoned with. Her immigration story defied gender, racial, and cultural expectations. She learned to become both her own weapon and comfort system. A woman warrior, à la Maxine Hong Kingston.

I thought that’s who I needed to be for myself. Warrior and comforter; breadwinner and carer; all the roles in between; everything and everyone at once, nonstop. That if I fell short in any way, at any time, I needed to blame myself. My faults; my shortcomings. I told myself that in self-dependence, there’s no allowance for weakness. No cracks, no seams, no spills. No traces of vulnerability.

I thought I needed to be everything and everyone at once, nonstop. #mixedrace #multiracial

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The past couple of weeks have taken me apart. I can’t sustain my delusional dream of perfection. So this is my zì bái shū—written confession. I refuse both Asian and German stoicism. I’m determined, to the best of my ability at this time in my life, to write vulnerably and honestly.

To summarize, on my own, I made an impulsive decision. I moved all my eggs to one basket, and both the basket and the eggs broke. Changed jobs, changed states, and lost myself. For a time, I sat among the eggshells, yolk in my hair, chalazae running down my cheeks, egg whites and basket threads at my feet.

But then I reached out. I called the people and family members who care. Now, I called to self-criticize, but I called—and they answered. Through lines and wirings unseen, they offered help: advice, suggestions, a pixelated smile, a breathing mouth.

They helped me reset myself. My selves. Through them, I found reserves I never knew I possessed. I packed new baskets. Again, I’ll change. I’ll return to what I left with battle scars—a new woman warrior.

Look down at your roots. Trace their twists so you won’t trip. Trace until you remember. Yes, remember your roots. They’ll ground you. And, knowing them, you’ll enable your own growth. —Joy Stoffers, Festival Blogger

Remember your roots. Knowing them, you’ll enable your own growth. #mixedrace #multiracial

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Growing Up Mixed Race: My Journey to the Mixed Remixed Festival Part 1

April 17, 2016 by admin

Growing Up Mixed Race: My Journey to the Mixed Remixed Festival!

My introduction to racism came by way of the moniker “that little Mexican kid.” It all began with a girl that I had a huge crush on. Being the sentimental fool I was, I followed her around the schoolyard each day to make known the fact that she was the object of my affection.

Sadly, her take on my behavior was unflattering: she thought I was a friendless, cloying idiot with nothing to do but bother her. Truth told, she was right. I was an awkward 8 year-old whose social maturity was closer to age 6. I was also struggling with a crisis of identity that made interacting with others so disorienting that I altogether avoided the intimacy of friendship.

“That little Mexican kid!”

The moniker came about one day when, while literally following in my cherished one’s footsteps, a friend of hers spotted me and asked if I was “that little Mexican kid” she heard about. To this day, I remember the first and last names of both of those girls as well as the exact setting of this exchange. I also remember the way that girl said “Mexican” – in that tone that divides people into camps of “us” and “them,” and those two white girls were positively not in “Camp Mexican.” In short, I was the “them.”

I didn’t think of the comment as racist, and perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps it was racist but I took no offense because I am not Mexican. Or perhaps, because I am mixed race, I lacked the ethnic allegiance prerequisite to being vulnerable to racial epithet. (Ever wonder why white people are not as easily offended by racial slurs as the rest of us? But that’s a topic for another time.)

The moniker stuck – for years. It faded for a while around the 4th grade then came back with a vengeance in middle school when, coincidentally, I excelled in Spanish class. And this time the intent of the slur was crystal: “We don’t know what you are, but we do know what you are not: white. And that’s all we need to know to make it okay for us to abuse you.”

“We don’t know what you are, but we do know what you are not: white.” #multiracial #mixedrace

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I knew I was different, but I was perplexed by the racist tenor of the incessant jeers. After all, my father is white. We lived in a white neighborhood (very, very white at the time) under the same roof as my white grandparents. Wasn’t that white enough to make me white? Then there was my mother, the eldest of ten children, two of whom emigrated from the Philippines to make their homes in the US. Did that make me Filipino? And did that also mean that I was Asian? In my mind the Chinese, Japanese and Korean were Asian, but I didn’t look like them nor did I feel like I belonged among them. And being only half Filipino, did I even qualify as an Asian?

What are you? A dreaded question for mixed race folk.

“What are you?” is a dreaded question for mixed race folk. We are neither fish nor foul, exotic but slightly shy of ethnic, colorful but not quite white, multicultural by blood but acultural by practice, products of the global village but in a world all our own.

I’m “lucky” because I can pass. I’m not too brown, and I inherited more of my mother’s Spanish features than Malay. On the outside I am the stuff of Horatio Alger, an upstanding citizen of white corporate America – I have a wife, two kids, a one-car garage overflowing with suburban detritus – living on the razor’s edge of mortgage payments and college savings.

So why is someone like me going to the Mixed Remixed Festival?

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Because a life of passing takes a toll on you.

Because once you perfect playing the character you created to insulate yourself against questions like “What are you?” you begin to forget that you’re playing a character at all.

Because I have to believe that the identity crisis that has muddied my sense of self, made me a perpetual outsider and influenced every important decision that I have ever made is not uniquely mine – that other mixed race folk have similar stories. I want to find them so that I can find myself.

-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:http://bit.ly/tides_n_tudes. He will be blogging about our events throughout the the festival. If you want to attend, register here. It’s free!

Our Mixed Voices: Sharing Our Stories (An Interactive Workshop to Talk About Multiracial and Mixed-Race Individual Stories)

April 9, 2016 by admin

Our Mixed Voices: Sharing Our Stories

June 10, 2016 10:00am-11:20am

June 11, 2016 9:30am-10:50am

REGISTER HERE!

Come and share your mixed experience. Experience the healing that comes with sharing in a circle with people who can truly relate. Learn how to use an innovative conversational method to lead groups of your own. In an optional follow-up session, take a writing/storytelling workshop that will give you additional tools to creatively share your experience with the world. The session uses Dialogue Circle technology, a method of having productive conversations about difficult subjects, especially about difference.

Our Mixed Voices: Sharing Our Stories (Interactive Workshop abt #Multiracial #mixedrace

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Angelo John Lewis is the co-founder of the Diversity and Spirituality Network, creator of the Dialogue Circle method, and author of Notes for New Age and a writer, life coach and consultant.

Zachary Green is a professor of practice in Leadership Studies at the University of Maryland. He consults internationally on deeper dimensions of issues related to identity, organizational effectiveness, and adaptive change. A leadership coach for the World Bank for 15 years, Dr. Green also designs training and development for disenfranchised communities in urban settings.

Anthony J. Patterson is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Certified Rehabilitation Counselor & a highly skilled and results-oriented cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist. For more than 20 years he has provided outstanding therapeutic services to persons dealing with depression; anxiety; addiction, managing loss; trauma; transitions; difficulties with relationships (partners; friends co-workers etc.) to persons from various communities. He specializes in couples; individual, couple and group therapy and believes through the power of reflection and insight, turning life’s challenges and difficulties into one’s greatest strengths and assets.

Roxanne Kymaani, Ph.D. Primary research interests include: liminality, third space and hybrid identity construction, group dynamics and cultural construction, and leading dialogues. She is a Life Coach based in San Diego, California, and also currently serves as the Executive Director for the National University’s Division of Extended Learning and Certified Core Adjunct Faculty for the Organizational Leadership graduate program, and an Adjunct Lecturer with Goucher College’s Cultural Sustainability graduate program. Roxanne received her doctorate in Leadership Studies from the University of San Diego, dissertation titled, “Beyond biracial: The complexity of identity construction for women with one black and one white parent”.

Cindy Franklin is an Executive Coach and consultant living in the Bay Area, and one of the co-founders of the Diversity and Spirituality Network. The years she spent earlier in life studying meditation in India, and subsequent ongoing practice, continue to deeply inform her life and work.

Registration Now Open for the 2016 Mixed Remixed Festival!

April 8, 2016 by admin

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Heidi Durrow
Phone: 213-293-7077
Email: heidi@mixedremixed.org
Website: www.mixedremixed.org
Twitter: @mixedremixed
Instagram: mixedremixed
#mixedremixed

FESTIVAL CELEBRATING MIXED-RACE FAMILIES REVEALS 2016 SCHEDULE

Festival Celebrating Mixed-Race Families & Artists Registration Open! #multiracial #mixedrace

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LOS ANGELES, CA-April 8, 2016 – The Mixed Remixed Festival, the nation’s largest gathering of mixed-race and multiracial families and people, will take place at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles (100 N. Central Avenue), June 10-11, 2016.

Now in its third 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.

The Mixed Remixed Festival attracted close to 700 people from across the country last year and featured dozens of writers, scholars and performers including Comedy Central’s Al Madrigal and New York Times best-selling author Jamie Ford.

The Festival, a non-profit arts organization, is produced by The New York Times best-selling writer, Heidi Durrow, and a talented team of volunteers.

“It’s exciting to finally see mixed people and families in mainstream media and to connect with each other on-line,” says Durrow who calls herself an Afro-Viking because she is African-American and Danish. “But the Festival is the only nationwide cultural arts event where we get to meet each other and network.”

Registration is now open for the third annual Mixed Remixed Festival, a free event that is open to the public. The complete Festival schedule can be found online at www.mixedremixed.org.

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

The Festival hosts the largest West Coast Loving Day Celebration, Saturday, June 11, 2016, at 6:30 p.m. with the annual Storyteller’s Prize presentation and live show. The Festival will present the Storyteller’s Prize to film and TV star Taye Diggs and his collaborator, Shane Evans, for their ground-breaking children’s book Mixed Me as part of a dynamic live show featuring comedians, musicians, and spoken-word poets.
Families can enjoy interactive craft activities as well storytelling events as part of the JANM Free Family Day.
The Festival will present several notable short films including the award-winning Fall Seven Times Get Up Eight: Japanese War Brides (dirs. Kraft, Kasmauski, Tolbert), a documentary about three Japanese women who immigrated to the US to raise their Hapa kids. Chill (dir. Jennifer Frappier), a press-darling documentary about egg-freezing makes its debut at Mixed Remixed. Immediately following each screening, there will be a Q & A session with the filmmakers.
The Festival includes author readings by New York Times bestselling author Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet; Songs of Willow Frost); Sunil Yapa, the author of the breakout national bestseller, The Heart Is A Muscle the Size of Your Fist; Natashia Deon, author of the acclaimed debut novel, Grace; the celebrated writer and activist Willy Wilkinson; and many others. The Festival is also pleased to present Skylight Books as the Festival’s official bookseller.
More than a dozen esteemed panelists will speak on diverse topics related to the mixed-race and multicultural experience, including: award-winning writer Faith Adiele and two-time Peabody Award winner Dmae Roberts who has released her important new memoir.

Festival sponsors include: Silver Sponsor Mixed Chicks, Emerging Sponsor Home Advisor, Japanese American National Museum, Zevia, Zapier, Algonquin Books, My Family Builder.

Shoving the White Parent in the Closet: Part 4

April 8, 2016 by Amy Hayibor

My daughters are 4 and 8. I feel like I’m a relatively mentally healthy person, who has a good life balance. I blog, workout, pray, keep the home in line, adore my husband, cherish my friends, and love my children. I have experienced many different types of relationships and loves in my 36 years of life. I desperately hope that my next statement does not diminish the importance, intensity, and value of the wide variety of relationships and loves available to humankind. However, at the risk of sounding incredibly cliché and possibly offending those adults without children, I have never encountered any type of love that is as deep and intense as the love that I feel for my children. I didn’t know this love would develop until these kids just popped into the world. I was completely unaware. But now I have two daughters, and the love that throbs inside of me for them is like none other.

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And yet someday….

My girls might be shoving me into the closet.

Why?

Because I’m white, and they are brown.

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As a parent, you know that you are going to embarrass your child someday. I always thought I would blurt something out of my big, fat mouth, which sometimes has difficulty shutting off and closing during key moments in life. Perhaps I would wear something atrocious to an event, cheer too loudly at a swim meet, or come downstairs at a sleepover without a bra under my faded 1998 high school t-shirt. Maybe, just maybe, I would bust a dance move that makes my girls cringe….wait…..no….that could never happen. I am literally the best mom dancer of all time.

Never did I ever think that the color of my skin would be the culprit. I’m white. I can’t control that. I can apologize for misspoken words. I can change my clothes. I can tone down my enthusiastic shouts and applause. I can slap on a bra (I guess….It’s my own house, right? Do I really have to freaking wear one?). I can slightly stifle my groove.

But I am white. Pasty white, to put it bluntly. There is no getting around that. And according to my biracial and multiracial friends, someday my white skin may cause my children distress, discomfort, awkwardness, and embarrassment. My precious little girls may want me to hang back, to not show up, and to downplay my significance in their lives. Then these sweet babies are going to shove me into a metaphorical closet all because of the color of my skin! Agony. My heart aches.

My sweet little girls may shove me into a metaphorical closet because I’m white?! Sigh. #mixedrace

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I don’t even know what to say about these facts. I’m thankful to be aware of the facts so that I am not blindsided someday; however, I dread these facts with every fiber of my being. All I can do is wait, build relationships, be open and available, and pray. I will pray that my mother-daughter relationships will somehow avoid these facts. I will pray that we will be able to rise above the problems that are caused by the fictitious concept of race. I will pray that our mother-daughter bonds are so strong that we will defy the odds (and we will dance with unicorns, giggle with fairies, and take naps on beds of pink glittery flowers).

I just hope that they don’t keep me in that closet too long. I can entertain myself with my killer dance stylings for only a moderate period of time.

by Amy Hayibor, Festival Blogger, Mother in the Mix

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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

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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

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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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Meet our 2016 Blogging Team for the Mixed Remixed Festival

January 4, 2016 by admin

We are excited to re-energize the Mixed Remixed Festival blog this year with a great team of content creators! Meet our Blogging Team and stay tuned for the great articles and content that they will be sharing with us. BTW: we still have one position available for a qualified blogger to help us out. If you’re interested in applying for this volunteer position, please email me at heidi(at)mixedremixed.org.-Heidi Durrow, Festival Founder

Want to join our Festival blogging team? Email me!

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Joy Stoffers was raised in East Brunswick, NJ, by a Taiwanese mother and a Caucasian father. At the age of six she wrote, illustrated, and promptly recycled her first short story. Since then she dreamed of becoming a novelist. She holds a BA in English from Rutgers University and an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University. Harken Media published her debut novel, Whasian, November 2015.

Clare was born and raised in England, but checks “other” on forms when asked to define her heritage – or creates her own category of “Indo-Guyanese/Irish”.

Resident in the Bay Area since 2004, she is currently an MFA candidate at the University of San Francisco. She is working on a novel about two Caribbean brothers who join other young immigrants to London in the 1950s in their pursuit of love (of the inter-racial and queer varieties) – and justice. It is inspired by the stories of her parents and other immigrants to England.

Her writing has been published in anthologies, journals and blogs in England, and the US, including St Sebastian Review, Everything Indicates and By the Bay. She is a regular blogger at Mixed Remixed and an alumna of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation(VONA) writing workshop.

When not writing or performing, she is a trainer and instructional designer, usually working for nonprofits in the social justice area.

Theresia, better known as Terri, was born in Germany, but grew up in sunny Trinidad and Tobago! She runs One Love, a blog that focuses on trends in culture and entertainment while highlighting the positive, go-getter attitude that is truly in all of us. Terri graduated high school last year and is looking for that next thing to satisfy her creative literary aspirations – what that thing is, she has yet to find. In the meantime, however, she is enjoying the experience of being part of such a positively enriching group that is the Mixed Remixed Festival.

Growing Up Mixed Race: My Journey to the Mixed Remixed Festival!

“That little Mexican kid!”

What are you? A dreaded question for mixed race folk.

FESTIVAL CELEBRATING MIXED-RACE FAMILIES REVEALS 2016 SCHEDULE

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