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Season 3, Episode 10: Author Sunil Yapa, Connecting Multiracial Experience with Global Identity

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Sunil Yapa Mixed Race WriterYour Hear is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

RECORDED 1/18/16: You know how you meet someone and you think: this person’s doing some really important work.  That was my impression of Sunil Yapa when I met him almost 8 years ago.  So it was particularly exciting to read his book, Your Heart Is A Muscle the Size of a Fist, and see the incredible reception it’s already getting.  You are going to love this book.  And you’ll love hearing more about his journey as a writer and the inspiration for this great story.  You can listen here or download the episode from itunes! – Heidi Durrow

Listen to @heididurrow interview with debut novelist phenom @sunilyapa  #multiracial #mixedrace

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Sunil Yapa on Heidi Durrow podcast

Sunil Yapa by Beowulf Sheehan

Sunil Yapa holds a bachelor’s degree in economic geography from Penn State University and an MFA from Hunter College. The biracial son of a Sri Lankan father and mother from Montana, Yapa has lived around the world, including time in Greece, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, China, and India, as well as London, Montreal, and New York City.

 

Season 3, Episode 12: Best-selling Author Shilpi Somaya Gowda, The Golden Son

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The Golden Son

RECORDED 2/1/16 5PM: I was excited to speak with best-selling author Shilpi Somaya Gowda. She’s making a big splash with her second book, The Golden Son just published. Listen in to the interview here and learn about the inspiration for her second book and her journey as a writer or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

Don’t miss @heididurrow interview of best-selling author @shilpigowda! #multiracial #mixedrace

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Shilpi Somoya Gowda on Heidi Durrow's podcastShilpi Somaya Gowda was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. In college, she spent a summer as a volunteer in an Indian orphanage, which seeded the idea for her first novel, Secret Daughter, published in 2010. It became an international bestseller, selling over 1 million copies worldwide, and has been translated into 24 languages. Her second novel, The Golden Son, is being published in late 2015-early 2016 around the world. Shilpi holds an MBA from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead-Cain scholar. She has served on the Advisory Board of the Children’s Defense Fund, and is a Patron of Childhaven International, the organization for which she volunteered in India. She lives in California with her husband and children.

Season 2, Summer Short 6: Actress/Writer Katie Malia of web series “Almost Asian”

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Katie MaliaRECORDED 8/24/15: I loved talking with Katie Malia, creator of the web series Almost Asian.  She’s talented and funny and just simply great.  You can listen to the show here or download it on itunes.-Heidi Durrow

This is what Katie says about the impetus for creating the webseries: “Growing up half-Asian was very confusing. From filling out ethnicity sections in college applications to introducing lunch trades with pre-trending Japanese food on the grade school playground, before the United Colors of Benetton effect took hold, being the bi-product of an interracial couple was new. Nobody was talking about it, especially in suburban America. Before Obama and yes, Keanu came along, there was no half-anything to admire as a role model, particularly a female one. It’s really no surprise that my best friend growing up was also half-Japanese due to our relatable childhood experiences. And by expanding on these shared experiences, my intention with “Almost Asian” is to celebrate the nuanced mixed-ethnic identity while challenging our social conventions regarding race, nationality, and culture through a comedic lens.”

Listen to my interview with @iamalmostasian creator @kathrynmalia on hapa identity & Hollywood.

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Katie Malia is an “ethnically-ambiguous” working actress and writer in Los Angeles. Having appeared in over 100+ national commercials and print campaigns and featured on HBO’s Hello Ladies, How I Met Your Mother, The Mindy Project, Sleepy Hollow and Ground Floor, Katie studied at Columbia University in New York and continues to write and create her own content playing numerous original characters, one of which was featured on Funny or Die’s homepage. She also performs stand up around Los Angeles, was a contributing writer for Daily Candy and Time Out LA, and also produced the short film “VARMiNT,” which won the Grand Jury Prize at Dances with Films Festival in Hollywood, the Audience Award at New Orleans Film Festival in 2013, and was a Vimeo “Staff Pick” in 2014. Katie lives in Silver Lake. Oh yeah, and she hates the term “ethnically-ambiguous.”  You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Season 2, Summer Short 4: Kristen Green Author of Something Must be Done About Prince Edward County

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RECORDED 8/10/15 11:00am: I had a great conversation with Kristen Green, author of Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle.

something must be done about prince edward countyHere is the publisher’s description: “In the wake of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Virginia’s Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community’s white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use for their all-white classrooms, while black parents scrambled to find alternative education for their children. For five years, the schools remained closed in Prince Edward County.
Author and journalist Kristen Green grew up in Farmville and attended Prince Edward Academy, which didn’t open its doors to black students until 1986. Thirty four years after the Supreme Court ended school segregation, Green first began to learn the truth about her hometown’s shameful history. As a wife and mother in her own multiracial family, the revelations of the haunting period in our nation’s past become more complex and painful as she discovers the role her own grandparents played.
Combining hard-hitting investigative journalism and a sweeping family narrative, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County by Kristen Green is a provocative true story that reveals a little-known chapter of American history.”
Kristen Green is also part of a multiracial family and has written movingly about her experiences in articles widely shared on social media like this NPR Code Switch essay.  You can listen to the episode here or download it from itunes!
One lucky listener can win a free copy by signing up for my mailing list or email me at heidi(at)heidiwdurrow.com; people on the mailing list are already in it to win it!  I’ll pick one lucky listener at random next Monday 8/17.–Heidi Durrow

“Powerful. . . . The author movingly chronicles her discovery of the truth about her background and her efforts to promote reconciliation and atonement. A potent introduction to a nearly forgotten part of the civil rights movement and a personalized reminder of what it was truly about.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Kristen Green grew up in Prince Edward County, Va., the only community in the nation to close its schools for five years rather than desegregate. She attended an all-white academy, which was KGREEN_AuthorPicfounded in 1959 by her grandparents and other white leaders when the public school doors were locked. The private school did not admit black students until 1986, when she was in the eighth grade.

Kristen has worked for two decades as a journalist at newspapers including The San Diego Union-Tribune and the Boston Globe.

She was recognized by Media General for her local news writing at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2011. She has been awarded the Best of Gannett Outstanding Achievement in Writing, and her work has been recognized by the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists and the National Headliner Awards. Kristen also received a fellowship from the Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment at University of Colorado at Boulder. Kristen has a Master in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. She and her husband, Jason Hamilton, and their two young daughters live in Richmond, Va.

 

Season 2, Summer Short 5: Blaxicans in Los Angeles

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RECORDED 8/17/15: I had a great talk with Walter Thompson-Hernandez about his wonderful photo project on Blaxicans of LA.  Learn more about how he navigated growing up Black and Mexican in LA and is scholarship on the issue as well as some of his thoughts about whether there is a multiracial movement afoot.

“The wblacklovebrownay I see it, Blaxicans really challenge the way we think about race and force us to think about racial identities in more inclusive and broad ways. Blaxicans are dual minorities. We represent two of the largest ethnic minority groups. And I think because Blaxicans represent two of the most aggrieved groups in Los Angeles, it’s important to understand that certain sets of issues and challenges that have been traditionally labeled as African American or Latino, ultimately, do not exist for people who self-identify as Blaxicans.” Walter Thompson-Hernandez

Learn more about the project in this LA Times article or listen in on our conversation here or download it on itunes! –Heidi Durrow

 

A great conversation with @blaxicansofla about #multiracial #mixedrace experience.

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walter thomopson hernandez
Walter Thompson-Hernandez is a researcher, photographer, and documentary filmmaker based out of Los Angeles, California who will begin his doctoral research in the Fall of 2016. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and is a recent graduate of the Stanford University Latin American Studies Master’s program. He is currently a researcher at the University of Southern California (USC), Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII), and Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE), where he is part of a research team that is working on a forthcoming book about Latinos in South LA. Outside of his work at CSII, Walter’s research looks at issues related to immigration, race, Afro-Latinos, and sports in the United States,  Latin America, and Europe. His research and projects have been featured by CNN, BBC, Los Angeles Times, Remezcla, and UNIVISION. His latest academic project will be featured in a forthcoming book titled, “Afro-Latinos in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas.”
instagram:
@mychivas
@blaxicansofla
personal website: wthdz.com

 

 

Season 2, Summer Short 3: Schwarz Rot Gold, German Documentary Series about Being Black and German

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jermain

RECORDED 8/4/15: I loved talking to the filmmakers behind a German documentary series Schwarz Rot Gold. Schwarz Rot Gold portrays ten famous German Black and talks about the past, present and future of identities and racism in Germany. The goal of the project is to raise awareness about racism in Germany and to present role models for young people.  Learn more here.  And check out their Facebook page too.

A really great talk with Black German filmmakers about new documentary Schwarz Rot Gold! @schwarzrotgold_#multiraical #mixedrace

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“Schwarz Rot Gold” is produced by Jermain Raffington (journalist) und Laurel Raffington (psychologist). The project is motivated by Jermain’s personal experience of growing up as a Black person in Germany as well as Laurel and Jermain’s dream of raising their children in a non-racist, open-minded Germany. The idea to start Schwarz Rot Gold originated in 2012. All portraits were filmed in the summer of 2014. Season 1 was published in April 2015 and season 2 is now in post-production. You can see all of the first season with English subtitles on the filmmakers’ website.

You can hear our complete interview here or download it from itunes.

 

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Jermain was born in 1985 in Hamburg, Germany, and is the eldest of four boys. His mother, who now lives in Sweden, is German and his father, who still resides in Hamburg, is Jamaican. A basketball stipend allowed Jermain to go to a US college in Iowa. Later he played basketball professionally for 7 years in four different teams of the first and second national basketball league in Germany. Jermain married his wife Laurel in 2012. He retired from basketball in the summer of 2014 and is now a sports editor at Vice Germany.
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Laurel was born in 1988 in Siegburg, Germany and is the youngest of three. Her mother is American and her father is German. She spent her childhood in Germany, the US and Japan. After completing high school at a German-American school in Berlin, she went to the UK to study psychology. A masters in cognitive neuroscience in Berlin was followed by her current position in psychology research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, where she is working on her PhD. Both Jermain and Laurel call Berlin, where they currently reside, their home.

 

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Great interview with Black-German filmmakers @schwarzrotgold_! #multiracial #mixedrace

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Season 2, Summer Short 2: Writer/Blogger Nicole Blades

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RECORDED 8/3/15: I loved speaking with a fellow writer and blogger who has seriously got it going on.  Listen in to the conversation I have with Nicole Blades and hear about her journey to becoming a writer, and her thoughts on the Mixed racial and cultural experience as the mom of a mixed kid.-Heidi Durrow

 

Listen to my talk with writer/blogger @nicoleblades! #multiracial #mixedrace

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Nicole Blades is an author and freelance journalist who writes about motherhood and race, identity, culture, and technology. Her debut novel, EARTH’S WATERS, was published in 2007 and her second novel, THE THUNDER BENEATH US (Kensington), will be published Fall 2016.  You can find her on Twitter @nicoleblades and on Facebook too!

Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Edmonia Lewis, sculptor

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mehm15_edmonia_lewisEdmonia Lewis (approx. 1844-approx. 1911) was the first African-American/Native American woman to become a prominent American sculptor.

Born to a Native-American mother, and an African-American father, Lewis also used her Indian name “Wild Fire.”  She began her career at Oberlin College, and went on to study in Boston where, under the tutelage of a well-known sculptor, she met Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, a Civil War commander, and sculpted him.  In 1865, she moved to Rome where her work drew considerable attention.  Upon her return to the United States several years later, she received substantial commissions for her portrait busts.  She was commissioned to create busts of Wadsworth Longfellow, John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln among others.

050708_EdmoniaLewis2One of her most famous sculptures is Forever Free, a representation of an African-American couple in broken chains after Emancipation.  The driving force in Lewis’s life was perhaps an incident at Oberlin, when she was accused of poisoning two white classmates and brutally beaten by a vigilante mob that left her for dead.  According to A History of African American Artists  From 1792 to the Present: “Edmonia Lewis’s struggle was unique.  Like other artists, she had to establish her own aesthetic values and artistic identity–but she had to do this in the face of strong prejudices against women, African-Americans, and Native Americans.  In addition, she had to struggle with her suspicions, her inability to trust others–the scar tissue from the scandalous charges brought against her at Oberlin, her brutal beating, and her humiliating ‘expulsion’ (from Oberlin) despite exoneration.  Nothing like this was endured by any other artist of her day.” (p. 67)

On becoming an artist Lewis said: “I always wanted to make the form of things.  My mother was famous for inventing new patterns for embroidery, and perhaps the same thing is coming out of me.”–Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.

Season 2, Bonus 5: James Ong, scholar & writer

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LIVE 5/28/15 6pm EASTERN: I was excited to talk with James Ong, a young scholar about his take on the “mixed-race movement” (is there one?) and what the best way to move the needle on the conversation about multiracial identity and experience is.  You can listen here or download the episode on itunes.–Heidi Durrow

jamesong

James Ong is a recent graduate of the UCLA Asian American Studies Masters Program and current doctoral student in the UC Davis History Department where he studies racial and ethnic history, immigration, critical-race theory, and environmental history.

He recently completed his M.A thesis which examines how socially-constructed monoracial and multiracial dichotomies emerge from discursive processes and interpersonal interactions, creating contextually specific definitions of “racial normativity.” Multiethnic individuals are often subjected to multiple and contradictory racial frameworks which socially, culturally, and legally define “ethnic identity” based on monoethnic standards. However, these “standards” constantly shift depending on the external observer’s interpretation of an individuals’ “mixed” phenotype and prevailing notions of “normative identity.” This perpetuates a seemingly intrinsic multiethnic “racial otherness” engendering both positive and negative consequences. His thesis explores the effects of this dynamic for mixed Japanese/Americans over the last 100 years. He argues this racial formation process remains a significant social and political issue for many Asian American groups today.

James has co-taught and co-authored courses on mixed race in Asian American history at UCLA with Lane Hirabayashi (PhD, UCLA Asian American Studies) and Robert Romero (PhD/JD, UCLA Chicano Studies/Asian American Studies). These courses engage critical race theory, historiography, and media analysis to address past and contemporary issues.

Beyond ethnic studies, his research interests include Japanese and Japanese American history, specifically and transnational migration. He has also contributed to courses related to general Asian American history, Contemporary U.S. history, and the History of East Asia.

James is also involved in various community projects and occasionally writes articles on race and identity. He enjoys traveling, photography, film, cycling, and soccer in his free time. He is also the creator, CEO and lead author for the coffee website coffeeisforlovers.com.

 

Season 2, Episode 29 : Daria, “Ambassador of Song”

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daria and shekere

LIVE 6/15/15: I’m excited to speak to this internationally known musician about all the influences of her music that speaks to kids and adults alike.  Don’t miss this episode!-Heidi Durrow

Called “”an ambassador of song”, by US newspapers, Daria has traveled around the world to create music that uplifts and empowers.  A winner of multiple “Parent’s Choice, NAPPA and Kids music awards, Daria’s cd’s are currently being played around the globe from Australia, to South Africa, to Europe and South America as well as across the United States in homes, preschools, schools and on several Native American Reservations. Says the Christian Science Monitor: “When Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou makes music, the world listens– literally! “

Learn more about .@dariasmusic for kids #multiracial 6/15 5pm Eastern!

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In concert, Daria shares a wonderful mixture of favorite songs from American and world folk music traditions.  She introduces unique authentic instruments and allows the audience to take part in playing them – from Buffalo and Pueblo drums to shékeres, box drums, washboards, guiros, handbells, singing bowls, chapchas and much more.  During the show she presents songs in a variety of languages; including English, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Zulu, German, Quechua Indian and Oneida (Iroquois) and includes best-loved songs such as “La Bamba” and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”.  Her live performances are popular at major art centers, festivals, venues, schools and other locations.  In addition to her live concerts, Daria also offers workshops, residencies and community workshops for exploring these exciting and diverse musical traditions.

Daria has recorded and released numerous children’s music CD’s and special releases including GRANDCHILDREN’S DELIGHT, BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW WORLD, I HAVE A DREAM and JADDA, JADDA, JING, JING JING!.  Her various cd’s all share a vision of a world of dignity and respect for all peoples.  Enthusiastically reviewed by press, children and parents alike; songs from these albums have been featured on XM Radio, Direct TV, World Wide Community Radio, Playhouse Radio, Kids Corner and the Songsforteaching.com website. In addition to her cd’s, Daria has created a resource-rich children’s music website that includes songs, activities, on-line coloring pages, build-an-instrument and hear-an-instrument sections located at www.dariamusic.com.

Daria was selected as the only female teaching artist for the STOMP/PULSE tour in 2004 and she represented the USA in World Expo in Seville, Spain 1992.  Recently, she received a Pennsylvania Council On The Arts Arts Commentary Award and a citation for her contribution to education in the state of Pennsylvania. With a passionate interest in music and community-building, Daria holds a degree in ethnomusicology and is active in education, Special Education, Native American, peace and children’s issues.  Daria lives with her family on a farm outside of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the United States.

For complete information, visit www.dariamusic.com or contact Daria at (610) 346-9087.

Learn more about Daria on Facebook.

Follow Dario on Twitter!

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