The Mixed Experience

a mixed chick on a mixed-up world

You are here: Home / Archives for mixed roots

Season 4, Episode 6: Award-winning Writer Lori Tharps, author of Same Family Different Colors

by Leave a Comment

lori tharps bookRECORDED 10/3/16: Don’t miss my conversation with award-winning writer Lori Tharps about her latest non-fiction book Same Family Different Colors.  Lori has been a leading voice in conversations about racial and cultural connection and difference. Listen to her talk about this much-needed book and the much-needed conversations it is sure to spark!  Listen here or download the episode on itunes.-Heidi Durrow

 

 

I talk with @loritharps about her new EXCELLENT book Same Family, Different Colors #multiracial

Click To Tweet

lori collage black and whitelori tharps photoLori L. Tharps is an assistant professor of journalism at Temple University, an award-winning author, freelance journalist and popular speaker.

Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she left the Midwest in search of an authentic life experience beginning with four years at Smith College. (Technically, one of those years was spent studying abroad in Salamanca, Spain.). After graduating from Smith, with a B.A. in comparative education and Spanish, Tharps spent two years working on Madison Avenue at one of New York City’s top-ten public relations agencies. While there she worked tirelessly writing press releases and organizing press events for a certain candy company, powdered soup distributor and a well-known maker of dry toast. After realizing she’d never succeed as a PR executive, Tharps entered Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and has been writing her way through the world ever since.

After graduation from Columbia, Tharps was a staff reporter at Vibe magazine and then a correspondent for Entertainment Weekly. She has written for Ms., Glamour, Suede, Vogue Black, Caribbean Life, Grid Philadelphia, xoJane.com and Essence magazines. She has also written for The Columbia Journalism Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, TheRoot.com and Ebony.com. Her work can also be read in the anthologies, Young Wives Tales: Stories of Love and Partnership (Seal Press), Naked: Black Women Bare All About their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips and Other Parts (Perigee), Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine (FSG) and Women: Images & Realities. A Multicultural Anthology (Avalon). Tharps is the author of two works of nonfiction – Hair Story:Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (St. Martin’s Press) and Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain (Atria) – and the novel, Substitute Me(Atria).

Currently Tharps lives in Philadelphia with her husband and three children and she is working on a new book exploring the role of skin color politics in American families. Tharps doesn’t have a dog, but if she did, his name would be Otis. She has traveled extensively throughout the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. Tharps is (almost) fluent in Spanish and can say I love you in seven languages.

Season 4, Episode 4: Author/Historian Arica Coleman on Mixed-Race Black and Native American Connections

by Leave a Comment

arica coleman book coverRECORDED 9/16/16: I had a fantastic conversation with Professor Arica Coleman, author of That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia.  Tune in live or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

 

 

Don’t miss this podcast about African-American and Native American connections with @alcphd #multiracial

Click To Tweet

arica collage

arica colemanDr. Arica L. Coleman is an award-winning American historian whose research focuses on comparative ethnic studies and issues of racial formation and identity. Her additional research interests include indigeneity, immigration/migration, interracial relations, mixed race identity, race and gender intersections, sexuality, the politics of race and science, and popular culture.

Dr. Coleman is an evaluator of African American Programs for the Delaware Humanities Forum and a freelance contributor to Time Magazine’s History and Archives Division. She is also chair of the  ALANA Committee  for  the Organization of American Historians which focuses on the status of African American, Latino/a American, Native American and Asian American histories and historians within the history profession. She is the 2015-2017 chairperson for ALANA’s Huggins/Quarles Award and ALANA’s committee chairperson for 2016-2018. In addition, she serves on the Critical Mixed Race Conference 2017 Planning Committee.

Dr. Coleman received her doctorate in American Studies with a concentration in African American-Native America relations in North America from the Union Institute and University in 2005.  She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Scholarly Information Resources and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University during the 2006-2007 academic year.  In 2008, she was a summer Mellon Fellow for the Future of Minority Studies Consortium at Cornell University.

Dr. Coleman has held faculty appointments in Africana Studies at Widener University, the University of Delaware and Johns Hopkins University. In 2014, she was lead faculty facilitator for the UNCF/Mellon Faculty Fellows Domestic Summer Institute held at the University of New Mexico. The seminar titled In Search of Home: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Shared Experiences of Indigenous and Immigrant Populations in Colonized Spaces was developed in collaboration with UNM, The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, and the Laguna Pueblo Nation.

Dr. Coleman has lectured and presented papers at academic and public venues including The Organization of American Historians, The American Historical Association, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, MIT’s Conference on Race and Science, The National Holocaust Museum, The Virginia Forum, The United Cherokee Nation of Virginia Annual Meeting, and the Hampton Public Library.

She has also lent her expertise on matters of race and ethnicity to the Washington Post,Indian Country Today, History News Network, L.A. Progressive, NPR’s Another View, The Female View Broadcast, Native Trailblazers Blog Radio, CTV (Canada News), and the Virginia General Assembly House Rules Committee.

Her first book, That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia, a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2014, traces the history and legacy of Virginia’s effort to maintain racial purity and the consequences of this almost four hundred year effort on African American – Native American relations and kinship bonds in the Commonwealth.

Season 3, Episode 24: Author Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, Sarong Party Girls

by Leave a Comment

RECORDED 7/18/16: It was so great to speak with Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan about her new book Sarong Party Girls. You can listen to it here or download it on itunes.-Heidi Durrow

My interview w/ @cheryltan88 Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan abt her excellent book Sarong Party Girls.

Click To Tweet

cheryl collage 2

 

cheryl photoCheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New York-based journalist and author of “Sarong Party Girls” (William Morrow, 2016) as well as “A Tiger In The Kitchen: A Memoir of Food & Family“ (Hyperion, 2011). She is the editor of the fiction anthology “Singapore Noir“ (Akashic Books, 2014).

She was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, In Style magazine and the Baltimore Sun. Her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Washington Post, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, National Geographic, Foreign Policy, Marie Claire, Newsweek, Bloomberg Businessweek, Chicago Tribune, The (Portland) Oregonian, The (Topeka) Capital-Journal and The (Singapore) Straits Times among other places.

Cheryl SPG_FINALCOVERShe has been an artist in residence at Yaddo, where she wrote “A Tiger in the Kitchen,” Hawthornden Castle, Le Moulin à Nef, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Headlands Center for the Arts, Ragdale Foundation, Ledig House and the Studios of Key West. In 2012, she was the recipient of a major arts creation grant from the National Arts Council of Singapore in support of her novel.

Born and raised in Singapore, she crossed the ocean at age 18 to go to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Unsure of whether she would remain in the U.S. after college, she interned in places as disparate as possible. She hung out with Harley Davidson enthusiasts in Topeka, Kan., interviewed gypsies about their burial rituals in Portland, Ore., covered July 4 in Washington, D.C., and chronicled the life and times of the Boomerang Pleasure Club, a group of Italian-American men that were getting together to cook, play cards and gab about women for decades in their storefront “clubhouse” in Chicago.

An active member of the Asian American Journalists Association, she served on its national board for seven years, ending in 2010.

“Utterly irresistible. I fell in love with the fresh, exuberant voice and trenchant wit of Jazzy … In her debut novel, Tan is saying something profound and insightful about the place of women in our globalized, capitalized, interconnected world.” — Ruth Ozeki
 
“In Singapore this satirical novel of predatory beauties would be regarded as deeply subversive – for the rest of us, and anyone familiar with life in that little island city state, it is hilarious and original.” — Paul Theroux
 

“Scarlett O’Hara would have met her match in Jazeline Lim, the brazen, striving, yet ultimately vulnerable heroine of this bold debut novel. Tan paints a stark portrait, comic yet chilling, of a society in which a young woman who seeks a way out risks falling in too deep.” — Julia Glass

Mixed Experience History Month 2016: Regina M. Anderson, playwright & artistic leader

by Leave a Comment

mixed race historyRegina M. Anderson (1901-1993) was born of mixed-race ancestry.  She identified as “American” and was a leader in the black artistic community.

Anderson received a master’s degree in library science from Columbia University.  She worked as a librarian with the New York Public Library for more than 40 years.  Her home became a central hub for Harlem’s intellectuals and artists.

She was a founding member of the Krigwa Players, a black acting troupe with became the Negro Experimental Theatre.  Anderson was also a playwright who wrote under the pseudonym Ursula or Ursala Trelling.  Her work included Climbing Jacob’s Ladder (1931) and Underground (1932).

She is quoted as saying in 1981: “It gives me a great deal of personal satisfaction to have lived to see much of what we and other pioneers worked to achieve becoming a reality. However, we need more and more opportunities for our actors, writers, and directors.” Anderson died in 1993 in New York. –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!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015.

Mixed Experience History Month 2016, James McCune Smith, doctor & abolitionist

by Leave a Comment

mixed race history

James McCune Smith (1813-1865) was born free to an enslaved woman who later self-emancipated herself.  His father was a white slave owner.  Smith was an exceptional student, but was denied admission to universities because of his race.

Smith found a champion in an African-American minister who helped finance his education at University of Glasgow in Scotland instead.

He graduated at the top of his class in 1835.  He received his medical degree in 1837.  Smith returned to New York in the 1840s as the first university-trained black doctor in the country.  He cared for both black and white patients and worked tirelessly to help children specifically, the kids of the Colored Orphan Asylum where he practiced for 25 years.

Smith was the first university-trained black doctor in the US. #mixedrace #multiracial

Click To Tweet

He was a prominent aboilitionist and wrote extensively against slavery including writing the introduction to Frederick Douglass’ autobiography.  Smith died in 1863 in Ohio where he served as a professor at Wilberforce College.  He was survived by his wife and five children.-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!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015.

Season 3, Episode 9: Traveling Abroad While Mixed & Other Musings

by Leave a Comment

the mixed experience by heidi durrowRECORDED 1/11/16: In the first episode of the season, I took the opportunity to muse a little bit about my recent trip to a remote island and my search for a “tribe” that looks like me.  Also, I share a recent blog post about my thoughts on the state of Multiracial America.  Is this a multiracial or biracial moment or is it a multiracial or biracial movement?  I say there is no multiracial movement (at least not yet).  What do you say?  Listen here or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

Traveling abroad while #mixedrace or #multiracial & trying to find my “tribe”.

Click To Tweet

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

by Leave a Comment

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.

Click To Tweet

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.

Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Mildred Loving, social justice pioneer

by Leave a Comment

Mixed Experience History MonthMildred Loving’s challenge of Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law led to the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision  (Loving v. Virginia) which affirmed the right of people of different races to marry.  Loving and her white husband, Richard, were arrested when they returned home to their rural Virginia town and pled guilty to “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.”  It was illegal for whites and blacks to marry in at least 17 states at the time.  In its landmark unanimous ruling the Court stated: “There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry soley because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause.”  My parents married in 1965 in Denmark; it was illegal for them to marry in South Carolina, the location of my father’s next assignment.  When my father’s work superiors found out that he had married a white woman, he was relocated to the Pacific Northwest instead.  Mildred Loving died in 2008 at the age of 68.-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, Episode 26: Mixed And Irish

by Leave a Comment

RECORDED 5/18/15: I really enjoyed speaking with a group of Mixed/Irish writers who discussed the spectrum of what it means to their writing and what they claim as their heritage when Mixed Irish-ness is a discussion that the Irish are just beginning to explore.  You can listen to the episode here, or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

murphemail-1-214x300Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu is an Irish-Japanese psychologist, author, and storyteller. Born in Tokyo, raised in Massachusetts, educated at Harvard, his life has been between Japan and the U.S., exploring borders of cultural identities. He uses this life experience in his writing about mixed heritage for both academic and general audiences, most recently in When Half is Whole and a blog for Psychology Today. He teaches mindfulness and narrative psychology at Stanford. @drshigematsu

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are you? Mixed and Irish! Listen in to this great conversation! #multiracial

Click To Tweet

 

Clare-Ramsaran Clare Ramsaran 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”.  She is an alumna of the VONA Voices workshop and is an MFA candidate at the University of San Francisco. She is currently working on a novel about two Caribbean brothers who join other young immigrants to London in their pursuit of love (of the inter-racial and queer varieties) and justice. She blogs for Mixed Remixedand her writing has been published in anthologies in the USA and England, and in journals including the St Sebastian Review. Visit her blog at: clareramsaran.blogspot.com

dylanDylan Amaro-McIntyre is a reformed former misanthrope who finds beauty in the details because the big picture terrifies him. He draws words and writes pictures. He also writes poems, sometimes well. He has been published in various poetry collections and has been featured as a performer at well known venues throughout the Bay Area. On Thursday nights he binge eats peanut butter; he recently discovered Macadamia butter and it is ruining his life.

 

 

 

 

Caroline Mei-Lin Mar was born and raised in the Bay Area. Carrie is a queer mixed-race Chinese-Irish femme who was raised to cause trouble by her radical lefty parents (her first childhood St. Patrick’s Day parade participation involved staging a pro-IRA “die-in”). She currently works as a secondary Special Education teacher and owes great gratitude to her students and colleagues for Carrie-Marwhat they teach Flag-Pins-Ireland-Guyanaher every day. A recent graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and an alumna of the Voices at VONA workshop, Carrie is seeking publication of her first book, Special Education. Her poems have been published in The Collagist, Shadowgraph, As Us, and others.

Season 2, Bonus Episode 4: Writer Jim Grimsley, How I Shed My Skin

by Leave a Comment

How I Shed My Skin Jim GrimsleyRecorded 4/29/15: I had a great talk with writer Jim Grimsley, author of How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Lessons of a Racist Childhood.  In the memoir, Grimsley looks back at his own childhood, growing up poor and white in the South, and how he experienced the desegregation of schools in the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.  Now decades later, he has written about coming into his own understanding of his own prejudices and looks at how far we have come as a nation in our understanding of the racial and cultural connectedness of different races.  You can listen here, or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

An interview with Jim Grimsley on his new book. “A powerful meditation on race.” —Natasha Trethewey, US Poet Laureate

Click To Tweet

Grimsley, Jim_credit to Kay Hinton Emory University_HRJim Grimsley is the author of four previous novels, among them Winter Birds, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; Dream Boy, winner of the GLBTF Book Award for literature; My Drowning, a Lila-Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award winner; and Comfort and Joy. He lives in Atlanta and teaches at Emory University.

An interview with .@JimGrimsley1 : Unlearning Lessons of a Racist Childhood #multiracial

Click To Tweet

The Mixed Experience Minute Vlog

Guest Host Jennifer Frappier

Podcast Episodes