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Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Educator & Activist

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Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Sa or Red Bird, was born in 1876 to a full-blooded Sioux woman and a white man.

She struggled with her mixed-race heritage as a chid on the reservation as well as off.  She received a scholarship to attend Earlham University where she studied violin.

Her activism began after she took a teaching position at the New England Conservatory where the school’s founder’s philosophy was “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”

She started writing essays against the movement to make Indian students relinquish their cultural identities.  In 1916, as an officer of the Society of American Indians, she was instrumental in the formation of the Indian Welfare Committee and wrote an investigation into the government’s mistreatment of Indian tribes–specifically, the defrauding of American Indians in Oklahoma of their oil-rich lands.  In 1926, she founded the National Council of American Indians, a lobbying group for American Indian legal rights.

Zitkala-Sa’s worked as an activist her entire life, but she also kept up her love for music and writing.  In 1938, her opera “Sun Dance” debuted on Broadway.  She died that same year.-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, 2016.

 

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

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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

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

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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.

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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, James McCune Smith, doctor & abolitionist

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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

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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

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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”.

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Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Philippa Schuyler, child prodigy and journalist

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Mixed Experience History Month phillipa schuylerPhilippa Schuyler (1931-1967), the daughter of black conservative writer George Schuyler, was a talented pianist and journalist who demonstrated her gifts at an early age.  At age nine, she was profiled in “Evening with a Gifted Child” by a celebrated New Yorker writer.

As a teen-aged concert pianist, she toured widely throughout the United States and overseas and claimed New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as one of her biggest fans.

In 1967, Schuyler died in a helicopter crash off the Vietnamese coast where she had traveled as a war correspondent.  Alicia Keys is rumored to star in a film version of Schuyler’s life in development (based on Kathryn Talalay’s book Composition in Black and White).-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

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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

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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, Episode 24: Mike Twitty, AfroCulinaria Blogger and Author

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michael-in-harlem-twoRECORDED 5/4/15: I was excited to talk with blogger and author Mike Twitty about his work, faith, food, and his forthcoming book The Cooking Gene.  He really breaks it down in terms of claiming the Mixed experience through food.  You don’t want to miss this interview.  You can listen here. Or download it on itunes.–Heidi Durrow

michael twitty kitchen_sepia_emailMichael Twitty, blogger at Afroculinaria, speaks with us. Twitty (@koshersoul) is a food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian , and historical interpreter personally charged with preparing, preserving and promoting African American foodways and its parent traditions in Africa and her Diaspora and its legacy in the food culture of the American South. Michael is a Judaic studies teacher from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area and his interests include food culture, food history, Jewish cultural issues, African American history and cultural politics. Afroculinaria will highlight and address food’s critical role in the development and definition of African American civilization and the politics of consumption and cultural ownership that surround it.

Season 2, Episode 22: Pulitzer Prize Winner Tracy K. Smith & Her New Memoir

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tracysmithbookcoverRecorded 4/20/15: I was thrilled to speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith about her new memoir Ordinary Light.  I met Tracy many years ago at Bread Loaf and it’s been a joy to see her star rise.  She’s incredibly talented, warm and witty, and nice to boot.  Listen in to our conversation.  You’ll love her answer to the “What are you?” question.  And make sure you get her book as well!  You can listen to her interview here or download it from itunes—Heidi Durrow

I interviewed Pulitzer Prize Winner Tracy K. Smith!

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tracy smith poets and writersTRACY K. SMITH is the author of three acclaimed poetry collections, including Life on Mars, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She has received a Whiting Writers’ Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and currently teaches at Princeton University.

When a poet of Tracy Smith’s considerable lyric talent turns her attention to prose, she sets the bar ever higher.” Julia Alvarez

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Season 2, Episode 21: Writer Jennifer Teege My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past

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jennifer_teege_book_coverRECORDED  4/13/15: I was so excited to speak with Jennifer Teege, author (with Nikola Sellmair) of My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past.  She tells the fascinating and horrifying story of how she discovered that she was related to Amon Goeth, the vicious Nazi commandant depicted in Schindler’s List.  In our conversation we talk about the book, Jennifer’s upbringing as “black” in Germany and her relationship to identifying as German, and we raise the very difficult subject of making peace with our ancestor’s violent past and how that relates to the African-American experience. She’s doing an extensive tour of the U.S. Don’t miss her.  You can find the book tour information below. You can listen to the interview here or download it on itunes.-Heidi Durrow

An interview with Jennifer Teege, a black woman who discovered her family’s Nazi past. #multiracial

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jenniferteegeephotoJennifer Teege is the daughter of a German woman and a Nigerian father and was adopted at a young age by white parents.  She has worked in advertising since 1999 and lives in Germany with her husband and two sons.  In her twenties, she studied for four years in Israel, where she learned fluent Hebrew.  She holds degrees from Tel Aviv University in Middle Eastern and African Studies.  This is her first book.

“We can decide for ourselves who and what we want to be.” Jennifer Teege #multiracial

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Jennifer Teege Book Tour Information

 Jennifer Teege

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