Mixed Race Studies

“Western Zombies and Their Killers: Exceptionalism, the Empty West, and Mixed Race Families” a lecture by Dr. Anne Hyde

Colorado State University
Cherokee Park Ballroom, Lory Student Center
Fort Collins, Colorado
2014-12-04, 16:30-18:30 MST (Local Time)

Please join us for a public lecture and book signing/reception by Dr. Anne Hyde, William R. Hochman Professor of History at Colorado College. The title of her talk is drawn from her prize-winning book, Empires, Nations, and Families: The North American West, 1800-1860, which won the 2012 Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for a Pulitzer…

For more information, click here.

‘Fourteen Frames’ aims to create discussions on race, identity

The Daily Northwestern
Evanston, Illinois
2014-11-11

Shane McKeon, Reporter

A group within Global Engagement Summit launched a Tumblr page and physical gallery profiling 14 Northwestern students and their experiences with race and identity.

“Fourteen Frames” opened at Norris University Center on Nov. 5, the same day the Tumblr page went live with supplemental videos of some of the gallery’s subjects. The OpenShutter Project, a group within GES that focuses on discussing social change through art and visual media, organized the exhibit.

The page contains links to short videos of some of the students, who discuss what race and identity mean to them. In addition, other students can submit their own views on race through a text field linked on the page.

Medill junior Kalina Silverman, co-founder and co-president of the Mixed Race Student Coalition, was featured in the gallery and said it is important to discuss race on college campuses.

“Race is a tricky phenomenon to navigate on campus, especially when you grow up defining yourself a certain way,” Silverman said. “Then you come to campus and your philosophies and political views are also swayed as you learn more and more. It’s up to you to choose how to define yourself, and that can be very tricky.”…

Read the entire article here.

Ibeyi: “I feel like our father is looking over us”

DIY Magazine
London, United Kingdom
2014-11-11

Jamie Milton

Photo: Emma Swann

From ancient teachings to modern electronics, these French-Cuban twins bring a modern hybrid of pop.

Lisa-Kainde and Naomi Díaz make up Ibeyi, two French-Cuban twins producing music with XL Recordings head honcho Richard Russell at the helm. Earlier this year Russell helped out on Damon Albarn’s solo debut ‘Everyday Robots’, a project that’s been a long time coming but was practically forced into existence. Ibeyi, on the flipside, comes off like something eager to career into view, the first step of an act that’s only just beginning to evolve.

The pair’s basics build on the teachings of the Yoruba culture, which in their own words believes in “energy”, not necessarily spirits, “love and life and death”, but not strictly life after death. Musically, Yoruba teaches the importance of dance and percussion, the latter of which their late Father, Anga Díaz, became celebrated for. It’s not something that strictly runs in the family, mind you.

“Oh no, I’m bad at percussion!” proclaims the afro-sporting Lisa-Kainde. “But I appreciate it so much. When you’re a child you must have to learn how to dance with rhythm. It’s one of the most amazing things.”…

Read the entire interview here.

‘What are you, anyway?’: Why I loved growing up in a mixed-race family

The Digital Universe
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah
2014-11-01

Angela Marler

When I was a kid it was completely normal for me to spend one weekend with my mom’s side of the family, roasting a goat in a pit in the driveway, surrounded by fruit trees and watching Telemundo. It was also normal for me to spend a Sunday with my dad’s relatives, lounging in a million-dollar home, playing video games and feasting on all-American roast and potatoes.

I felt equally comfortable in either situation, and I loved both sides and their quirks. My heritage was something I was proud of, and even if some people didn’t believe that my brother (dark-skinned with thick, curly hair) was the offspring of my father (extremely white and balding), I liked the fact that my family was a little different from my friends’ families…

Read the entire article here.

‘Global Mixed Race’ conference welcomes scholars, filmmakers to Chicago

DePaul University
News Release
2014-10-29

DePaul University faculty Laura Kina and Camilla Fojas cofounded the Critical Mixed Race Studies conference and will deliver opening remarks at this year’s event. (Photo by Jamie Moncrief

Rebecca King-O’Riain, senior lecturer at the National University Ireland Maynooth, will give a keynote speech at the “Global Mixed Race” conference at DePaul University. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca King-O’Riain)

Zélie Asava of the Dundalk Institute of Technology in Ireland will discuss mixed race representations in Irish cinema at the “Global Mixed Race” conference at DePaul University. (Photo courtesy of Zélie Asava)

DePaul University to host free gathering Nov. 13-15

CHICAGO — Critical mixed race studies, a growing academic field that crosses national, disciplinary and racial boundaries, will be the focus of discussion by scholars, filmmakers and performers at an international conference Nov. 13-15 in Chicago. “Global Mixed Race” will be held at DePaul University’s Lincoln Park Campus, 2250 N. Sheffield Ave. In addition to presentations of scholarly research, there will be live performances and film screenings, including the Chicago premiere of “Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China” by director Paula Williams Madison.

Nearly 200 presenters from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Japan and Australia will participate in 45 panels during this third biennial conference, which was founded at DePaul in 2010.

“We wanted to create a dynamic space for ongoing scholarly antiracist conversations, debates, and creative processes around multiraciality that also is open and inclusive for the general public, community organizations, and those involved in the arts,” said Laura Kina, cofounder of the conference and professor of art, media and design at DePaul University. Kina is coauthor of “War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art” and an artist whose solo exhibitions include “Blue Hawai’I” and “Sugar.”

Camilla Fojas, conference cofounder and professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at DePaul, will deliver the welcoming address with Kina.

“Critical mixed race studies is comparative and interdisciplinary. It engages colonial and imperial histories, giving it a transnational and global focus,” Fojas said. Her research focuses on transnational American media and cultural studies in a comparative imperial context. Her newest work, “Islands of Empire: Pop Culture and U.S. Power,” examines how the United States has narrated its relationship with island territories, including Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico.

The conference will feature two keynote speakers from Ireland: Rebecca King-O’Riain and Zélie Asava…

Read the entire press release here.

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni on Growing Up with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Race, and What It Takes to Do a One-Woman Show

Phoenix New Times
2014-10-30

Zaida Dedolph

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni stars in a one-woman show written by her and produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni wants to talk about race in America — and she’s got an idea of where she wants to start. The writer-actor-director-producer extraordinaire will bring her one-woman show, One Drop of Love, to Mesa Arts Center on Saturday, November 1.

Inspired by her own experiences with race, family, and reconciliation, One Drop of Love endeavors to explore these concepts in a funny, relatable way. In addition to giving two performances, Cox DiGiovanni will be hosting a panel discussion and community dialogue on Thursday, October 31, at the Arizona Opera Center. We spoke with the creative about her performance, her history, and her first-ever visit to Arizona.

Zaida Dedolph: Fanshen, you seem to wear a lot of hats. Where did you learn to do all of these things?

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni: I mostly see myself as an actor — that’s why I moved to Los Angeles and what I’ve been pursuing for the longest time in a creative capacity. I’ve known I wanted to be an actor since I was very young, but at the mean time I had all these other interests. So I joined the Peace Corps in West Africa and that got me into teaching, so I balanced teaching and acting.

As an actor, especially in LA, I started to notice that I wasn’t booking but I also was auditioning for things that I didn’t feel good about or proud of, so it was hard to bring my all to an audition when I felt like the roles were demeaning or just not me. As much as I think it’s good to stretch as an actor, it’s also good to know that you’ve got at least a base that you can work from. So I started to learn about writing.

It helps that I grew up with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and was incredibly fortunate to watch them take a story that they believed in, then write that story, and write themselves into lead roles in that story, and then turn it into Good Will Hunting. So I had some people close to me to model the fact that I could write characters that I could feel good about and be proud of.

I started learning about writing, did some stand-up, wrote a couple feature-length screenplays, so now I had this writing and some characters I was proud of, but then I asked “what’s next, how do I get these characters out there?” and realized I needed to learn how to produce as well. I joined a program in Los Angeles called Project Involve [a faction of Film Independent that works to support filmmakers from backgrounds that are not frequently represented in the film industry] and learned a little more about producing.

My husband was researching MFA schools and found the most affordable one in the country was at California State University [at] Los Angeles, so I followed him into the program. That’s where I really learned hands on producing. One Drop of Love was my thesis for the MFA program, so I got to put all the things that I learned together. That’s how I ended up producing and performing and writing…

..ZD: When it comes to the American discussion of race, what issues do you think we are focusing too much attention on? Which ones do you think we should be paying more mind to?

FCD: I hope people walk away from the show [understanding] that we tend to focus too much on our differences when it comes to race. In the show I try to make it clear that race doesn’t exist genetically, and yes, we’ve all kind of come to a place where we believe in it culturally and politically, but genetically there is zero difference, as was proven by Human Genome Project.

In the show, I take the racial categories from the first U.S. Census in the 1790s. It had three racial categories and has been changed 24 times since then, now there are so many racial categories on the census. Anything that can change that easily can’t have any real, strong bearing on anything! Unfortunately, we’ve let it become so important.

I hope people will focus less on what our differences in race are and focus on what we all have in common, which is that none of us want racism. We created race to oppress people, so let’s not focus on these differences and instead focus on where we can unify…

Read the entire interview here.

Gillian Wearing redefines Birmingham for the 21st century

The Telegraph
London, United Kingdom
2014-10-31

Bernadette McNulty, Music Editor and Arts Writer

Gillian Wearing’s A Real Birmingham Family Photo: Courtesy of Birmingham City Council, Arts Council England and Ikon

With her statue of a mixed-race, single-parent family, Gillian Wearing has transformed Birmingham’s city centre, says Bernadette McNulty

Birmingham has had an uneasy relationship with public sculpture over the last few decades. In 1991, the council unveiled a work by the city-born artist Raymond Mason in the newly created Centenary Square. Called Forward, it depicted a throng of the city’s great and good at key moments in the area’s history – including Joseph Chamberlain and Josiah Mason. Made out of butter-coloured polyester resin, the monument was comically dubbed the Lurpak statue by locals and in 2003 destroyed by arsonists.

In nearby Victoria Square, Antony Gormley’s ominous Iron Man looms over a corner, while Dhruva Mistry’s 1994 River Goddess – known as the Floozie in the Jacuzzi – is currently trussed up in a neon pink bikini for a breast cancer campaign. To her left, a towering column props up a magisterial Queen Victoria, who looks away disapprovingly.

But the latest statue in Centenary Square, while no less controversial than Mason’s, stands a better chance of connecting with the feelings of the city’s residents. Gillian Wearing’s A Real Birmingham Family was unveiled on Thursday outside the new Library of Birmingham. This flagship building, thronged with people, has transformed the square, now unrecognisable from its Mason days. Before it was revealed to a small, excited crowd (including local dignitaries and the artist), the piece looked dwarfed by the monumental proportions of the library behind it…

…It wasn’t until plans for the new library were finalised in 2010, with a site in front of it designated for a statue, that the project was set in motion. The Ikon set about a painstaking two-year search for entries of what people nominated as their “real” family, including groups of friends or even single people. In the end a committee whittled down hundreds of entrants to the two mixed-race, single parent Jones sisters: “They were passionate about knowing their identity as a family and the bond between them. They also spoke of how proud they were to be from Birmingham and how Birmingham was such an accepting place, and how they can be a family here more than anywhere else.”…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed-race African-Carribean children at risk of falling behind in Reading primary schools

Get Reading (Reading Post)
Reading, United Kingdom
2014-11-13

Natasha Adkins, Health Reporter

The gap between Reading’s under-performing ethnic groups in the Key Stage 2 national curriculum tests has widened to 10 per cent – an increase of three per cent on 2013’s results

Mixed-race African-Carribean children in Reading’s primary schools are at risk of falling behind, warns Reading’s lead councillor for education.

The gap between Reading’s under-performing ethnic groups (UPEG) in the Key Stage 2 (KS2) national curriculum tests has widened to 10 per cent – an increase of three per cent on 2013’s results.

A report into school performance at the adult social care, children’s services and education committee meeting last Thursday showed that while all children in Reading had made progress in 2014, the rate of progression in UPEG has slowed…

Read the entire article here.