“I Want to be Nothing”. Challenging Notions of Culture, Race and Identity

Posted in Articles, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive on 2013-08-27 04:01Z by Steven

“I Want to be Nothing”. Challenging Notions of Culture, Race and Identity

Studia Humanistyczne AGH
Volume 10, Issue 2 (2011)
pages 75-83

Agata Lubowicka
University of Gdansk, Poland

This article tackles the issue of “hyphenated identities” in Heidi W. Durrow’s novel The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (2010), whose main topic is growing up as a girl of mixed race in a dominant black culture. This article examines how Rachel Morse, the main character in the novel, challenges racism and the essentialist notion of identity. Firstly, Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy’s approaches to that issue are introduced and discussed. Then in relation to their theories an interpretation of Durrow’s fictional character is delivered. As the third part of the article, elements of Danish culture appearing in Durrow’s are presented and analyzed as well as the novel’s explicit intertextual references to Nella Larsen’s authorship, another mulatto woman writer of half-Danish origin. In accordance with Gilory’s theory, the article’s aim is to show that Rachel’s identity is born in the process of self-reflection where Danishness becomes her ‘crossroads’ and thus to confirm that such phenomena as culture, ethnicity and identity are constantly constructed and altered.

Read the entire article here.

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Heidi Durrow~The Girl Who Fell From the Sky Into Our Hearts

Posted in Audio, Interviews, Live Events, Media Archive, United States on 2013-08-27 03:59Z by Steven

Heidi Durrow~The Girl Who Fell From the Sky Into Our Hearts

Mixed Race Radio
Blog Talk Radio
2013-08-28, 16:00Z (12:00 EDT)

Tiffany Rae Reid, Host

Heidi W. Durrow, Author

On Today’s episode of Mixed Race Radio, we will meet author, speaker, and visionary, Heidi Durrow. Heidi is the New York Times best-selling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (Algonquin Books), which received writer Barbara Kingsolver’s 2008 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change, and is already a book club favorite.

Ebony Magazine named Heidi as one of its Power 100 Leaders of 2010 along with writers Edwidge Danticat and Malcolm Gladwell. Heidi was nominated for a 2011 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Debut.

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Heidi is a graduate of Stanford, Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Law School.  She has worked as a corporate attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and as a Life Skills trainer to professional athletes of the National Football League and National Basketball Association. Most recently she has served as the co-host of the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat; and as a co-founder and co-producer of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival which was featured in the New York Times, Ebony Magazine and National Public Radio

For more information, click here.

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Mixed Chicks Chat with Professor Rudy Guevarra

Posted in Audio, History, Interviews, Latino Studies, Live Events, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2013-07-16 17:46Z by Steven

Mixed Chicks Chat with Professor Rudy Guevarra

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Episode: #261: Rudy Guevarra
When: Wednesday, 2012-06-20, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Rudy P. Guevarra, Jr., Assistant Professor, Asian Pacific American Studies, School of Social Transformation, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Arizona State University, Tempe

[This is the final episode of Mixed Chicks Chat.]

Rudy P. Guevarra Jr. is an assistant professor of Asian Pacific American Studies at Arizona State University. He is the author of Filipinos in San Diego: Images of America Series, and coeditor of Transnational Crossroads: Remapping the Americas and the Pacific and Crossing Lines: Race and Mixed Race Across the Geohistorical Divide.

His new book, Becoming Mexipino: Multiethnic Identities and Communities in San Diego, is a social-historical interpretation of two ethnic groups, one Mexican, the other Filipino, whose paths led both groups to San Diego, California. Rudy P. Guevarra Jr. traces the earliest interactions of both groups with Spanish colonialism to illustrate how these historical ties and cultural bonds laid the foundation for what would become close interethnic relationships and communities in twentieth-century California and the Pacific West Coast. Through racially restrictive covenants, both groups were confined to segregated living spaces along with African Americans, other Asian groups, and a few European immigrant clusters. Within these urban multiracial spaces, Mexicans and Filipinos coalesced to build a world of their own. Mexipino children, living simultaneously in two cultures, have forged a new identity for themselves and their lives are the lens through which these two communities are examined. Using archival sources, oral histories, newspapers, and personal collections and photographs, Guevarra defines the niche that this particular group carved out for itself.

Listen to the episode (00:33:22) here. Download the episode here.

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Is Interracial Marriage Still Scandalous?

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2013-06-15 03:49Z by Steven

Is Interracial Marriage Still Scandalous?

Room For Debate
The New York Times
2013-06-13

Kevin Noble Maillard, Professor of Law
Syracuse University

Gary B. Nash, Professor Emeritus of History
University of California, Los Angeles

Heidi W. Durrow, Author and Co-Founder
Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival

Diane Farr, Actress and Writer

Rose Cuison Villazor, Professor of Law
University of California, Davis

This month marks almost 50 years since the Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia, which made interracial marriage legal nationwide. Marriages between people of different races have climbed since, to a high of 8.4 percent in 2010.

Does this mean that we have achieved a colorblind society, or just that the hate has moved to YouTube? In an age when white people are becoming a minority, is interracial marriage still scandalous?

Kevin Noble Maillard, a professor of law at Syracuse University, suggested this discussion.

Read the entire discussion here.

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Covering Multiracial America Requires Historical Perspective

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, History, Media Archive, Social Science, United Kingdom, United States on 2012-11-18 18:33Z by Steven

Covering Multiracial America Requires Historical Perspective

Maynard Media Center on Structural Inequity
Maynard Institute
2012-11-14

Nadra Kareem Nittle

Although people of mixed races have lived in the United States for centuries, authorities on multiracial identity say mainstream media continue to report on these people as if they are a new phenomenon.

In 1619, the first slaves were brought to Britain’s North American colonies. The following year, says Audrey Smedley, professor emerita of anthropology and African American studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, the first “mulatto” child was born. Thus, mixed-race people have a long history in this country, disproving the notion often mentioned today that miscegenation will somehow magically cure racism.

Most major stereotypes about multiracial people in America historically involved individuals whose heritage was black and white or Native American and white. Such people were largely thought to yearn for the same advantages as whites but found them off-limits because of the “one-drop rule,” which originated in the South and mandated that just a drop of black blood meant they were of color.

In the 21st century, newer stereotypes about multiracial people have gained popularity. Rainier Spencer, founder and director of the Afro-American Studies Program and senior adviser to the president at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says contemporary media coverage of mixed-race people isn’t filled with tragic mulattoes but with docile symbols of a colorblind America yet to reach fruition.

“Multiracial people are infantilized,” Spencer says. “They [the media] don’t treat them as fully capable agents. Mixed-race people are quiet and happy, and they don’t complain. They’re our postracial future.”

Spencer, author of “Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix,” cautions that these notions are dangerous. The stereotype that multiracial people represent a bridge between races that will soon eradicate bigotry ignores the fact that such people were in North America more than a century before U.S. independence and that racism remains a reality.

This idea also lets the establishment off the hook, he says. “If mixed-race people are going to take us to a postracial destiny, then the power structure doesn’t have to worry about it. It’s very convenient.”…

…In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau permitted declaring more than one race on census forms. In the subsequent decade, several published articles reported that the mixed-race population was increasing, especially among young people.

But Heidi W. Durrow, who grew up as the only daughter of an African-American father and a Danish mother, would like to see news stories about multiracial people that don’t revolve around census figures…

Laura Kina, a founding member of the Critical Mixed Race Studies biennial conference and associate professor of Art, Media and Design at DePaul University, has similar concerns. She considers the idea that mixed-race people are new to be a stereotype. “They go back a very long ways,” she says.

Kina is the daughter of an Okinawan father from Hawaii and a Spanish-Basque/Anglo mother, according to her website…

Dominique DiPrima, host of Los Angeles radio show “The Front Page,” takes issue with the concept of multiracialism because she disputes the concept of race. “I think the media should differentiate between culture, ethnicity and race,” says DiPrima, daughter of Italian-American poet Diane di Prima and African-American writer Amiri Baraka…

Read the entire article here.

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2nd Annual: What Are You?

Posted in Identity Development/Psychology, Live Events, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2012-10-03 23:26Z by Steven

2nd Annual: What Are You?

Brooklyn Historical Society
Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations
2012-10-04, 19:00 EDT (Local Time)

Let’s talk about race and ethnicity, and where we’re from (or where we’re from from); how we express our own multicultural identities, and how others perceive us. Panelists will start the conversation and we hope you’ll join in. We’ll discuss big questions like: How does our cultural background shape us? Can we see race? Is identity fixed or fluid?  #CBBGwhatru

Featuring:

Co-sponsored by Swirl, a multi-ethnic, anti-racist organization that promotes cross-cultural dialogue

For more information, click here.

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Lecturer Hettie V. Williams to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Posted in Audio, Interviews, Live Events, Media Archive, United States on 2012-05-22 17:45Z by Steven

Lecturer Hettie V. Williams to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #257: Hettie V. Williams
When: Wednesday, 2012-05-23, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Hettie V. Williams, Lecturer of African American History
Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey

Hettie Williams’ research and teaching interests include: recent American history; the 1960s; the history of African Americans; race; identity; studies in the African Diaspora; and gender. She has taught survey courses in U.S. history, world history, western civilization, and upper division courses on the history of African Americans. She has published various entries and essays for several volumes and a text on the American civil rights movement titled We Shall Overcome to We Shall Overrun: The Collapse of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Revolt (1962-1968). Currently, she teaches as a lecturer of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. She has recently completed an edited volume titled Color Struck: Essays on Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective and is currently working on an edited volume titled, Race and the Obama Phenomenon: toward a More Perfect Union? (University of Mississippi Press) with the renown race scholar G. Reginald Daniel.

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Professor Mary Beltrán to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Posted in Audio, Communications/Media Studies, Interviews, Latino Studies, Live Events, Media Archive, United States on 2012-05-09 17:39Z by Steven

Professor Mary Beltrán to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #255 Professor Mary Beltrán
When: Wednesday, 2012-05-09, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Mary C. Beltrán, Associate Professor of Media Studies
University of Texas, Austin

Mary Beltrán an Assistant Professor of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin, is of Mexican and German, English, and Scotch Irish heritage. Her research is focused on the production and narration of race, ethnicity, gender and class in U.S. television, film, and celebrity culture, with an emphasis on Latina/o and mixed race representation. She is the co-editor (with Camilla Fojas) of Mixed Race Hollywood (NYU Press 2008), an anthology of scholarship on mixed-race representation in film, television, and new media. She also is the author of Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom (University of Illinois Press, 2009), which explores the construction and marketing of Latina and Latino stars in the U.S. in relation to the evolving status of Mexican Americans and other Latinos since the 1920s. Mary is a former journalist and social worker; her experiences working in San Francisco with Latina and African American teens and interest in the complexities of popular culture and its impact on young people of color spurred her to pursue a career that would allow her to combine her various interests and conduct research at the intersections of race, class, and gender and entertainment media studies. Since becoming a faculty member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now the University of Texas, Beltrán has taught a variety of classes on race and entertainment meida, including first-ever courses at both universities on Mixed Race and U.S. Media Culture. Aside from her books, she has published on such topics as mixed-race actors and characters in U.S. media culture, racial representation in millennial television, ethnic media activism targeting the television networks, and the racial politics of beauty and body ideals as reinforced in Hollywood media productions. She has been conducting research for a new book, Post-Race Pop: Interrogating Racelessness in Millennial Media Culture. Post-Race Pop explores the emphasis on racial ambiguity and utopic presentations of racial and ethnic diversity in contemporary television and other millennial media culture, particularly in light of the imperatives of the media industries to appeal to an increasingly diverse audience and popular political rhetoric that has utilized notions of post-racial America to widely divergent ends.

Selected Bibliography:

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Brian Bantum Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Posted in Audio, Interviews, Live Events, Media Archive, Religion, United States on 2012-05-02 00:17Z by Steven

Brian Bantum Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode 254: Brian Bantum
When: Wednesday, 2012-05-02, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Brian Bantum, Associate Professor of Theology
Seattle Pacific University


Brian Bantum is Assistant Professor of Theology at Seattle Pacific University and author of Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity.

Listen to the episode here.

Redeeming Mulatto: Race, Culture, and Ethnic Plurality from Quest Church on Vimeo.

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Nicole Myoshi Rabin to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Posted in Audio, Interviews, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United States on 2012-04-25 22:00Z by Steven

Nicole Myoshi Rabin to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (Founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival)
Hosted by Fanshen Cox, Heidi W. Durrow and Jennifer Frappier
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: Nicole Myoshi Rabin
When: Wednesday, 2012-04-25, 21:00Z (17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT)

Nicole Myoshi Rabin, Instructor of Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies
Emerson College, Boston. Massachusetts

Rabin is the author of the articles “True Blood: The Vampire as a Multiracial Critique on Post-Race” in Journal of Dracula Studies (2010) and “Interrogating Identity Construction: Bodies versus Community in Cynthia Kadohata’s In the Heart of the Valley of Love” in Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies (2010).

Listen to the podcast here. Download the podcast here.

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