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Author: Storyteller

Watermelon Sushi

Yayoi L. Winfrey filled out our ‘promote your story link’ to promote her film Watermelon Sushi. Let us know if you have any projects you’d like us to promote!

“Michiko Johnson looks Asian. She says she’s black. A hip-hop head, soul sistah who greases on greens and cornbread, Michiko is outspoken about her African roots. She adores her younger sister, April, whose physical features are more African than hers. But April speaks fluent Japanese and eats only vegan meals with chopsticks.”

“Told against the backdrop of the rising rap music scene of the early 1980’s,Watermelon Sushi plans to feature old school rappers like Chuck D, Kool Mo Dee, LL Cool J, Afrika Bambaataa and newcomers like Japan’s superstar enka singer, Jero-san.”

In addition to being in film production Watermelon Sushi is an art exhibit series, a blog, and book of photos/poetry/illustrations “Watermelon Sushi: The Story of a Black Girl and Her Japanese Mother.”

http://www.watermelonsushi.com/

Multi-talented Performer Alejandro T Acierto

Alejandro T. Acierto is an award winning performer.

“Alejandro T. Acierto is a musician and interdisciplinary artist whose innovative work in contemporary music, performance art, and art installation has led Time-Out New York to call him a “maverick.” He employs a multi-media aesthetic integrating music, sound, performance, and installation that explores notions of fluid identities and the slippages of cultural definitions.”

His next performance, Suspicious Package, is October 26th at 7:30pm in Brooklyn, NYC.

He will be in Saint Paul, MN November 5th and Chicago, IL  Nov 8th.

Learn more about this storyteller and his future performances at

http://alejandroacierto.com/

Kickstarter: New Children’s Book About Diversity

An author of a new children’s book filled out our ‘promote your story link’ to promote her Kickstarter campaign for a new children’s book. Let us know if you have any projects you’d like us to promote!

From their Kickstarter Campaign page (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/453478160/a-friend-can-be)

“A Friend Can Be” is a book inspired by years of preschool teaching and by a “three round” motherhood experience. While most books about friendship are geared towards older children, ” A Friend Can Be” is written in a way that even a very young child can understand. The language of the book is clear and simple and the illustrations feature familiar landmarks in Atlanta that captivate an older audience as well as the young children. Crafted for children roughly from 2 to 6-years-old, “A Friend Can Be” is written and illustrated to include all kinds of kids, all kinds of places, and all kinds of people in general. Written by an Early Childhood and Special Ed teacher with over 12 years experience Ana Hazanov, and designed and illustrated by amazingly creative artist Gregory Lee, this books reflects years of expertise and many days (and nights) of creative labor.

 

Aaron Samuels: Yarmulkes & Fitted Caps

from amazon.com

from amazon.com

Aaron is another performer that we got to meet at the 2012 Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival. His spoken word piece left the audience mesmerized. We are certain that this collection of poetry will have the same powerful impact on you.

From the Amazon website: Aaron Samuels, raised in Providence, Rhode Island by a Jewish mother and a Black father, is a Cave Canem Fellow and a nationally acclaimed performer. In this ground-breaking collection of poems, Samuels examines the beauty and contradictions of his own mixed identity with gut-wrenching narratives, humor, and passionate verve.

Here’s the Amazon link to purchase the book: http://www.amazon.com/Yarmulkes-Fitted-Caps-Aaron-Samuels/dp/1938912381

Babygirl-Media-Codependa-Love-Aholic

“Babygirl” chronicles a (bi-racial) TV/pop culture ADDICT’S journey through the Growing Pains of Childhood, the Wonder Years of Adolescence, to the realization that though media might be our 1st Love, sometimes we have to to press the OFF button to find ourselves.

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Babygirl has themes that resonate with both pre-teens and teenagers, both male and female. I have workshopped BABYGIRL in the suburbs, the inner city, as well as small towns and learned that it strikes a cord with people across the board regardless or age, sex, or racial and/or socio-economic background. But it especially speaks to YOUTH who lack stori

es that truly reflect them.

Over the years kids have come up to me and asked, “Did that really happen to you?” proving to me that my story reached them. They see me, learn my story, and see that I have survived, and are now empowered with the lesson, that they will too.

Recovering addicts have been touched by this piece as well and I’ve already started the process of reaching out to them as potential audience members.

This is a universal story that I pla

n to share nationwide and worldwide.

Come join Babygirl on her road to recovery!

Written and performed by KAYPRI

Directed by AYANA CAHRR (Black Women State of the Union)

WEBSITE: www.kaypri.com

CONTACT ARTIST AT: bookbabygirl@gmail.com (for future performance discounts put FRINGE 2013 in SUBJECT LINE)

Learn More at www.kaypri.com

Code Switching

NPR has a new blog this year called “Code Switch: Frontiers of Race, Culture and Ethnicity”!  This is their discussion of Code Switching

“In linguistics, “code-switching” means mixing languages or patterns of speech in conversation. But as our blog host Gene Demby explains: “We’re looking at code-switching a little more broadly. Many of us subtly, reflexively change the way we express ourselves all the time. We’re hop-scotching between different cultural and linguistic spaces and different parts of our own identities — sometimes within a single interaction.

“We decided to call this team Code Switch because much of what we’ll be exploring are the different spaces we each inhabit and the tensions of trying to navigate between them. In one sense, code-switching is about dialogue that spans cultures. It evokes the conversation we want to have here.””

Code Switch creates an interesting dialogue about the multiple roles we all play in society.  Check out their April 8th entry How Code-Switching Explains the World where Mixed comedians Key & Peele are referenced, and all their other interesting entries.

 

A Reading with Janet Stickmon and Laura Kina

WHEN: Sunday, July 14, 2013 4:30PM-6:00PM

WHERE: Women and Children First

5233 N. Clark St.

Chicago, IL 60640

Prof. Janet C. Mendoza Stickmon, author of Crushing Soft Rubies, is a teacher, writer, and performer.  Stickmon has taught ethnic studies, social justice, history of Christianity, spoken word and algebra at Salesian High School in Richmond, CA.  She is currently a professor of Humanities at Napa Valley College, teaching Filipina/o-American Heritage, American Mind I and II, and Intro to Africana Studies.  She is the founder and facilitator of Broken Shackle Developmental Training–a program that promotes the use of  healing techniques to help reduce the effects of internalized racism.  Stickmon’s memoir,Crushing Soft Rubies, has been used as a course textbook at U.C. Berkeley, San Francisco State University, Santa Rosa Junior College and Gavilan College. She is also a spoken word artist who has performed at several venues across the country.  Through her literature and performances, she explores issues of love, motherhood, resilience, ancestral connection, and joy. She anticipates the release of her latest collection of work in October 2011 entitled, Midnight Peaches, Two O’Clock Patience.  Stickmon holds a Master’s of the Arts Degree in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University, a Master’s of the Arts Degree in Religion and Society from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from University of California, Irvine. Her work has influenced thousands of adults and adolescents for the last seventeen years.

HERE’S a link to more on Laura Kina

Mixed Race Studies

Curated by Steven F. Riley, www.mixedracestudies.org is THE go-to resource for scholars of all kinds who want to delve into research on the Mixed experience. The site is not limited to scholarly articles, though. Here’s a list of the categories (as of 6/12/13). Go ahead and click – but we warned you: you will not get anything else done today.

Parenthood

Parenthood is a comedy/drama that will be returning for its 5th season in the Fall of 2013.  Parenthood bravely and delicately take on the complexities of family life leaving viewers full of emotion after every episode like all good comedy/drama stories should! In addition to other major topics (cancer, post traumatic stress disorder and more), this series follows an interracial marriage and their child, the process of a transracial adoption and has explored an interracial teenage dating situation.

http://www.nbc.com/parenthood/

You can catch up on past seasons of Parenthood on Netflix.

My Two Grannies – Summer Reading for the Kids!

My 2 Grannies

Author Floella Benjamin shares her story through a cute picture book featuring a mixed heroine and her two grandmothers, one from Trinidad and one from England. She followed this book up by writing My Two Grandads. These would be great summer reads to share with your children over the sumer!

My 2 Granddads