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mixed roots stories

A Lot Like You

I had the pleasure of meeting Eliaichi Kimaro when she submitted her feature film, A Lot Like You, to the 2012 Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival. We unfortunately were  unable to fit this terrific documentary into our lineup that year, but Eliaichi lead a workshop on documentary filmmaking that was very well received.

Synopsis for the www.alotlikeyoumovie.com:

Eliaichi Kimaro is a mixed-race, first-generation American with a Tanzanian father and Korean mother. When her parents retire and move back to Tanzania, Eliaichi begins a project that evocatively examines the intricate fabric of multiracial identity, and grapples with the complex ties that children have to the cultures of their parents.

Kimaro decides to document her father’s path back to his family and Chagga culture. In the process, she struggles with her own relationship to Tanzania, and learns more about the heritage that she took for granted as a child. Yet as she talks to more family members, especially her aunts, she uncovers a cycle of violence that resonates with her work and life in the United States. When Kimaro speaks with her parents about the oppression her aunts face, she faces a jarring disconnect between immigrant generations on questions of patriarchy and violence.

Here are some upcoming 2013 performance dates (check the website frequently for more!):

October 23:  ALLY screening/lecture events with filmmaker at University of New England(Maine).

October 17 @ 7pm: Director Eliaichi Kimaro will be speaking at Knox College (Galesburg, IL).  Event sponsored by the Center for Intercultural Life.

October 15-16:  ALLY screening/panel/lecture events with filmmaker at DePaul University(Chicago), including Laura Kina‘s class on Mixed Race Art and Identity.

October 14:  ALLY screening/lecture at Lincoln Land Community College (Springfield, IL)

October 8 @ 6:30pm:  Vancouver Asian Film Festival presents A Lot Like You screening + discussion w/Director Eliaichi Kimaro.  Alice MacKay room, Vancouver Public Library.

October 2:  A Lot Like You screening & discussion w/filmmaker at California State University–San Marcos.  Sponsored by Gender Equity Center and LGBTQA Pride Center.

October 1@ 7pm:  A Lot Like You screening & discussion w/filmmaker at University of Redlands (Orton Center).

September 19 @ 7:30pm:  Director Eliaichi Kimaro will be presenting at the 2013 Critical Ethnic Studies Conference, sponsored by The Institute For Research on Race and Public Policy at The University of Illinois At Chicago.

September 18 @ 7:30pm:  Director Eliaichi Kimaro will speak at Venango College (PA) at the Rhoades Center (following ALLY campus screening on 9/16).

Actor breaks silence about being Mixed!

How much are multiracial stories influenced by family/extended family?

Obviously family has influence…but to the point of silence? This story left me with so many questions! I would love to read the script…and better yet sit down and have coffee with Tom Sizemore. Sizemore chose to “modern day pass” as White after his grandfather, who did not like “white folk” told him to “never reveal his mixed-race heritage to anyone in Hollywood if he wanted to become a bona fide movie star.”  Well, now he has chosen to break his silence by telling his grandfather’s story, and in turn part of his own through the storytelling vehicle of theater. How have your family/extended family shaped your mixed race story?

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/02/tom-sizemore-one-man-show-geffen.html

Congrats Mixed Up Clothing!

Congratulations to Sonia Kang founder of Mixed Up clothing.  Her children’s clothing line that focuses on “building friendships through fabrics” has been nominated for a Red Tricycle 2013 Totally Awesome Award. Winners will be announced Sept 1st.  Sonia and Mixed Up clothing has been featured on the Today show and has a new collaboration with Chocolate Me (written by Taye Diggs). Tia Mowry-Hardict clothes her son in Mixed Up clothing, you can find out more about where to get Mixed Up clothing at http://www.mixedupclothing.com/.  Mixed Nation http://mixednation.com/ has teamed up with Mixed Up clothing for a giveaway.  Click here to enter to win:  https://www.wf-site.com/microsite/pages/cca80757deead6e8

Sonia and Mixed Up Clothing: Keep up the good work, sharing the mixed race story through your creative design of apparel for children.

Exhibit of Bi/Multicultural-Identified Los Angelenos at PMCA

Somewhere in Between: Los Angeles

August 11, 2013 – January 5, 2014

In this video installation, Los Angeles artist Bia Gayotto investigates how people respond to navigating and inhabiting two or more places and cultures. Through an open call, she invited Los Angeles-area residents living along Route 66 who identify as bi- or multicultural to participate in an interview and video shoot that examines life in fourteen neighborhoods along the route from Pasadena to Santa Monica, including Chinatown, Little Armenia, Echo Park, and Thai Town.Somewhere in Between: Los Angeles is the third iteration in a series that previously centered on Silicon Valley and Chicago. The questions Gayotto asked of the participants were designed to stimulate a dialogue reflecting the pluralities of place, identity, and belonging. By juxtaposing cityscapes, architecture, and domestic settings with images of the participants performing simple, everyday actions and a soundtrack that consists of abstract music and ambient sound, Gayotto explores the experiences of those who live in an intercultural space and offers a broader, multilayered portrait of the greater Los Angeles area.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, and is supported by the Board of Directors of the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Bia Gayotto is a recipient of an ARC Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation.

Bia Gayotto, still from Somewhere in Between: Los Angeles, 2013. Two-screen video installation with sound. TRT 20 min. Courtesy of the Artist.

‘Mixed’ Visual Artists Laura Kina & Wei Ming Dariotis – Opening Reception

War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art

curated by Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis

Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience

August 9, 2013 – January 19, 2014
719 S. King Street Seattle, WA 98104
206-623-5124
http://www.wingluke.org/

Opening Reception: Thursday, August 8, 2013 @ 6-8pm
6-7pm: Special preview for Museum members and invited guests. Light refreshments will be served
7-8pm: Open to the public, free admission, no RSVP required
Read more about the exhibition – http://www.warbabylovechild.com/exhibition/

Curators Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis will be in attendance, as well as featured artists Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Lori Kay, Richard Lou and Jenifer Wofford.

If you’d like to attend the special preview from 6-7pm, please contactmmartinez@wingluke.org or 206.623.5124 ext 107.

This exhibition brings together works by 19 artists, highlighting different approaches to the identities and experiences of mixed Asian Americans, mixed Pacific Islander Americans and Asian transracial adoptees. While their biographies are varied and often diverge from the dominant stereotypes of mixed Asian identities, their lives are shaped by the specific histories of Asian Pacific-U.S. collisions: narratives of war, economic and political migration and colonization. As an ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation comes of age in a world fixated on post-racial politics and moving beyond issues of identity, War Baby | Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art examines how artists engage various facets of hybridity in their artwork.

Artists: Mequitta Ahuja, Albert Chong, Serene Ford, Kip Fulbeck, Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Jane Jin Kaisen, Lori Kay, Li-lan, Richard Lou, Samia Mirza, Chris Naka, Laurel Nakadate, Gina Osterloh, Adrienne Pao, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Amanda Ross-Ho, Jenifer Wofford, Debra Yepa-Pappan.

Image: Jenifer Wofford, MacArthur Nurses VI, 2013

‘White’ Father of a ‘Mixed’ Son is not Trayvon Martin

This is just one example of the beautiful pieces written on the tumblr site wearenottrayvonmartin.com The entries are posted by folks who admit to having white privilege, and who are interested in fighting racism and establishing equality for all. We at Mixed Roots Stories share this goal, and hope that by encouraging stories about the Mixed experience, we are contributing to this goal.

Here’s the father’s post: http://wearenottrayvonmartin.com/post/55830174451/i-am-not-trayvon-martin-but-i-am-a-father

Support Toasted Marshmallows Indiegogo Campaign

I had the pleasure of meeting Marcelitte Failla when we screened her film, Uncovering Color, at the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival®. I got to meet Anoushka – the other filmmaker behind this project – at the 2012 Critical Mixed Race Studies conference. Both women are smart, passionate and talented, and I’m really excited about this project which is precisely the kind of work we are here to promote. Here’s their Indiegogo campaign link: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/toasted-marshmallows

And a short paragraph on the project:

Toasted Marshmallows is a film, performance and community building project chronicling two mixed-race women’s attempt at uncovering the cultures we were separated from. Anoushka Ratnarajah and Marcelitte Failla grew up far from the curry and gumbo that stewed on their grandmothers stove. On our journey to regain what was lost, we will meet and interview other mixed-women and ask what it means to be “authentically” rooted in one’s culture and how we maintain ties in a world of assimilation.

Hapa Voice

Hapa Voice is a website highlighting stories of multiracial Asians from all over the world. As of this posting, they have a very active twitter feed (@hapavoice) and facebook page (‘like’ them here: https://www.facebook.com/hapavoice), and are seeking submissions to be added to their website (http://hapavoice.com/)