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mixed roots

The Other Project

The Other Project is a documentary photography project shared with Mixed Roots Stories by storyteller Rachel Crick.

“The Other Project is a documentary project focusing specifically on the development of self-identity of people across the country who identify as “bi-racial,” or “multi-ethnic,” or who use other similar adjectives to make sense of their racial make-up. One goal for this project is to encourage public discussion around racial identity — to be a catalyst for people to see themselves, despite their so-called differences, and find the commonalities amongst themselves. We are looking for participants of both racial and ethnic diversity for this project. If you are of a multiracial/multiethnic background, or you know of others who may be interested, please contact us.”

For more information about the project and how to participate visit her website www.rachelcrickphotography.com.

MXRS Visual Podcast Episode 1: Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis and the Mixed Race Initiative

We are excited to launch the visual version of Episode 1 of the MXRS Podcast — bringing you the story behind the stories. Our first several episodes are in partnership with the Asian American Literary Review and its Mixed Race Initiative. Editor-in-Chief Lawrence-Minh Búi Davis is our first guest. Join us as our conversation winds its way through language, how we identify ourselves, the origins of the Mixed Race Initiative and its components, making our work more accessible, and much more.

Grant Writing Specialist Needed – Intern/Volunteer Opportunity

Mixed Roots Stories is looking for a motivated person who is experienced, or wants to gain experience writing grant proposals. The Grant Specialist will work with the Mixed Roots Stories team to grow a database of grant opportunities as well as gather information, collect and organize data, and draft grant submissions. This could be either an intern or volunteer position. The intern/grant writer must be self motivated, organized, detail oriented, a team player and timely with due dates. This is an ideal position for someone looking for an internship or volunteer opportunity working with an up and coming, very active nonprofit.

 

Please send resumes/CVs (include references) and cover letters expressing your interest in Mixed Roots Stories and the Grant Specialist position to info@mixedrootsstories.org. Please put “Grant Writer” in the subject line.

Television Internships – DEADLINE 3/15/14

From: http://www.emmysfoundation.org/

“This is literally one of those golden ticket occasions where one is given the opportunity to see with their own eyes how the professional entertainment industry functions. The best part is you also have an opportunity to make some impressions about yourself while you’re there.”
– Ray Chang – Cinematography, University of Colorado, Boulder

The TV Academy Foundation’s summer Student Internship Program provides over 40 industry-wide internships to college  students nationwide. The program gives both undergraduate and graduate students in-depth exposure to professional television production during an eight-week summer period in Los Angeles.

“When I tell people I studied radio, TV, and film in Wisconsin, I typically get raised eyebrows in response. This internship has proven that no matter who you are and where you’re from, if you have passion and drive, you can make it in this industry. My school taught me skills, but this internship gave me more – professional experience and professional networking!”
– Liz D’Alessio – Post Production, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh

“Everyone has a different “breaking in” story, and I have no doubt that mine just started with an Academy Foundation Internship.”
– Brandon Zuck – TV Scriptwriting – Drama, Columbia University

Interns work closely with their hosts and designated supervisors in order to gain maximum overview of the work process in their category.

“The Academy Foundation Internship program helps produce professionals. It’s the premiere internship to have if you want to make a notable debut in the entertainment industry. Applying was the best career choice I ever made!”
– Evelyn Blanton – Casting, California State University, Los Angeles

       Past hosts include:

  • ABC Studios
  • CBS
  • HBO
  • The Disney Channel
  • Nickelodeon
  • Fox TV Studios
  • E! Entertainment
  • NBC Universal
  • Warner Bros.
  • The Hub
  • Awesomeness TV
  • Stargate Studios
  • … and many others.

Details on How to Apply

If you have questions or need further information, please contactinternsupport@emmys.org

http://www.emmysfoundation.org/internship-programs

Mixed Roots Stories on Mixed Race Radio

We were invited to participate in Tiffany Reid’s Mixed Race Radio podcast this week. If you’re curious about the personal stories behind our co-curators Mark, Chandra and Fanshen, have a listen to the episode below. We hope you’ll be inspired to share your story – and to join our community as a Guest Blogger, or by voting on our logo, or by allowing us to tell others about you and what you do by filling out our Promote Your Story link.

More Entertainment Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Mixed Race Radio on BlogTalkRadio

CASTING CALL: Mixed Actress Needed

I got to see a reading of this play in Los Angeles and really enjoyed it. Supernatural delves deeply into the lives of 7 women and their life choices, centered around the decision to wear their hair natural (or not) – AND – if you get cast, you get to be in a play with Kim Coles (who here didn’t love Living Single?)!

WE’RE HAVING AUDITIONS!

CASTING CALL NOTICE

 

SUPERNATURAL: The Play is going to Virginia!

Click HERE to hear what people are saying about the show!

 

SUPERNATURAL: The Play with Kim Coles will be presented at the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center in Newport News, Virginia on March 29, 2014.  We will be holding auditions for Union and non-Union Actresses in Newport News on March 8th.  If you would like an appointment to audition, please submit your picture and performing arts resume to supernaturaltheplayauditions@gmail.com.  Cast breakdown and more detailed information about the show and auditions can be found at http://www.supernaturalproject.org/#!audition-sides/c19es.

 

Seeking 7 African-American Actresses.  Feel free to forward this email to any actresses who you think would be interested and are in the Newport News, VA area.

 

Storyline:  Set in none other than Brooklyn, New York in Bed-Stuy at various natural hair events,Supernatural: The Play is a funny and insightful play about Natural Hair journeys.  The play explores the lives of seven women who are forced to confront their hair and themselves. Filled with stories of triumph. These women are guaranteed to make you laugh and  inspire you to think about what God gave you. This is one Natural Hair event filled with testimonies you don’t want to miss!

 

SUBMISSION DEADLINE:  March 2, 2014.  To submit yourself for an audition, please send your picture and resume to supernaturaltheplayauditions@gmail.com. In the subject line put “Submission for the role of [CHARACTER NAME].”  ALL ACTRESSES MUST BE LOCAL HIRES LIVING IN OR NEAR NEWPORT NEWS, VA.

 

Please feel free to forward this email to any actresses who may be interested.

 

 

SUPERNATURAL: THE PLAY (7 Roles)
AEA Letter of Agreement
Producers, Writers and Directors:
Candace O. Kelley, Audrey Kelley and Gilda Rogers
Location: Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center, Newport News, VA
Performance Date: March 29, 2014

 

ALL ROLES ARE FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN.

 

KEE KEE – Kim Coles (CAST)

[KEE KEE] Age 25-40.  This charismatic African American woman from Brooklyn is an entrepreneur and YouTube rock star who hosts her own natural hair events.  Wears her hair natural – the bigger the better.  Vivacious and colorful yet down to earth.  Looking for a stand-up comedian. (Seeking Understudy)

 

[DR. JENKINS] Age 30-60. An anthropologist who is on a mission to educate black women around the world about their ancestral history.  Is currently an Associate Professor at Columbia.  Look up Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary.

 

[HANNAH] Age 30-40. A light-skinned, mixed race woman (black/white) .  Her father is black and her mother is Jewish.  She was caught between gefilte fish and chitlins.  Wears her hair natural.  From New York.

 

[CONSTANCE] Age 50-65. A suave lesbian writer who looks like a man.  Wears her hair natural.   From San Francisco.

 

[NIECEY] Age 25-45.  A fashionable, educated woman who is an assistant to a successful politician.  Wears her hair bone-straight relaxed and long.

 

[BERTINA] Age 35-50.  A dark-skinned woman from Jamaica.  She is concerned that her little sister uses skin lighteners with dangerous chemicals.  Actress must be able to speak with an authentic Jamaican accent.

 

[DORIS] Age 33-45.  A southern preacher’s wife who is a cancer survivor.  Wears her hair natural.

 

Laura Kina: Blue Hawaii

We work closely with visual artist, scholar and professor Laura Kina on the Mixed Roots Stories programming for the Critical Mixed Race Studies conference (November 2014). She consistently explores the mixed experience in her work and in her classrooms. Here’s information on her current exhibition:

This week in Memphis – join Laura in person for the opening reception and artist lecture or visit the show virtually.

University of Memphis
The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art

Laura Kina: Blue Hawai’i

February 21 – March 27, 2014

Opening reception: Friday, Feb 21 5:30-8:00pm

Artist talk: Thursday, Feb 20 7:00pm 3715 Central Ave. #310
“Remembering Painting, Forgetting Photographs”

University of Memphis
The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art
Art Department
Art and Communication Building
3715 Central Ave.
Memphis, TN 38152
Tel 901-678-2216
http://memphis.edu/art/fogelmangalleries.php
https://www.facebook.com/FOGELMANCONTEMPORARY

Join the event on Facebook

All events are free and open to the public.

View the digital exhibition catalog featuring an essay “Okinawan Diaspora Blues” by Wesley Uenten, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies San Francisco State University

See the works online

You won’t find Elvis or surfboards or funny umbrella-topped cocktails in Laura Kina’s dystopic Blue Hawaiʻi. Drawn from family albums, oral history and community archives from Hawaii and Okinawa, these ghostly oil paintings employ distilled memories to investigate themes of distance, longing, and belonging.

Featuring new works and a selection from her ongoing Sugar series (2009-present), the setting is Kina’s father’s Okinawan sugarcane field plantation community, Piʻihonua, on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi near Hilo. Her obsession with blue was inspired by the indigo-dyed kasuri kimonos repurposed by the Issei (first generation) “picture bride” immigrants for canefield work clothes, and colored by stories of hinotama (fireballs) shooting from the canefield cemetery into the night sky. Blue Hawaiʻi echoes the spirits of Kina’s ancestors and shared histories of labor migration.

Pictured above Laura Kina, Elementary School, 30×45 in, oil on canvas, 2013

Closely Related Keys – World Premiere Play Opens 2/28/14

Closely Related KeysClosely Related Keys tells the story of a young attorney whose carefully constructed life begins to crumble with the discovery of an Iraqi half sister who has fled Iraq,  arriving unexpectedly in the U.S.  It’s about love and loyalty, secrets and lies, and how the past , never being dead, just hovers around waiting to smack us upside the head.   Join us for this journey about picking up the broken pieces of the past to imperfectly assemble a new family and future.
Tickets now on sale!
Closely Related Keys Lounge Theatre
6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
In Wendy Grafs World Premiere drama, an African-American attorneys carefully constructed life begins to crumble when she is shocked to discover she has an Iraqi half-sister who comes to the U.S. with a questionable agenda. Directed by the award-winning Shirley Jo Finney.
February 28 – March 30, 2014Box Office:
www.plays411.com/relatedkeys — with AJ Meijer andSandy Joseph.

On Mixed Privilege

GCC Spring 2014I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whether there is such a thing as ‘mixed privilege’. Today in my ESL class one of my students said he would let his daughter marry anyone…except for a Black person. I’ve shared with my students many times and in a number of ways that I am proud of being Black (& other things too). I also often use the exploration of ‘race as a social construct’ in order to teach English at the more advanced levels (as this class was). So what made this student feel comfortable enough to say this to me? Is it that I have a privilege that makes him feel like this kind of blatantly discriminatory statement is OK to say to me? A prolonged conversation ensued with historical context and personal anecdotes, but I was too fired up to ask directly why he felt this was OK.

Maybe when our privilege as mixed folks (that is, the times in which a person doesn’t immediately label us by how we appear) is indicated so clearly, we can take advantage of the opportunity. I’m thinking particularly of when we are asked the (in)famous ‘What are you?’ question. The person is implying that WE (unlike others) have the right/opportunity to label ourselves, and they have not yet judged our worth. What if we respond with a question like, ‘What information will you glean from the answer? or ‘What will you be more or less comfortable saying once you (think) you know the answer?’  Or…?

How would you have responded to my student?