The Mixed Heritage Center is LIVE! (ok so this post is a few weeks late, but I was busy at work)

The welcome reads as follows:

The Mixed Heritage Center (MHC) is a clearinghouse of information relevant to the lives of people who are multiracial, multiethnic, transracially adopted or otherwise affected by the intersection of race and culture. It is the product of collaboration between the Association of MultiEthnic Americans and the MAVIN Foundation. Funding was provided by the K and F Baxter Family Foundation.

The MHC is an “organic” resource that will grow and change with contributions from visitors, student groups, and community based organizations who care about mixed heritage issues. Please share your own knowledge and experiences either through participation in the discussion forums, by recommending the addition of a resource, or by submitting your own work to content@mixedheritagecenter.org .

- Mixed Heritage Center (MHC) Home Page

A long time ago I had contacted the people at Mavin who were in charge of the old MHC. I was told that it was being rebuilt and I even got the opportunity to help out a bit (although I didn’t end up doing too much because I got busy with other stuff). Anyway, just knowing what was coming was exciting and now its live and I get to spread the word about the site. So now is the part where I tell about the good stuff.

Resources – The Mavin Foundation and AMEA (Association of MultiEthnic Americans) are two of the best known national mixed heritage organizations. The Mixed Heritage Center has been built as a place to bring together their combined resources as well as begin to build a greater library. The idea is that not only will the site link to information already in their combined libraries, but that people who visit the site or join as users will also be able to submit resources that will then be posted. With mixed heritage being a topic of study that is still fairly new the number of documents out there are still in many far off places. The MHC with the help of the mixed community will begin to grow those resources and bring together those existing resources from their far off places. Additionally, by allowing users to submit inks to resources it is easier to keep information up to date and make sure that it is relevant to a rapidly changing population.

Scope – Whereas my site has a more constrained focus, the MHC has links to all sorts of resources. And with new content being added regularly the scope and depth of what they have is sure to increase. When those who are interested in this field are able to see what research already exists I would think that it makes it more possible to know what has been addressed and what issues still need to be addressed.
One of the things I really am excited about is that they are including the arts (movies, music, visual arts, literature) as resources. I know for a fact (because I am an artist) that for some there are things that can only be expressed through art, and to have the ability to see that from others is going to be very powerful.

Community – The new MHC has been built with creating and supporting an online community in mind. Users can register for an account which will allow them greater access to the site as well as more opportunities to communicate with each other and create community.

I am very excited about this site. It was built with intellectual growth and community in mind which in my opinion are both very important when it comes to a population that is so diverse and so new (in terms of its visibility and acceptence). I look forward to exploring the site and discovering new and important information as well as contributing to the community.

This site is great for everyone as it has resources that touch on many different topics.

I was referred to this site by a friend who thought I might find it interesting. The Mixed Chicks are two women of mixed racial and ethnic heritage who are longtime friends who do a podcast where they talk about what its like to be mixed. One of them is Mixed Jamaican and White, and the other is mixed African American and Dutch.
While this is not the most polished podcast, what I really appreciate is how candidly they talk about their experiences with figuring out their identities, dating, interacting with the different sides of their families and so on. When you listen to the podcast you feel like you could just jump in at any time because they touch in a very real way on many experiences that mixed people have.
Not being a mixed black/white person myself it is also very interesting to hear about the experiences of being light skinned in the black community and living the implications of that. Some of the experiences that I have been most interested in hearing about have been those in which they talk about their experiences with campus black student groups in college. They really highlight how poorly the commonly used models of black student development or monoethnic student development are at addressing the ethnic identity issues that students of mixed heritages go through

While this may not be the most academically structured resource, I think its a really good one because it reflects the experiences of people who are “normal” mixed people.

This could be a good podcast for white parents. It is sometimes hard for them to hear about experiences of being mixed from their own children if they don’t really see them as mixed or have never experienced any of the identity issues that their children have.

The only thing that I wish were better with this podcast is the sound/recording quality. It sounds like they use a service where they record the episode in a phone conference manner. Sometimes the sound quality is not that great which is (for me at least) a bit distracting. On the upside, the service they use allows them to have people call in and comment on the episode as they are recording it, so in that respect it has the potential to be something very interactive where people can really ask their questions or add in their own two cents. I think its great that they are using that service and making it possible for people who listen to their podcast to really get involved should they want to.

Over all I like the podcast, the energy of it, the positive message that we mixed folks are just fine the way we are.

The diversity of people who participate in the discussions adds so much to the discussions. What I like about the mix is that it involves not only parents of different types of families, but young adults and the grown children of these various types of families. What I have been learning as I have been doing this research is that a childes experience of a situation is often times different from the parent’s experience of the situation. So those people wanting to learn more about issues of race and ethnicity, the experience of racism today, transracial adoption issues, and transracial adoptee experiences (just to name a few subjects) could really gain alot by participating in these discussions, and opening themselves up to new ideas.
Anti-RacistParent.com (The link is also listed on the web resources Page)

I liked this book for several reasons. The first reason, was that Elliot’s style for this book was a combination of personal accounts of experiences with race combined with theory and research. For me this made the book accessible to people who may not be that well versed in theories of mixed-race identity. For those who deal with theory and research more regularly, I think the way he presented the materials not only gave it an academic credibility, but also added a human dimension which is so important to this kind of research.

The second reason I liked this book is that even though he is mixed black/white and talks about his own experiences and some of the issues specific to that population, he is able to stop and say, while this is my experience, the experience of other individuals who are mixes of different heritages may have other experiences. This is important to do so that people who are reading this material understand that the mixed heritage population is not all the same. Another thing that he does in relation to shedding light on the variety of experiences, is to point out that mixed people of different generations have had very different experiences.

One section in particular (Part 3- Backdrop of History) did a great job of talking about the history of the black/white mix in America, some of the issues of power and the changes in construction of race, and most importantly discussed the One Drop Rule. This is something that I think more people need to know about as it is something that has affected us all whether we know it or not.

I would recommend this book to all audiences as I think that everyone could get something from this book.

A couple of the key issues talked about include, issues of colorism that are found in the African American community (ie being light skinned vs dark skinned) and how that came into play when she was in fact mixed black/white. The differences of experiences growing up between her and her brother. The differences she talked about were both the the ways in which siblings may have a difference of experience in general just because they are look different or have different life experiences with regards to race, and then also talked about how gender came into play with the experience of being mixed race. And how parents choose to deal with the questions their children bring home. Some parents have a great understanding of what their children go through. Other parents don’t see their children as anything different than themselves and thus offer solutions to problems that worked for them.
The sense of humor that she brings to her work, for me, serves to show that mixed race people are not broken by default. We have experiences due to our heritages that others might not understand, and they ways in which we are taught to cope with them, may be difficult, but they may be funny. Its the same as any other aspect of growing up. And for this I thank her. I think that she offers a great portrait of a person who has grown up and had to work through questions of race/ethnicity/gender and so forth, and come to an identity that she is comfortable with on her terms.

Available on Amazon.com