G. Reginald Daniel, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara; Affiliated Faculty, Latin American and Iberian Studies, the Departments of Black Studies, Asian American Studies, History, and Chicana and Chicano Studies. Since 1989, he has taught “Betwixt and Between,” which is one of the first and the longest-standing university courses to deal specifically with the question of multiracial identity comparing the U.S. with various parts of the world.Daniel has published numerous articles and chapters that cover this topic. He is author of “Passers and Pluralists: Subverting the Racial Divide” and “Beyond Black and White: The New Multiracial Consciousness,” which appeared in the first comprehensive anthology to examine multiracial identity in the United States, Racially Mixed People in America (1992). “Passers and Pluralists: Subverting the Racial Divide” is among the most cited essays on the topic of multiraciality. He is also co-author of “Being Different Together in the University Classroom: Multiracial Identity as Transgressive Education,” and author of “Black and White Identity in the New Millennium: Unsevering the Ties That Bind,” which are chapters in the second comprehensive examination of multiracial identity in the United States, The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier (1996). Finally, Daniel’s chapter “Race, Multiraciality, and the Election of Barack Obama: Toward a More Perfect Union?” (2012), appears in Andrew Jolivette’s Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority (2012), which is the first anthology devoted specifically to questions of multiraciality and Obama’s path to the presidency.

Daniel’s books entitled More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order (2002), Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths? (2006), and Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist (2012), are a culmination of much of his thinking on the relationship between social structure and racial formation—especially multiracial identities. He is a co-founding editor, along with Wei Ming Dariotis, Laura Kina, Maria P.P. Root, and Paul R. Spickard of the recently launched Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies.

Also, Daniel, along with Ray Vagas and Charles Sloan, represented MASC (Multiracial Americans of Southern California) at the November 12, 1988 founding meeting of the AMEA (Association of MultiEthnic Americans) in Berkeley, California. At that meeting he was elected the AMEA’s first secretary and served in that capacity from 1988-1989. Daniel is also a member of the Advisory Board of AMEA, MASC, the Advisory Council of the Mixed Heritage Center of MAVIN Foundation, and a former Advisory Board member of Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally). These are among the most prominent organizations involved in bringing about changes in the collection of official racial and ethnic data, as in the decennial census, which make it possible for multiracial-identified individuals to acknowledge their various backgrounds. Daniel was asked to submit written testimony in support of these goals during the Congressional hearings (1993–1997) that were sponsored by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—which is the branch of the government responsible for implementing changes in federal statistical surveys—to determine whether any changes would be made in reporting racial and ethnic data on the 2000 Census.

In addition, Daniel has participated as a panelist at various conferences on the topic of multiracial identity and received a great deal of media attention. One of the most memorable moments was his July 10, 1997 appearance on MSNBC evening news the day after OMB officials announced that they were recommending changes that would make it possible for multiracial-identified individuals to check more than the box—instead having to select only one box as previously—on official forms used in the collection of data on race and ethnicity. Daniel’s own multiracial identity includes African, European, Asian, Arab, and Native American origins.

Kim Wayans is garnering rave reviews for her dramatic debut starring in the feature film “Pariah” (Focus Features, limited release beginning December 28). “Pariah,” which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, is the story of a 17-year-old girl who is discovering and embracing her identity as a lesbian while her family is learning to come to terms with it. Wayans plays the teen’s god-fearing mother in the film, a woman in denial about her daughter’s sexuality and her own failing marriage. This film is a serious departure from her previous comedic film credits such as “Dance Flick,” “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in The Hood,” “A Low Down Dirty Shame” and “Juwanna Man.”Wayans is best known to television audiences for her work on the groundbreaking sketch comedy show “In Living Color” created by her brother, Keenen Ivory Wayans, which also featured her brothers Damon, Shawn, and Marlon. Wayans’ music video parodies and many original characters she created were amongst the show’s most popular. Following “In Living Color,” she co-starred on the NBC series “In the House,” opposite LL Cool J. She later added producing, writing, and directing to her resume working on the ABC sitcom, “My Wife and Kids.”

In 2007, Wayans took to the stage where she wowed Los Angeles audiences with her dynamic one-woman show, “A Handsome Woman Retreats” based on her experiences growing up in the projects and surviving in the jungles of Hollywood. She continues to tour with the show.

Wayans is also the author (along with her husband, Kevin Knotts) of the children’s book series “Amy Hodgepodge.” The series follows the daily challenges and triumphs of Amy, a young multiracial girl. There are currently six books in the series with plans to expand into an animated series.

Kevin Knotts was born and raised in Oklahoma. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and later went on to receive his M.B.A. at Central Oklahoma University. After a brief stint working in the oil and gas business, he moved to Newport Beach, California to sell commercial real estate. After a while, his creative yearnings took over, and Kevin moved to Los Angeles to answer its call. He became a devoted student of acting and writing and soon began securing work in television and film.In addition to guest starring on such popular shows as “Sabrina The Teenage Witch” and “My Wife and Kids,” Kevin also became a writer on the ABC hit family comedy “My Wife and Kids.” He has penned three screenplays, one with his wife and writing partner, Kim Wayans, and they have created a pilot for a family sitcom that they are currently shopping around to networks.

Paul Spickard is a pioneering scholar on issues concerning the Mixed experience.  A professor at University of California Santa Barbara, Spickard has written some of the most ground-breaking books on this topic including: Mixed Blood: Intermarriage & Ethnic: Intermarriage And Ethnic Identity In Twentieth Century America. Spickard has received accolades and awards as a Fulbright Research Professor; Rockefeller Foundation Residential Fellow; Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians; and Outstanding Teacher of the Year among others.

Internationally acclaimed playwright Velina Hasu Houston has written over thirty plays including sixteen commissions in a career that began Off-Broadway with Tea at Manhattan Theatre Club and American Dreams at Negro Ensemble Company. Her plays have been presented throughout the UnitedStates and internationally in Australia, Canada, and across Asia including in the People’s Republic of China, Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia. Current projects include two commissions with Los Angeles Opera, Bliss as part of the exhibit Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present at the Fisher Museum of Art; Iphigenia (commission from Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and collaboration with Peggy Shannon, Ryerson Theatre School, Candice M. Monson, National andKapodistrian University of Athens, Hydrama Theatre and Arts Centre; and Made in Japan (International Federation of Theatre Research Conference, Osaka, Japan).  She has been honored by Japan Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, California Arts Council, The Durfee Foundation, Sidney F. Brody Foundation, Sidney Poitier, American Film Institute, Pinter Review Prize for Drama, Women in Theatre, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (finalist), Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics New Play Award (finalist), Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Rainbow Award, and others. For film, she has written for Columbia Pictures, Sidney Poitier, PBS, and several indie producers.  She is Co-producer of the documentary Desert Dreamers (Tivoli Entertainment), narrated by Peter Fonda.  She is published by Dramatists’ Play Service, Vintage Books, Smith & Krause, Temple University Press, University of Massachusetts Press, Los Angeles Times, American Theatre, Pacific Citizen, Mademoiselle, Kansas City Star and others.  She is a member of Dramatists’ Guild, Writers Guild of America-West, League of Professional Theatre Women, and Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights.  Houston serves on the US Department of State’s Japan-US Friendship Commission, US-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange, and Japan-US Bridging Foundation. At the University of Southern California School of Theatre, she is founder of the Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing, Professor of Theatre, Associate Dean of Faculty, Director of Dramatic Writing, and Resident Playwright.  Her works are archived in The Library of Congress and The Huntington Library.www.velinahasuhouston.com

Board Member, Co-Founder, Former President MASC
Nancy is a first generation American, born in New York City and raised in New Jersey, and is of German-Jewish heritage. Nancy is a clinical nurse specialist in mental health, having received her B.S. in nursing from Boston University in 1975, and her M.S. in Psychiatric Nursing/Community Consultation from UCLA in 1980. Nancy currently works as a therapist at the Kaiser Department of Psychiatry in West Los Angeles. From her interracial marriage, Nancy has two adult multiracial daughters of African American and European-American descent. She co-founded and became president of MASC in 1987 and represented MASC as a founding member of the Association of MultiEthnic Americans (AMEA) our national organization, in 1988, and for many years thereafter. She held the position of Western Regional Vice-President since 1994. She was elected President of AMEA in May 2001, and under her leadership AMEA held their first National Conference on the Multiracial Child in October 2002. Nancy has been a co-author in two books; The Multiracial Experience by Maria P.P. Root (1996) and New Faces in a Changing America Edited by Loretta Winters and Herman DeBose (2003).

Jenny Lumet is an actress and screenwriter noted for her award-winning screenplay for Rachel Getting Married.The film was directed by the Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme. She is also the daughter of noted filmmaker Sidney Lumet and journalist Gail Lumet Buckley, and granddaughter of Lena Horne.

Mr. Ward currently plays the wide receiver position for the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers. He was voted MVP of Super Bowl XL. Born to a Korean mother and an African American father, he has become an advocate for biracial youths in South Korea.

Maya Soetoro-Ng has a background in global and multicultural education. She was born in Jakarta, Indonesia and later moved to Honolulu, Hawai’i. She has a Masters degree in Secondary Education from NYU and a Ph.D in Educational Foundations from the University of Hawai‘i. Her doctoral research explored narrative and the politics of multicultural education. Maya has taught and developed humanities curriculum for alternative public and private schools in New York City and Honolulu. She has also mentored many teachers and conducted teacher-training workshops in the U.S. and Indonesia. From 2000 to 2006, she was a lecturer in the University of Hawaii’s College of Education. Maya is currently an education specialist at the East West Center, which promotes cooperation and exchange between the United States and Asia. Her picture book “Ladder to the Moon” is being illustrated and will be published in the fall of 2010. She is also writing a book on one of her lifelong commitments, peace education.

Angela Nissel is author of the national best-selling comedic memoirs The Broke Diaries and Mixed. She is a co-executive producer and writer for NBC‘s medical sitcom Scrubs and executive producer of an in-development television project with Halle Berry and Vincent Cirricionne. Nissel has spent seven seasons on the show, Scrubs, as a writer and, most recently, co-executive producer.

Dr. Maria P. P. Root, born in Manila, Philippines, grew up in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated from the University of California at Riverside with degrees in Psychology and Sociology and received a Master’s degree in Cognitive Psychology from Claremont University and received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Washington. Dr. Root published the first contemporary volume on mixed race people, Racially Mixed People in America (1992). She has edited two award-winning books on multiracial people and produced the foundational Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People. The U.S. Census referred to these texts in their deliberations that resulted in an historic ‘check more than one’ format to the race question for the 2000 census.

Kip Fulbeck is recognized as one of the world’s premier artists exploring Hapa identity through art, film, literature and spoken word. His popular books (Part Asian, 100% Hapa; and Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography) and short films (Banana Split) speak to and inspire a You Tube generation to political involvement. Kip has been featured on CNN, MTV, and PBS, and has performed and exhibited in more than 20 countries. He is a Professor of Art and an affiliate faculty in Asian American Studies and Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and is a nationally-ranked masters swimmer and ocean lifeguard. His current book is titled Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck published by Chronicle Books.

James McBride’s memoir The Color of Water (Riverhead, Penguin Books) is an American classic, and is required reading in high schools and colleges across America. It has sold almost two million copies worldwide, spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list and is published in more than 16 languages. It is a perennial favorite of book clubs and community-wide reading events, including New York City and Philadelphia. It is the story of his widowed, white, Jewish mother who raised 12 black children in New York City and sent all to college and most to graduate school. His newest novel, Song Yet Sung, (Riverhead, Penguin Books, Feb. 2008,) is the highly charged story of an escaped female runaway slave in 1850, who desperately eludes a skilled slave catcher through the treacherous swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore. He holds several honorary doctorates and is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. He is married with three children. He lives in Pennsylvania and New York.