Saturday, June 11 11:00 am-12:00pm
National Center for Democracy, Democracy Lab
Mixed Messages – Mixed Race / Interracial representation in TV & Film & News Media
Moderator: Monique Fields
Panelists: Jennifer Noble, Thomas Lopez, Laurel Hoa, Laura Kina, Susan Straight (see bio in Readings), Heidi Durrow (see bio in Organizers)
Multiracial Americans of Southern California (MASC) and journalists and artist activists will discuss mixed race representation in reality TV and in the news media and its impact on the community. Can monoracials tell our stories? Do we want our “
dirty laundry” aired? And what is the impact and import of special reports on the Mixed experience in Ebony Magazine and the New York Times? Is there a role we can play with media organizations to get our stories told to the mainstream with sensitivity, without appearing “tragic”? How can we advocate for mixed race and interracial couple stories in the creation of TV sitcom/reality/drama content? Panelists discuss tips and tools for how to create and ensure non-exploitative representation.
Jennifer Noble, PhD, is the current vice president of MASC and a full-time professor of Psychology at Pasadena City College. She also provides psychotherapy for children/adolescents and their families at the Reiss Davis Child Study Center. Jennifer is a past president of MASC, current board member and a part of MASC since 1999.
Thomas Lopez is the Parent Liaison and Treasurer for MASC. He is the leader of the MASC children’s playgroup, a past president and a member for over 15 yrs. Thomas is a mechanical engineer working in the medical devices industry. He is native to SoCal with parents from Mexican American and German-Polish roots.
Laurel Hoa, PhD, received her PhD in Development with a specialization in Developmental Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her dissertation was on identity development in individuals of Asian/European descent. She is interested in helping parents foster positive identities in their mixed race children. She and her Chinese-American husband recently had their first child.
Laura Kina is an artist and Associate Professor of Art, Media, & Design and co-organizer of the inaugural 2010 Critical Mixed Race Studies conference at DePaul University. She is a board member of MAVIN and is working to launch a journal on Critical Mixed Race Studies through UC Santa Barbara.
Monique Fields is a journalist, teacher and blogger. She launched Honeysmoke.com, and it draws 10,000 unique visitors every month. Her essays about interracial marriage and raising biracial children have appeared on NPR.org, Literarymama.com, the St. Petersburg Times, and theroot.com
Saturday June 11 12:00pm-1:00pm
National Center for Democracy, Democracy Lab
Out of Sorrow, Out of Joy: Writing Poetry from Deep Experience
Our best writing comes from a connection to the human experiences and emotions we all share: the loss of loved ones, sorrow for past mistakes, regret, fear, joy, love, excitement, and awe. And yet, writing these experiences and emotions can be tremendously difficult — how do we write poetry that explores these moments without slipping into the cliche and conventional? How do we find the language and images to evoke these powerful emotions and experiences in a reader who may not know us and our stories? Building these bridge
s in text, creating these opportunities to be understood — this is what this workshop is about. Through a set of exercises, workshop participants will develop a deeper understanding of their own languages of sorrow and joy and be able to create stronger poems that address these important themes and moments.
Neil Tangaroa Aitken is the author of The Lost Country of Sight, winner of 2007 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, and the editor of Boxcar Poetry Review. A Canadian of Chinese and Scottish descent, he lives in Los Angeles. His poems appear in Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter and elsewhere.
Saturday June 11 12:30pm-1:30pm
National Center for Democracy, Tateuchi Democracy Forum
Encouraging the development of Minority Superheroes in Entertainment
As a proponent of how the entertainment industry can positively affect worldwide literacy, the Piercy Charitable Foundation’s By Your Child A Book Program and its associates will conduct a submissions-based workshop on the role of the minority superhero in entertainment and its valuable relationship to education. Various cinematic submissions that deal with the subject of minority superheroes will be solicited. Measured against entertainment/educational rubrics, finalists’ works will be viewed and discussed by a panel of experts from entertainment, educational and philanthropic communities. The workshop will explore the superhero throughout the global culture, specifically its absence in the minority community. Attendees will learn genre specific attributes, such as the creation and maintenance of storyline for a superhero, common clichés of the superhero, trends in the development of new superheroes worldwide, and analysis of successfully marketed superheroes. Our expert panel will engage the audience by citing specific heroic examples, through in-depth evaluation of the submissions, and through stimulating discussion based upon the need for minority superheroes. Using scientific-based evidence on the relationship of 
superheroes/role models and the increase of childhood literacy, attendees will gain insight to the symbiotic relationship of superheroes, entertainment and literacy.
Steve Jefferson, Ed.D. – Co-Chair, Buy Your Child A Book Project, Executive Director of Los Angeles Academy of Media & Technology, filmmaker for student interested in film and media, teaching 
all aspects of media and entertainment including production, editing, writing and camera work.
Riley Rose McKesson – Co-Chair, Buy Your Child A Book Project, Writer/Producer of novels and film; Financial specialist for charter schools, statewide in California; currently collaborating with Chas. Floyd Johnson, Exec Producer of NCIS, CBS/Paramount
Sheryl Turner Award-winning book Publisher; Business Management and Consulting expert; Charter School leader and member of various nonprofit boards of directors including Mid-City West Neighborhood Council elected official; currently working on biography of silent film star Harry Langdon with noted Hollywood photographer Harry Langdon, Jr.
Saturday June 11 2:00pm-3:00pm
National Center for Democracy, Democracy Lab
“What’s All the Hype?”: Making Sense of Mixed Stereotypes in the MediaA multimedia presentation utilizing technology and creative writing to discover mixed stereotypes in all aspects of media: such as, television, films, books, new media (social networking), and newsprint. We will begin with a brief historical overview of mixed people in the media and look at how multiracial microaggressions are manifested in the media. Workshop attendees will be creative and active participants by writing a story, dialogue, or theatrical scene which would be found in the media, and find ways to deconstruct commonplace stereotypes and microaggressions, through their own creative writings. A few people will be asked to share and read aloud, for the group at the end!
Adrienne Domasin (Cultural Theorist / Film and Media Studies): Master of Arts Candidate in FIlm Studies at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. Adrienne’s area of emphases include cultural studies, critical race studies, post-colonial theory, and U.S. Imperial culture. Adrienne’s thesis topic will explore the dynamics of representation of mino
rities in contemporary American films.
Daanee Touchstone (Mixed Race Scholar / Microaggressions Theorist): Doctoral Candidate, Loyola Marymount University. Daanee’s dissertation research examines the effects of Racial Microaggressions on Black-White Multiracial University Students in Schooling and Social Development. Her areas of interest are Critical Race Theory, White Privilege, and Multiracial Microaggressions.
Saturday June 11 4:00pm-5:00pm
National Center for Democracy, Democracy Lab
Don’t Pass on Context: The Importance of Academic Discourses in Contemporary Discussion on the Multiracial Experience
This workshop seeks to provide storytellers, moviemakers, essayists alike with helpful resources to help buttress their messages. With an almost unlimited array of tools to transform ideas into words, sounds, and images… and to send them around the world in an instant, how do we insure that our subject competency keeps pace with our technological savvy? Listen to a spirited discussion with leading scholars as they discuss the importance of scholarship in helping writers and artist articulate their ideas so their messages can make a deeper impact. Whether your topic is about making sense of the census, loving versus disowning, or hypodescent, this workshop session is time well spent.
G. Reginald Daniel is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since the Spring of 1989 he has taught “Betwixt and Between,” which is one of the first courses in the United States to deal specifically with the question of multiracial identity comparing the United States with various parts of the world. As of today, “Betwixt and Between,” is the longest currently standing course in the United States dealing with multiracial identity.
Steven F. Riley is the creator and moderator of MixedRaceStudies.org. Mixed Race Studies (www.MixedRaceStudies.org) is a non-commercial website that provides a gateway to contemporary interdisciplinary (sociology, psychology, history, law, anthropology, etc.) English language scholarship about the relevant issues surrounding the topic of multiracialism.
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. His books which include More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order (2002), and Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths? (2006), and his articles “Race, Multiraciality, and Barack Obama: Toward a More Perfect Union?” (2009), and “Racial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist: The Life and Writings of Machado de Assis” (forthcoming in 2012), are a culmination of much of his thinking on the relationship between social structure and racial formation—especially multiracial identities. In addition, Daniel has received a great deal of media attentionand participated as a panelist at various conferences on the topic of multiracial identity. He is a Co-Founding Editor, along with Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis, of the recently launched Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies. Daniel was elected as the AMEA (Association of MultiEthnicAmericans)’s first secretary. He is currently 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 bring about changes in the collection of official racial and ethnic data, as in the decennial census, which makes it possible for multiracial-identified individuals to acknowledge their various backgrounds. Daniel’s own multiracial identity includes African, European, Asian, Arab, and Native American origins.
