Finding my own mixed roots

Question: What am I? 

Answer: I am part of a growing and vibrant community of multiracial and multiethnic people. 

It's refreshing to say I'm part of a community -- and actually feel part of that community. 

This weekend, I was honored to participate in the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in celebration of Loving Day. 

In addition to readings and screenings, there were conversations -- organized and informal. It was amazing to see so many wonderful ethnic blends, almost like going to heaven, or at least a haven. At most, I've been around 4 or 5 people of multiracial/multiethnic background. 

But on Saturday at the Democracy Lab of the Japanese American Museum in Little Tokyo, everywhere my eyes darted, head turned, body passed was another person who was touched by multi-ethnicity. 

The panel I moderated was a discussion on living betwixt and between with Jordan Elgrably, Angela Nissel and Elliot Lewis. Each panelist gave a taste of their experiences. 

An Angeleno and Arab Jew, Elgrably shared a portion of an essay about his longing for the fruit of the exotic loquat tree that lingered during his studies in Paris. This, he discovered some time later, was rooted in parallel longing for a connection to a distant and mildly mysterious French Moroccan father. 

Nissel, a Philly native who grew up with her black mother and absent her white father, read from her book "Mixed: My life in black and white." Her mother was a Black Panther, her father white. 

Journalist Lewis gave a top 10 signs you're living a multiracial existence. He also shared from his book "Fade" a passage chronicling when he became "black." When his mother, who was biracial, signed him up for school when he moved to live with her in the South, she checked the "Negro" box. This was not an identity he had ever worn until that moment, and to him it didn't quite fit. 

The conversation was like a guilty pleasure -- to get to sit and talk with other folks living on the dash between this and that who also have wrestled with and ultimately embraced their identity ambiguity. There was also affirmation just from hearing that they too have had several transitions of identity. 

It was akin to external self-chat. And it was a conversation I hope to continue with them and the many other interesting people I met Saturday.