Mixed Race Studies

Solo Show at UCSB’s MultiCultural Center Examines Notions of Racial Identity

Public Affairs & Communications
University of California, Santa Barbara
News Release
2013-05-01

Contact: Andrea Estrada: 805-893-4620; George Foulsham: 805-893-3071

Multimedia performance is produced by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Chay Carter

(Santa Barbara, Calif.)—When actress and playwright Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni married the love of her life in 2006, her father did not walk her down the aisle. In fact, he declined to attend the wedding altogether.

Seeking to understand why he chose not to participate, DiGiovanni began a trek through family history—and time and space—that ultimately led to her M.F.A. thesis project: the multimedia one-woman play, “One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for Her Father’s Racial Approval.”

DiGiovanni will perform the hour-long show at UC Santa Barbara’s MultiCultural Center Theater on Tuesday, May 7. The performance begins at 6 p.m. and will be followed by a question-and-answer session with G. Reginald Daniel, professor of sociology at UCSB. Daniels is a leading expert in the field of critical mixed race studies…

…A leading activist on issues related to mixed race, DiGiovanni is an actor, comedian, producer, and educator. She developed “One Drop of Love” as the thesis project for her Master of Fine Arts degree in film, television, and theater from California State University Los Angeles. She will use footage from her performances—the most recent was at the University of Maryland—to produce a documentary film…

Read the entire news release here.

Performing ‘Race’ and Challenging Racism

One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for her Father’s Racial Approval
Blog Updates
2013-04-08

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Playwright, Producer, Actress, Educator

It is an exciting time to be an actor, when the notion of ‘performance’ is taking on new meanings and has the potential to change the way we view the art form. Traditional definitions of ‘performance’ include the act of staging or presenting a play; a rendering of a dramatic role. Now scholar/activists like Judith Butler are exploring a new definition of performance, or ‘performativity’—looking at how we use language and behavior to construct identity.

In my solo show, One Drop of Love, I get to meld these two understandings of performance. I am an actor who portrays several different characters: my Jamaican/Pan-Africanist father, my Blackfeet–Cherokee-Danish mother, candy and fruit vendors from East and West Africa, Census Workers from the 1790s to the present, racist cops from Cambridge, MA and many others. At the same time, in taking on these roles, I explore the construction of  ‘racial’ identity, and how these identities are created through speech and acts—and not through biology…

Read the entire article here.

One Drop of Love: A Multimedia Solo Performance on Racial Identity by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni at University of Maryland

University of Maryland, College Park
The Stamp (Adele H. Stamp Student Union) [Directions]
Atrium Room
Friday, 2013-03-29, 17:00-19:30 EDT (Local Time)

Sponsored by the Multiracial Biracial Student Association (MBSA), Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy (MICA), The Asian American Literary Review, University of Maryland Asian American Studies Program, and Hamsa.

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Playwright, Producer, Actress, Educator

Jillian Pagan, Director

Q&A afterwards hosted by:

Steven F. Riley, Founder and Creator
www.MixedRaceStudies.org

One Drop of Love is a solo performance piece that journeys from Boston, Michigan, Los Angeles, and East & West Africa from 1790 to the present as a culturally Mixed woman explores the influence of the One Drop Rule on her family and society.

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni. ©2103, Evan Tamayo

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni is a leading activist concerning mixed race, and is an actor, comedian, producer and educator. One Drop of Love is her MFA thesis, and she will be using footage from her performances to make a documentary.

Admission is free.

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni and Steven F. Riley. ©2012, Laura Kina

Ms. Cox DiGiovanni appeared in the 2013 Academy Award and Golden Globe winning film Argo (2012); co-created, co-produced and co-hosted the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat (2007-2012); and co-founded and produced the annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival^® (2008-20012). For more on Ms. Cox DiGiovanni and One Drop of Love, visit: http://www.onedropoflove.org.

Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival^® is Moving On and Making Room

2013-03-18

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Playwright, Producer, Actress, Educator

Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival^® lives on, but only in our own hearts, voices and its original mission.

The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival^® celebrated its final event in June 2012. I hope that you will honor its original mission, and all of the ways in which it touched the Mixed community and beyond by celebrating its accomplishments and continuing its mission through your own vital organizations and activities. If you are looking for ways to continue to celebrate the Mixed experience, here are just a few of the wonderful places to turn to:

• Critical Mixed Race Studies
• MixedRaceStudies.org
• Mixed Heritage Center
• Mixed & Happy
• Swirl
• Hip Hapa Homeez
• Mixed in Canada
• Mixed Roots Japan
• KhanishaFoster.tumbler.com
• Multiracial Americans of Southern California (MASC)
• LOMA
• Multicultural Familia
• MixedRootsStories.org (launching April 1st)
• MixedAmericanLife
• Jennifer Frappier is making a documentary: chillthedocumentary.com
• Mixed Marrow 
• Hapa Japan Conference

I am doing anti-racist and racial identity work with my solo show and documentary: OneDropofLove.org, and Heidi Durrow has applied for a number of trademarks associated with continued work in the Mixed community; however, she may not use our registered trademark Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival^® in connection with any of her activities (this includes on the @mxroots twitter account and the www.mxroots.org website). If you have any questions whatsoever or would like further information, please do not hesitate to contact me: fanshenmc(at)gmail(dot)com.

One Drop of Love: Debut Performance

Arena Theater
California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive [Directions] [Map]
Los Angeles, California 90032
Saturday, 2013-03-09, 20:00 PST (Local Time)

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Playwright, Producer, Actress, Educator
Jillian Pagan, Director

One Drop of Love is a solo show by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni that journeys from Jamaica to Washington, D.C., Cambridge, Michigan, and East and West Africa from 1790 to the present to explore how ‘race’ affects our most intimate relationships.

For more information, click here.

Well, I would say I consider myself more black than white, but more biracial than anything else…

…My identity is biracial. But I say that I’m more black than white because for a lot of biracial people I think this sort of an attempt to balance both parts of their heritage with equal weight.  In my life they’re not equal. The black side attempts to dominate. And I say that because for me, being a biracial person is to be a person of color in America. And so I tend to identify more with my non-white side than with my white side. But I say that I’m more biracial than anything else because my identity and my orientation as a biracial person seem to trump it all…

..I think it goes back to the point I was making earlier, about that for me, to be biracial is being a person of color, you know, in society. If you think about… going back to the days of segregation, there was no “biracial” water fountain in this country. You had “white” water fountains and you had “colored” water fountains and if you were biracial, you drank from the “colored” water fountain. You didn’t have the option of saying, “Oh, I’m half-and-half so I can drink from both.” That’s just not how it worked. So that for me, to be biracial is to be a person of color.

—Elliot Lewis, author of Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America

Fanshen Cox and Heidi Durrow, “Episode 62 – Mixed Chicks Chat with ‘Fade’ author Elliott Lewis”, Mixed Chicks Chat, (August 8, 2008). http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-34257/TS-128390.mp3 or http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=128390&cmd=apop.

Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference 2012 and Mixed Roots Midwest

2012-11-13

Camilla Fojas, (CMRS 2012 organizer) Associate Professor and Chair
Latin American and Latino Studies
DePaul University

Laura Kina, (Mixed Roots Midwest 2012 co-organizer) Associate Professor Art, Media and Design and Director Asian American Studies
DePaul University

Photo of Mixed Roots Midwest: Filmmakers Panel by Laura Kina.

Presented by DePaul’s Center for Intercultural Programs and co-organized by Fanshen Cox, Chandra Crudup, Khanisha Foster, and Laura Kina, Mixed Roots Midwest featured three evenings of programming that explored what it means to have a mixed identity:

• Nov 1, 2012 Selected Shorts: Silences by Octavio Warnock-Graham, Crayola Monologues by Nathan Gibbs, Mixed Mexican by Thomas P. Lopez, and Nigel’s Fingerprints by Kim Kuhteubl.

• Nov 2, 2012 Filmmakers Panel: Fanshen Cox in conversation with Kim Kuhteubl, Jeff Chiba Stearns, Kip Fulbeck.

• Nov 3, 2012 Live Event – featuring spoken word artists CP Chang, Chris L. Terry and Sage Xaxua Morgan-Hubbard from Chicago’s own 2nd Story along with a preview of Fanshen Cox’s solo-show-in-progress, One Drop of Love and invited Chicago writer Fred Sasaki reading from a manuscript of e-mails called “Letter of Interest.”

Fanshen’s Farewell to Mixed Chicks Chat

Fanshen Cox
2012-11-05

In June 2012 we recorded the final episode of Mixed Chicks Chat. Creating and carrying out the podcast each week for the past five years provided me with a consistent, safe, nurturing space in which to share and learn more about the Mixed experience.  I have grown in many ways since I started the show, and now it is time for me to move forward with new and exciting projects—many of which came out of the conversations I shared with the listeners and guests. I want to thank those of you who became a part of the Mixed Chicks Chat community—through your emails, participation as guests, and live-chat-presence, you all made Mixed Chicks Chat the valuable resource it became to so many. If you are looking for a particular episode and can’t find one, feel free to email me at mixedrootsstories(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll be happy to get you an MP3.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful stories!

Fanshen Cox

My Day at the 5th Annual Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival

Gino Michael Pellegrini: Education, Amalgamation, Race, Class & Solidarity
2012-10-14

Gino Pellegrini, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English
Pierce College, Woodland Hills, California

Saturday morning, June 16, 2012: I take the Metro from North Hollywood to the Tokyo Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles. My destination is the 5th Annual Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival at the Japanese American National Museum and the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. This is a three-day event, but I can be there for just this one day, and my first goal is to meet Steven Riley, the creator of the website, Mixed Race Studies.

I have not attended an event centered upon the mixed experience in many years. I walk through the glass doors. The volunteer staff is welcoming and energetic. The imagery is colorful, ambiguous, and stimulating. The overall vibe is positive and hopeful, and for a moment I am taken aback to how I felt at my first mixed-experience event, the 2000 Harvard-Wellesley Conference on the Mixed Race Experience.

Skeptics say that this type of event, which brings together individuals of diverse mixes and backgrounds, is unsustainable. Do Hapas, blacklicans, latalians, jewasians, and standard black/white multiracials really have that much in common? Apparently many do, and this Festival holds together amazingly well and continues to grow thanks to the diligence, intelligence, and creativity of its founders, Fanshen Cox and Heidi Durrow.

The artists/writers whom I see present or talk to this day have strong personal voices and are very talented at what they do. Overall, their work complicates received understandings of multiracial identity, experience, and art…

Read the entire article here.

…but I’m honestly moving away from biracial & even mixed—I am so disillusioned by the whole notion of ‘race’ at all.

Fanshen Cox, “One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for her Father’s Racial Approval,” #swirlchat, July 27, 2012. http://storify.com/swirlinc/one-drop-of-love-a-daughter-s-search-for-her-fathe