Mixed Race Studies

Tamarind Sky, a Novel

Inanna
2020-10-15
412 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-77133-733-5
ePUB ISBN: 978-1-77133-734-2
PDF ISBN: 978-1-77133-736-6

Thelma Wheatley

When British immigrant Selena Jones marries Aidan Gilmor, a Sinhalese-Eurasian — part British — from Sri Lanka in the 1960s in Toronto, a passionate clash of culture ensues. Selena’s mother in Wales is horrified when Selena brings Aidan home to Wales for the wedding. Back in Toronto, Selena faces further prejudice and disapproval of her “mixed marriage,” despite Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s new “multiculturalism,” which was being encouraged but also resented. She is shocked not only by the reaction of neighbours but by the teachers at the all-White school in Toronto where she teaches, and she pretends that Aidan is a White Canadian. When two poor West Indian and two East Indian children from a new government housing project nearby unexpectedly arrive at the school, Selena is forced to take a stand in their defence. Gradually she learns to face her fears and confront racism. She is drawn into a deeper understanding of her Sri Lankan family, and especially of her father-in-law, a former tea planter under the British, who left Ceylon after Independence in 1956. She sees the effect of colonialism on Aidan and his family, trying to be “British” while caught in the middle of the civil war conflict in Sri Lanka. The revelation of her father-in-law’s secret guilt about the past leads to an inevitable and shocking climax.

Other Tongues: Call for Submissions VOLUME 2

I Wonder As I Wonder
2019-09-16

Adebe DeRango-Adem

Mixed-Race Women Speak Out (Again!)

Co-editors Adebe DeRango-Adem and Andrea Thompson are seeking submissions of writing and/or artwork for a follow-up anthology of work by and about mixed-race women, intended for publication by Inanna Publications in 2020-21.

Deadline for Submissions: SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

The purpose of this anthology is to explore the question of how mixed-race women in North America identify in the 21st Century. The anthology will also serve as a place to learn about the social experiences, attitudes, and feelings of others, while investigating more general questions around what racial identity has come to mean today. We are inviting previously unpublished submissions that engage, document, and/or explore the experiences of being mixed-race…

…WHAT IS OTHER TONGUES?

The first edition of Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out was born from a desire to see a new and refreshing literature that could be at the forefront of mixed-race discourse and women’s studies, while providing a space for the creative expression of mixed-race women. Through an inspirational and provocative mix of visual art, literature, orature, creative non-fiction and academic analysis, Other Tongues chronicled the changes in social attitudes towards race, mixed-race, gender and identity, and the each of the contributors’ particular reactions to those attitudes.

The diversity of each woman’s story demonstrated the breadth and depth of the lived reality of the mixed experience for women in North America at that particular moment in time. In this way, the book became a snapshot of the North American racial terrain in the afterglow of the inauguration of the first mixed-race/Black American President—a pivotal point in history that many mistakenly labeled the dawning of a “post-racial” age….

For more information, click here.

Terra Incognita: Poems by Adebe DeRango-Adem

Inanna Publications
2015-05-25
80 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-77133-217-0

Adebe DeRango-Adem

Titled after the Latin term for “unknown land”—a cartographical expression referring to regions that have not yet been mapped or documented—Terra Incognita is a collection of poems that creatively explores various racial discourses and interracial crossings buried in history’s grand narratives. Set against the similarities as well as incongruities of the Canadian/American backdrop of race relations, Terra Incognita explores the cultural memory and legacy of those whose histories have been the site of erasure, and who have thus—riffing on the Heraclitus’s dictum that “geography is fate”—been forced to redraw themselves into the texts of history. Finally, Terra Incognita is a collection that delves into the malleable borders of identity and questions what it means to move physically and spiritually, for our bodies to arrive and depart, our souls to relocate and change their scope.

Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out

Inanna Publications
November 2010
250 pages
ISBN-10: 1926708148
ISBN-13: 978-1-926708-14-0

Edited by

Adebe De Rango-Adem (Adebe D. A.)

Andrea Thompson

This anthology of poetry, spoken word, fiction, creative non-fiction, spoken word texts, as well as black and white artwork and photography, explores the question of how mixed-race women in North America identify in the twenty-first century. Contributions engage, document, and/or explore the experiences of being mixed-race, by placing interraciality as the center, rather than periphery, of analysis. The anthology also serves as a place to learn about the social experiences, attitudes, and feelings of others, and what racial identity has come to mean today.

Adebe De Rango-Adem recently completed a research writing fellowship at the Applied Research Center in New York, where she wrote for ColorLines, America’s primary magazine on race politics. She has served as Assistant Editor for the literary journal Existere, and is a founding member of s.t.e.p.u.p.—a poetry collective dedicated to helping young writers develop their spoken word skills. Her poetry has been featured in journals such as Canadian Woman Studies, The Claremont Review, Canadian Literature, and cv2. She won the Toronto Poetry Competition in 2005 to become Toronto’s first Junior Poet Laureate, and is the author of a chapbook entitled Sea Change (2007). Her debut poetry collection, Ex Nihilo, will be published in early 2010.

Andrea Thompson is a performance poet who has been featured on film, radio, and television, with her work published in magazines and anthologies across Canada. Her debut collection, Eating the Seed (2000), has been featured on reading lists at the University of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art and Design, and her spoken word CD, One, was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award in 2005. A pioneer of slam poetry in Canada, Thompson has also hosted Heart of a Poet on Bravo tv, CiTr Radio’s spoken word show, Hearsay. In 2008, she toured her Spoken Word/Play Mating Rituals of the Urban Cougar across the country, and in 2009 was the Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

Table of Contents (Thanks to Nicole Asong Nfonoyim)

• Acknowledgements
• Preface – Carol Camper
• Introduction – Adebe DeRango-Adem and Andrea Thompson1
• RULES/ROLES
  • Enigma – Andrea Thompson
  • Blond- Natasha Trethewey
  • Mixed- Sandra Kasturi
  • pick one – Chistine Sy and Aja
  • My Sista, Mi Hermana – Phoenix Rising
  • little half-black-breed – Tasha Beeds
  • “White Mask” – Jordan Clarke
  • “Nothing is just black or white” – Jordan Clarke
  • Roll Call – Kirya Traber
  • What Am I? – Marijane Castillo
  • Casting Call: Looking for White Girls and Latinas – D.Cole Ossandon
  • Conversations of Confrontation – Natasha Morris
  • “why i don’t say i’m white”- Alexis Kienlen
  • “Confession #8” – Mica Lee Anders
  • “Other Female” – Mica Lee Anders
  • “MMA and MLA” – Mica Lee Anders
  • The Pieces/Peace(is) in Me – monica rosas
  • Generation Gap (Hawaiian Style) – ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui
  • The Incident that Never Happened – Ann Phillips
  • In the Dark – Anajli Enjeti-Sydow
  • ananse vs. anasi (2007) – Rea McNamara
  • Contamination-  Amber Jamilla Musser
  • A Mixed Journey From the Outside In – Liberty Hultberg
  • What Are You? – Kali Fajardo-Anstine
  • One Being Brown – Tru Leverette
  • One for Everyday of the Week – Michelle Lopez Mulllins
  • Savage Stasis – Gena Chang-Campbell
  • The Half-Breed’s Guide to Answering the Question – M. C. Shumaker
  • My Definition – Kay’la Fraser
  • Pop Quiz – Erin Kobayashi
• ROOTS/ROUTES
  • Melanomial – Sonnet L’Abbe
  • half-breed – Jonina Kirton
  • “Inca/Jew” – Margo Rivera-Weiss
  • Open Letter – Adebe DeRango Adem
  • Prism Woman – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • Southern Gothic – Natasha Trethewey
  • The Drinking Gourd- Miranda Martini
  • Reflection – Jonina Kirton
  • “Untitled” White Sequence – Cassie Mulheron
  • “Untitled” Black Sequence – Cassie Mulheron
  • Mapping Identities – Gail Prasad
  • Whose Child Are You? – Amy Pimentel
  • From the Tree – Lisa Marie Rollins
  • My sister’s hair – ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui
  • I, too, hear the dreams – Peta Gaye-Nash
  • Learning to Love Me – Michelle Jean-Paul
  • A Conversation among Friends – Nicole Salter
  • The Combination of the Two – Rachel Afi Quinn
  • “Loving Series: Elena Rubin” – Laura Kina
  • On the Train – Naomi Angel
  • Coloured – Sheila Addiscott
  • Of Two Worlds – Christina Brobby
  • What is my Culture? – Karen Hill
  • mo’oku’auhau (Genealogy) – ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui
  • Siouxjewgermanscotblack [cultural software instructions] – Robin M. Chandler
  • “Loving Series: Shoshanna Weinberger” – Laura Kina
  • A Hairy Situation – Saedhlinn B. Stweart-Laing
  • “Pot Vida” – Margo Rivera-Weiss
  • Songs Feet Can Get – Rage Hezekiah
  • Opposite of Fence – Lisa Marie Rollins
  • Applique – Lisa Marie Rollins
  • Blanqueamiento – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • The Land – Farideh de Bossett
  • Native Speaker: Daring to Name Ourselves – Nicole Asong Nfonoyim
• REVELATIONS
  • Colour Lesson I – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • Concealed Things – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • Serendipity – Priscila Uppal
  • “Ultramarine” – Margo Rivera-Weiss
  • before i was this – Katherena Vermette
  • Firebelly – Andrea Thompson
  • From Chopsticks to Meatloaf and Back Again – Jasmine Moy
  • My Power – Sonnet L’Abbe
  • Whitewashed – Kathryn McMillan
  • Actually, I’m Black – Marcelite Failla
  • “Self” – Lisa Walker
  • Grey (A Bi-racial Poem) – Sonya Littlejohn
  • Nubia’s Dream – Mica Valdez
  • both sides – Jonina Kirton
  • Mulatto Nation – Marika Schwandt
  • Colour Lesson II – Adebe DeRango-Adem
  • racially queer femme – Kimberly Dree Hudson
  • mypeople – Ruha Benjamin
  • My Life in Pieces – Jennifer Adese
  • Burden of Proof: From Colon-Eyes to Kaleidoscope – Angela Dosalmas
  • Recipe for mixing – Tomie Hahn
  • Metamorphosis – Gena Chang-Campbell
  • The Land Knows – Shandra Spears Bombay
  • Land in Place: Mapping the Grandmother – Joanne Arnott
  • “I am the leaf, you are the leaf” – Lisa Walker
  • Language and the Ethics of Mixed Race – Debra Thompson
  • Hybrid Identity and Writing of Presence – Jackie Wang
• Contributors Notes