{"id":31955,"date":"2013-06-29T18:55:05","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T18:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=31955"},"modified":"2013-06-29T18:55:05","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T18:55:05","slug":"soy-yo-play-explores-being-multi-racial-in-a-world-where-race-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=31955","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Soy Yo!&#8217;: Play explores being multi-racial in a world where race matters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stlbeacon.org\/#!\/content\/31566\/soy_yo_biracial_play_062513\" target=\"_blank\">&#8216;Soy Yo!&#8217;: Play explores being multi-racial in a world where race matters<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stlbeacon.org\" target=\"_blank\">St. Louis Beacon<\/a><br \/>\n2013-06-26<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stlbeacon.org\/#!\/list\/AND[AUTHOR[nancy_fowler]]\" target=\"_blank\">Nancy Fowler<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Parents, can you even imagine being accused of kidnapping your own children? It happened to Shari LeKane-Yentumi of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/University_City,_Missouri\" target=\"_blank\">University City<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The reason was race. She\u2019s white, her husband&#8217;s black. Their three children are both; and in our society, &#8220;both&#8221; often reads: black.<\/p>\n<p>It was the mid-1990s. LeKane-Yentumi opened her door to the accusing faces of state officials. Someone had seen a white woman shepherding a black toddler and baby across a grocery-store parking lot on Lindell in St. Louis City, and called the authorities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was reported that I had children who were not mine,\u201d LeKane-Yentumi said. \u201cAnd I was investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A review of birth certificates and other documentation settled that situation. But the demoralizing incident put LeKane-Yentumi on alert whenever she left the inclusiveness of her own community.<\/p>\n<p>Being multi-racial\u2014with African, Caribbean, European and Native American heritage\u2014also forces the Yentumi children, now young adults, to deny much of their identity when they have to check a single box.<\/p>\n<p>LIke the loose translation of &#8220;Soy Yo!,&#8221; an upcoming local play about being multi-racial, the Yentumi children believe, \u201cI Am Me.\u201d They and their friends, who are mostly multi-racial, reject narrow definitions of \u201cblack,\u201d \u201cwhite\u201d and other such categories.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey aren\u2019t as strict about how they want to define race,\u201d LeKane-Yentumi said. \u201cAnd they don\u2019t want to be defined by it.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stlbeacon.org\/#!\/content\/31566\/soy_yo_biracial_play_062513\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Soy Yo!&#8217;: Play explores being multi-racial in a world where race matters St. Louis Beacon 2013-06-26 Nancy Fowler Parents, can you even imagine being accused of kidnapping your own children? It happened to Shari LeKane-Yentumi of University City. The reason was race. She\u2019s white, her husband&#8217;s black. Their three children are both; and in our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,125,8,20],"tags":[15054,15052,773,15050,15053,15051,15049],"class_list":["post-31955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-karla-scott","tag-mariah-richardson","tag-missouri","tag-nancy-fowler","tag-ninfa-matiase","tag-shari-lekane-yentumi","tag-st-louis-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}