{"id":54160,"date":"2017-06-12T15:24:09","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T15:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=54160"},"modified":"2017-06-12T15:24:09","modified_gmt":"2017-06-12T15:24:09","slug":"onstage-and-in-life-an-actress-explores-her-racial-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=54160","title":{"rendered":"Onstage \u2014 and in life \u2014 an actress explores her racial identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Onstage \u2014 and in life \u2014 an actress explores her racial identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Boston Globe<\/a>
\n2017-06-12<\/p>\n

Sally Jacobs<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nCraig F. Walker\/Globe Staff<\/small><\/p>\n

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni<\/a>, who grew up in Cambridge<\/a> and is biracial, has spent much of her life grappling with her racial identity through story and performance.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a child, Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni<\/a> had a cherished birthday ritual. It wasn\u2019t cake or a favorite pancake breakfast. It was her mother\u2019s retelling of her birth story, intended to reassure her about the details of her origins and her parents\u2019 marriage, about which she had nagging questions.<\/p>\n

In a way, she still does.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had this belief growing up that I\u2019m not theirs,\u201d explained DiGiovanni, 47, who grew up in Cambridge<\/a> and now lives in Los Angeles<\/a>. \u201cI always tried to make Mom prove that she actually gave birth to me. So, I always started with, \u2018When did you and Dad first kiss?\u2019 I really couldn\u2019t imagine them being together at all. Still can\u2019t.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…\u201cOne Drop<\/a>,\u201d in which she plays 16 roles, examines the ever-changing racial classifications in the US Census through the lens of her own family experience. DiGiovanni is one of two children born to Winston and Trudy Cox, who were married in 1966 in California<\/a>, a year before the Loving<\/em><\/a> ruling but in a state where interracial marriage was legal.<\/p>\n

As a couple, they collided head-on with racial discrimination. Winston Cox, a Jamaican, was barred from bathrooms, kicked out of restaurants, and humiliated. After he and his wife settled in Washington, D.C.<\/a>, their interests swiftly diverged. Winston joined the Black Panthers<\/a> while his wife turned to the women\u2019s movement. Now 80, Winston believes that race was the main reason the marriage ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t foresee the problems that would take place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trudy Cox, 74, who lives in an assisted-living facility in Boston<\/a>, agrees race was a part of what divided them. \u201cHe just hated it that I was white,\u201d she said. Not only did many of the Panthers\u2019 meetings exclude white people, but Winston himself was growing increasingly uncomfortable around them…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, who grew up in Cambridge and is biracial, has spent much of her life grappling with her racial identity through story and performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,414,125,8,23674,20],"tags":[4072,118,12646,26108,5579,17939,27094],"class_list":["post-54160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-family","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-boston-globe","tag-fanshen-cox","tag-fanshen-cox-digiovanni","tag-sally-jacobs","tag-the-boston-globe","tag-trudy-cox","tag-winston-cox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54160","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=54160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54161,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54160\/revisions\/54161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}