MIXED ROOTS FILM & LITERARY FESTIVAL
Saturday, June 11 11:00 am-12:00pm
Japanese American National Museum
369 E. 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Workshop location - National Center for Democracy, Democracy Lab
http://www.mxroots.org/workshops-2011
Mixed Messages – Mixed Race / Interracial representation in TV & Film & News Media
Moderator: Monique Fields
Panelists: Jennifer Noble, Thomas Lopez, Laurel Hoa, Laura Kina, Susan Straight, Heidi Durrow
Multiracial Americans of Southern California (MASC) and journalists and artist activists will discuss mixed race representation in reality TV and in the news media and its impact on the community. Can monoracials tell our stories? Do we want our “
dirty laundry” aired? And what is the impact and import of special reports on the Mixed experience in
Ebony Magazine and the
New York Times? Is there a role we can play with media organizations to get our stories told to the mainstream with sensitivity, without appearing “tragic”? How can we advocate for mixed race and interracial couple stories in the creation of TV sitcom/reality/drama content? Panelists discuss tips and tools for how to create and ensure non-exploitative representation.
Jennifer Noble, PhD, is the current vice president of MASC and a full-time professor of Psychology at
Pasadena City College. She also provides psychotherapy for children/adolescents and their families at the
Reiss Davis Child Study Center. Jennifer is a past president of MASC, current board member and a part of MASC since 1999.
Thomas Lopez is the Parent Liaison and Treasurer for MASC. He is the leader of the MASC children’s playgroup, a past president and a member for over 15 yrs. Thomas is a mechanical engineer working in the medical devices industry. He is native to SoCal with parents from Mexican American and German-Polish roots.
Laurel Hoa, PhD, received her PhD in Development with a specialization in Developmental Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her dissertation was on identity development in individuals of Asian/European descent. She is interested in helping parents foster positive identities in their mixed race children. She and her Chinese-American husband recently had their first child.
Laura Kina is an artist and Associate Professor of Art, Media, & Design and co-organizer of the inaugural 2010
Critical Mixed Race Studies conference at
DePaul University. She is a board member of MAVIN and is working to launch a journal on
Critical Mixed Race Studies through
UC Santa Barbara.
Monique Fields is a journalist, teacher and blogger. She launched
Honeysmoke.com, and it draws 10,000 unique visitors every month. Her essays about interracial marriage and raising biracial children have appeared on
NPR.org,
Literarymama.com, the
St. Petersburg Times, and
theroot.com
Susan Straight was born in Riverside and still lives there with her family. (She can actually see the hospital from her kitchen window, which her daughters find kind of pathetic; most days, she walks the dog past the classroom where she wrote her first short story at 16, at
Riverside City College, which they find even more sad.) She has published seven novels and one middle-grade reader.
Highwire Moon was a finalist for the
National Book Award in 2001;
A Million Nightingales was a finalist for the
Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2006. She was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship to work on
Highwire Moon, and a
Lannan Prize was an immense help when working on
Take One Candle Light a Room.
Heidi W. Durrow (pictured to the left)
Co-Founder/Co-Producer Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival
Heidi W. Durrow (left) is a graduate of
Stanford University,
Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and
Yale Law School. Heidi has worked as a corporate litigator at
Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and as a Life Skills trainer for the
National Football League and
National Basketball Association. She blogs at
Light-skinned-ed Girl and is the co-producer and co-host of the award-winning podcast,
Mixed Chicks Chat. She is an occasional essay contributor to
National Public Radio. Heidi is the winner of writer Barbara Kingsolver’s
Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change.
Heidi’s debut novel,
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (Algonquin Books), about a young biracial girl’s coming-of-age, is currently a
New York Times Bestseller . It was named as one of the Best Novels of 2010 by the
Washington Post and a Top 10 Book of 2010 by
The Oregonian.
Ebony Magazine recently named Heidi as one of its Power 100 Leaders of 2010 along with writers Edwidge Danticat, Malcolm Gladwell and Ntozake Shange, and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
www.heidiwdurrow.com
