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Downloaded from YTS.MX

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[mystical music]

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

♪ ♪

[laughter, indistinct chatter]

I've never really had anyone ask me, like,

"What are you?" or, like, "What's your skin tone?"

If someone did ask me, I would probably say,

"I'm mixed," which means I'm Black and white,

two different races.

Aw, that's my oldest daughter, Sami,

an incredible, bouncing, buoyant, piano-playing kid,

half Black, half white.

I brought the Black part.

My wife, Melissa, brought the white part.

Even before Sami was born, Melissa and I realized

that Sami was gonna have experiences

that we didn't understand

simply because she's mixed.

all: ♪ Happy birthday ♪

Well, now Melissa and I have three

mixed-race daughters,

Sami, Juno, and Asha.

And they have lots of mixed-race friends.

And while Melissa and I talk with our kids a lot

about their race and what it means in the world,

I was curious about other mixed-race kids.

I wanted to talk to them.

I would say I'm half Pakistani

and I'm half African American.

I say I'm Asian and American, so I'm mixed-race.

I am 100% Filipino, 100% African American,

and 1,000% a person.

Then I talked to their families.

I talked to some mixed-race adults

who used to be mixed-race kids.

I am mixed, but I'm not mixed up.

Some of the conversations went better than others.

Ooh, what's that?

And some of the conversations

went surprising places.

Just because we live in a diverse community

does not mean that racism and all that doesn't happen.

What is white culture, you know,

besides racism and Evangelical Christians?

[laughter]

I even got my mom and my mother-in-law

to sit down and talk about

their adorable mixed-race grandkids

and racism.

It actually went pretty well.

I quickly found out that I'm not the only one

who thinks this is a good idea.

I think it's very fun for other people

that are not mixed-race to see about--

to learn and see what a mixed-race kid does,

what he feels, and what he knows.

[upbeat funky music]

[jazzy upright bass music]

[laughs]

♪ ♪

My name is Sami or Samiah,

and I'm ten years old and in fifth grade.

And I identify as a mixed child, Black and white.

Are you my sweet little baby?

My name is Juno, and I'm seven.

All right, and what are you made up of?

Like, what are your races?

What are you made up of?

Black and white.

And what are you? Are you Black?

Are you white? Are you both? Are you more--

Both.

Are you more one or the other?

Both.

So have you ever had anything happen to you at school,

where somebody was, like--

thought you were something different than you were?

- Yep. - Oh, what happened?

We were under the tower,

and then she just came running towards us and said--

and told me I was white.

And how did that make you feel?

Sad.

Why did it make you feel sad?

Because I'm not just white.

I'm both.

[mellow upright bass music]

♪ ♪

You can be both.

There's not just, like, "You have to be this,

or you have to be this."

Like, also, like, "You have to be a boy.

You have to be a girl."

There's many in between, and I'm in between

between Black and white, and I like that.

What song does your dad sometimes wake you up with--

you and you sister up with in the morning?

The song that you sometimes wake us up with is

"To Be Young, Gifted and Black"

by Nina Simone.

Why do you think I play it for you in the mornings?

Because me, Sami, and Asha

are all young, gifted, and Black.

Well, not completely Black, but...

[laughter]

Go fish.

Juno, do you have a five?

Do you like being the middle sister,

or would you like to be the older or the younger sister?

Middle.

Because you get to be two-- two things at the same time.

- Like what? - You can be little,

and you can be a little sister and a big sister

at the same time.

[laughs]

[light piano music playing]

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I grow up, I want to be a musician and, like,

a singer and dancer, maybe.

My favorite singer is Alicia Keys.

She's also mixed.

I really like her music,

and I really like that she looks like me.

♪ ♪

So when you close your eyes thinking about yourself,

what do you feel?

I like to think I'm a very creative person

and imaginative.

And I like to think that I'm a kind person

and want to help other people.

And I feel like I really enjoy myself and, like, yeah.

♪ ♪

Myles, you think you can dunk it?

No.

I'll try.

- No. - [laughs]

My name is Myles.

I'm 11 years old,

and I live in San Francisco, California.

[upbeat jazzy music]

We are at Lands End in San Francisco,

seeing the nice view of fogginess.

♪ ♪

I like to bike, play basketball,

and play video games, sometimes play the trumpet.

[upbeat Dixieland music playing]

So how would you describe yourself?

Mixed Filipino and African American.

Tell me about your Filipino side.

We have traditions

of getting together a lot.

'Cause Filipinos really like to party,

so we always, like, get together a lot.

I used one spatula and...

I think one of my favorite things

was actually at a Filipino festival.

It was, like, a cook-off.

It was kind of, like, showing what, like, you cook,

and I was cooking with my lola and my mom to make--

making maruya,

which is, like, a Filipino banana fritter,

which is really good.

Hi, winner.

Hello.

How often do you see your lola?

I see her at least once a week.

She just came by earlier today.

Why'd your lola come by earlier today?

Advice for this. [chuckles]

Can you tell me the advice she gave you?

The advice she gave me was, like,

"Oh, tell them that my dad looks like Denzel Washington."

Does your dad look like Denzel Washington?

So sometimes when my parents

were out somewhere, some people were like,

"Oh, are you Denzel Washington?"

But, like, he's not really Denzel Washington, so...

Did you always know you were Black?

No.

How did you find out you were Black?

So once we were doing-- at my summer camp,

my Filipino summer camp, one of my friends--

'cause they are also Black and like,

"Oh, Myles, you're Black," and I was like, "I am?"

- [laughs] - So yeah.

That's awesome.

I'm happy that he now-- that space is there

for him to have those conversations and--

and think about those things

and feel those things at that age.

I felt like that space wasn't fully there

when I was his age.

I grew up an only child.

I'm half Black, half Filipino.

Myles and my little brother came into the picture

22 years later, so big age gap.

My elementary school was pretty much Asian.

I think I was probably one of five

Black kids in the school.

I pretty much identified more so with the Filipino side.

But in middle school, now I see a lot more kids

that look like me,

like, the Black side of me,

so same color, same everything, same hair.

I was like, "All right, now I kind of see where--

where I fit in, in a sense."

But then at the same time,

I didn't grow up with those kids

nor have the same lifestyle as they did,

so I was also looked at differently.

It was, like, rough trying to figure out my identity,

especially being Black when I was raised Filipino,

because then now I'm not Black enough for the Black kids.

I'm like, "All right, cool.

"Well, I'ma just pick up my basketball,

"and I'ma do my thing here.

"And I'll identify as a basketball player.

That's perfectly fine with me."

But we never had those conversations, and I--

I feel like now in today's world

is where we really start opening up that box

of having those conversations and letting those walls down.

[light funky music]

- [laughs] - Ah, get out of here.

My favorite part of what I heard,

one is how people would just see him as, like,

Black and not quite Filipino at first glance,

'cause that's kind of, like, the same situation with me.

So, like, when I tell them that I am Filipino,

they're like, "Are you sure?"

[chuckles]

I'm not shocked, because I'm older

and I've seen it, but it also--in a sense,

it sucks that we-- we're still doing that.

We're still going through that phase.

[upbeat guitar music playing]

♪ ♪

I am Presley. I am ten years old.

And my race is Filipino American.

My dad is Filipino, and my mother is white.

So why do you think your parents named you Presley?

Where did that name come from?

Well, my parents really like the singer

Elvis Presley, and that's why I was named Presley.

And what do you do for fun?

Well, I play the bass.

And I like to play volleyball.

What do you like about volleyball?

I have a lot of energy.

And what brought you to the bass?

My best friend was in an band,

and she invited me to join it, so I tried it,

and the instrument I was given was bass,

and I really liked it.

[rock music playing]

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

Do you feel like you're more Filipino

or more white?

Mm, I don't think--

I think I'm basically equal between it,

'cause I know the culture to both.

I'm just--

I grew up with a supercool Filipino dad.

What does your dad do?

He's mostly an editor,

and he also has a TNT tricycle thing.

[engine rumbling]

It's basically just a tricycle that was decorated,

and you can drive around the city

and have two or three people

in the little boxcar at the side.

And then we just drive around the city and do karaoke.

all: ♪ Streetlights ♪

♪ People ♪

♪ Livin' just to find emotion ♪

Is this a good idea, to make a thing about mixed-race kids?

Yeah, 'cause it would raise awareness

about people with mixed race,

'cause usually people just brush it off,

but, like, there's a ton of culture in it.

When you meet a kid like Presley,

you can't help but wonder, who's this kid's parents?

Where'd they come from?

What are they like?

[funky upright bass music]

We both ride motorcycles.

So we met in that kind of, like--we had mutual friends.

♪ ♪

And then we got married in November, like,

two months after we met.

And, like, here we are.

The rest is history, you know?

When you were growing up, what kind of conversations

did you have about race?

Nothing. Nothing.

I grew up in a super-white area,

and we never spoke about race.

Did you guys talk about other races?

I know you didn't talk about your race,

because it's the dominant race in America,

but did you, like, mention other races?

I can't--I can't remember one conversation

that we had about race ever.

I mean, I don't think it ever came up.

I mean, me too, though.

There was no conversation about race at all

in the Philippines.

But colonial mentality is really strong with my mom.

So the shades of skin tone were always mentioned.

People were told to cover up because the sun's out.

"You'll get dark," you know.

"Nobody will marry you," you know?

- [laughs] - So there was all that.

And in high school, there was maybe eight Filipinos,

and I made sure not to be friends with that group,

because I wanted to be as white as possible.

♪ ♪

And unfortunately,

with Presley, when her features were coming in,

I did think at that time, like,

"Oh, thank God she doesn't look that Asian,

because she'll have a different experience," you know?

Because I grew up that way, that's what I--

that's--that's the reason I thought that of Presley.

But she's made me think about race more.

I feel like I had to pick a side finally

when the last administration

with their anti-immigrant rhetoric and, like--you know.

I felt like--I'm like,

"Hey, they're talking about me," you know?

They're--I'm not--I can't--

there's no way I can be like,

"Yeah, get those brown people out of here,"

'cause that's me, you know?

♪ ♪

That's when I got involved

with SOMA Pilipinas, the South of Market

in San Francisco, and I've been meeting

all of these people that are involved in that community

and just been learning about my own history

and my own history as a Filipino American

here in the States, you know what I mean?

Really, it's only in the last few years

that I'm embracing my, like, Filipino Americanness.

[upbeat guitar music playing]

♪ You like me ♪

♪ I like you ♪

♪ But I don't think I need you ♪

♪ So clearly goodbye to you ♪

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

- [drumming] - ♪ Eh, eh, eh, ah-la, eh ♪

- ♪ Eh ♪ - ♪ Eh ♪

My name is Sumaya.

I am seven years old.

And I would think of myself

like a mix of, like,

well, basically all my favorite animals:

a corgi, a spaniel,

husky, llama, and Shiba Inu.

[singing in Guinean/Susu]

♪ ♪

My mom is Asian, and my dad is Black.

And my sister is just like me.

She's a mix.

And do you like being mixed?

- Yeah. - What do you like about it?

I don't know.

Maybe because I'm not one or the other

or not one or the other.

I'm me.

And I like being me.

[soft music]

In my mind, my brain's doing the running man

and having a party

and doing the floss.

And where--and where is your dad from again?

Conakry.

And where is that?

In Africa.

What do you remember about Conakry?

The mangos.

Tell me about the mangos.

Huge.

How big? Show me.

♪ ♪

That's a mango?

Uh-huh.

The mangos.

- [laughter] - The mangos.

- Huge. - [laughs] Huge.

Huge.

I mean, we are the mango country.

[laughs]

No, we are the mango country.

We are the mango country.

Before you had Sumaya and Jaleela,

what were your thoughts about children?

Well, we already know that our children

is gonna be mixed.

We already know that. They have to know that.

People is gonna be telling them sometimes,

"Hey, you bad," because their color.

We--we already know that, and, you know,

since Sumaya is three,

we started telling her this thing.

So when she was three, what were you telling her?

So we'd be telling her, "You are Black.

"A lot of things gonna come in your way at some point.

"But that's what this society deal with,

"so you just have to know the way

"how to interact with people,

how to sometime not take it deeply personally."

- Yeah. - You were the one

mostly, like, educating Sumaya and myself,

moving here from Africa,

how it is here as a person of color.

Our kids are Black and brown,

and they're girls.

They're gonna have to work

twice as hard to get half as far,

you know, so it's just all these big decisions

you have to make as parents.

And part of being in the Bay Area is that

there is a growing population of multiracial,

- multiethnic children. - Yes.

So it's not like she's gonna be the only one.

[laughter, indistinct chatter]

Let's talk about names.

How did you pick the names for your kids?

- Mm. - So with Sumaya,

we look into so many names.

But we wanted to really have something

that can represent both of our culture.

I'm a Muslim Black man from Africa.

And Joti, she's a Punjabi from... Georgia.

- [laughs] - So...

Sumaya, it's not, you know,

really common in either of our cultures,

but it is a name that does show up,

and like Bongo was saying, you know,

Muslim culture across the Arab world

and then also in South Asian cultures,

there's variations of the name Sumaya,

so we felt like also for people here in the United States,

it's easy to pronounce.

Even at the naming of your children,

you're already thinking about the fact

that their heritage is mixed and their race is mixed.

- Yeah. - Absolutely.

And Sumaya have my last name,

and Jaleela have her mom's last name.

We're fighting the patriarchy one name at a time.

[upbeat percussive music playing]

[singing in Punjabi]

♪ ♪

[birds chirping]

My name is Kanani.

I'm 11 years old.

I identify as mixed-race.

I am Latina, white, and Native American.

My dad was raised in Boruca,

a small tribe in Costa Rica.

And my mom grew up in San Diego.

Is it confusing to be so many things?

Sometimes.

And sometimes it's hard for people to understand

when I tell them all the different races I am.

So sometimes I just say I'm mixed-race.

Hacerlo como más...

¿Más claro?

- Sí, más claro. - Okay.

And sometimes they ask me,

like, "Who do you look like?"

And I say-- sometimes I just answer,

"I like look me."

[funky upright bass music]

Have you traveled outside the United States?

Yeah, I go each summer and each December

to Costa Rica to visit my family.

[engine humming]

I usually spend my time in Boruca with my cousins,

and mostly what I like about going there is, like,

how I feel so free, and when I go there,

I'm really accepted as a community member.

What's also nice about there is all the traditions we have

and the festivals, and now that I'm older,

I get to learn those traditions.

I get to learn how to weave.

I get to learn how to speak the language.

We have a tradition called los Diablitos.

[all chanting]

The whole festival is based on retelling a story

about when the Spaniards came.

Some people dress up as diablitos, so--

which is devils.

They have painted masks.

And they dress up as devils

because they called them pagans,

so, like, without religion,

and so they said, "I'm okay with that.

I guess I'm a devil."

And so it's the story, and it's about how sometimes

they fell down, but they got back up,

and they beat the Spaniards, because they're still alive.

And they're telling it to the new generation.

They're telling it so people still know their story.

At my school, they usually do, like,

Latina joy, African American joy,

and the joy of being that identity,

and I noticed and I told my mom that I noticed

that they didn't do Native American.

So my mom told them, and I'm doing an assembly

teaching people about what being Native American is

and a little bit more about my culture.

Welcome to our celebration of Indigenous cultures.

[jazzy upright bass music]

♪ ♪

Can you tell me a little bit about how you guys met

and what that was like?

Well, we met in the-- my community

26, 27 years ago, something like that.

And who approached who first?

[laughter]

Tequila. No.

[laughter]

And yeah, then...

she invited me to come over to the United States.

I was coming for one year.

And 24 years later, I'm still here.

[indistinct chatter]

No, él no va a ponerlo.

[laughter]

Did you ever experience any racism

as an interracial couple?

[speaking Spanish]

Right. That's true. Right, right.

Sometimes, you know, when we would apply

for a place to live,

often it would be my name first.

I'd be the one doing the conver--

having the conversation,

putting myself forward, and using my privilege

- to get-- - Using your last name.

Yeah, using my last name and using my privilege a lot.

♪ ♪

One of the first times that, like, I kind of realized,

"Oh, this is gonna be a little bit different

than what I thought it was gonna be,"

was, when we had her, we made the conscious decision

that we would only speak Spanish in the house.

Then when she got into the school world,

she would learn English, because this is the dominant

language here in the United States.

So anyway, went to the park with her,

and I would go to the park with her all the time.

I would see the same moms all the time at the park.

And the kids got in a little tiff,

a little something, and the mother said to me,

"Well, Pica, you know

"it's because Kanani doesn't speak English.

And you really need to teach her English."

And I said, "Well, you know, we agreed as a family

"that we're not gonna do the English thing yet.

"We'll do it, you know, when she goes to school.

She'll learn it, and then it'll be fine."

"Well, it's obviously a problem now, because look.

They're not getting along."

And so I didn't-- I don't remember what I did.

I don't remember what I did at that moment,

but what I remember next was, when we went home,

his nephew was living with us--

our nephew, I guess, technically, right?

But from the village.

And I got home, and I said, "Oh, my God.

This thing just happened."

Of course I told him in Spanish.

I'm like, "Oh, my goodness. This thing just happened."

And I remember he said to her, "Come here."

And he took her hands and looked right into her eyes

and said something like,

"They're always gonna try to change us.

"They're always gonna make us adjust to them.

"And we have to speak our language,

and we have to know who we are."

And I went, "Whoa."

I remember just thinking, "Oh, my gosh.

"This is too much for me to know how to handle.

"Like, my child is gonna have a totally different experience

than the experience I'm gonna have,"

and what really blew me away is,

I had no idea that kids were given

a lesson about race so young.

[indistinct chatter, laughter]

No, no, definitely not.

♪ ♪

My name is Anisa.

I'm ten years old.

I'm in fifth grade.

And I would say I'm half Pakistani

and I'm half African American,

but I'm also Muslim.

How many siblings do you have?

I have two siblings.

[light music]

Their names are Ibrahim and Khalil.

I'm the youngest.

Do you like being the youngest?

No.

What's wrong with being the youngest?

Because I'm smaller than them

and I'm weaker than them,

and they take that as an advantage sometimes.

What do you think you do better than them?

I know I can win in skateboarding.

♪ ♪

I love skateboarding.

And I know I can win in skateboarding.

I know I can win in gymnastics

just by doing a cartwheel.

And I know I can win in--

I don't think I can win in soccer.

But--my coaches say I can win in soccer,

but I don't really believe that.

♪ ♪

What do you like about being Muslim?

I like being

the one person in my class, for example,

who is Muslim

and being able to share that with my classmates.

But it's kind of hard, 'cause sometimes my classmates

won't understand because they really haven't

learned anything about it.

Eid Mubarak to Nana.

- Eid Mubarak. - Eid Mubarak.

Eid Mubarak.

Eid Mubarak to Nana and Granddad.

One of the things I'm real excited about being Muslim

is wearing a hijab, which is what Muslims wear,

and a jilbab.

So have you worn those things before?

Yeah, I have.

When I pray, I wear them sometimes.

So have you been to other countries

other than the United States?

Oh, we've been to Mecca and Medina,

and my mom took so many pictures.

[jazzy upright bass music]

I'm fine with taking pictures, but my brothers aren't.

They don't like taking pictures at all.

[laughs]

True. Still got it.

♪ ♪

My name's Khalil.

I'm 15, and I would describe myself

as African American or mixed.

My name's Ibrahim.

I'm 13, and I would describe myself

as African American mixed.

On surveys, sometimes they have, like,

- multiracial or biracial. - Yeah.

But I usually just use mixed.

Yeah, probably.

Me too.

I think--I think mixed draws less attention to it,

so, like, I feel like if you said multiracial,

people would ask you about it more.

Yeah.

Like if you said multiracial, they'd be like,

"Oh, what races?"

But, like, if you just say mixed,

nobody will care.

♪ ♪

Being racially ambiguous is, like, sort of difficult,

like, when talking to people or talking about race.

For example, like, when I was--

I don't want to sound like an old person--

when I was their age, there was only, like,

Black, white, Asian, and then other

on, like, if you were to take a survey for, like,

a standardized test or something,

but now there's, like, a lot more options,

and I feel like schools have made it a point

of talking about that more than when I was their age, I guess.

At my old school, there was--

I was, like, the only Black boy there.

But at my new school, there's tons of people

that I'm friends with that are, like, mixed.

I think it's a good thing to find other people like you

and talk about the experiences you have.

♪ ♪

What do you guys think of each other?

Are you impressed with each other?

I'm impressed--I'm impressed with him, actually.

I'm impressed with him.

- He says a lot of big words. - I didn't know you went--

[laughs]

He says a lot of smart, big words

that I don't understand.

Maybe it's--maybe it's 'cause of his school.

- But, like, yeah. - Smart words.

Definitely him.

♪ ♪

So if things have changed in the few short years

since Khalil was Anisa's age,

then how much has changed for mixed-race adults?

Oh, wait. I'll just ask one.

♪ ♪

My name is Erica.

I identify as half Black and half Japanese.

I was born in Oakland, California.

Nobody gave me a rule book on what it meant

to be half Black and half Japanese.

And so when I had comments like in high school,

"Oh, you sound really white,"

or, "You're really whitewashed," I'm like,

"Can you tell me, then, like, what is it supposed be be,

"or how am I supposed to act as a half Black

"and half Japanese person?

Where is the rule book for that?"

And not really having any representation around me,

I was just like, "How can fit in?"

I found that route through being of service to others.

And so through that, I realized that I just loved

listening to people's stories and really wanted to follow

that career through therapy.

♪ ♪

I think that sometimes people, we have this idea

that mixed-race children are gonna save the world,

that somehow, by the very existence of mixed-race kids,

we don't have to do the work anymore.

And that really couldn't be further from the truth.

We have a lot of work to do.

I'm really proud of the current and future generation

of mixed kids that are really, like,

affirming their identity and being loud and proud,

but we live in a deeply racist society.

And that's gonna show up in a lot of different ways.

And there's a lot of danger in not talking about race

or not talking about racism.

♪ ♪

My name is Kaylin.

I'm 16 years old.

I'm in grade ten,

And I'm from San Ramon, California.

What is your life like there?

I usually just go to school.

I work at a lash extension place at the City Center.

So what made you decide to get a job?

I shop a lot. [laughs]

How do you identify racially?

Both my parents are half Black.

My mom is half Korean, and then my dad's half Black--

or half white, yeah.

Half Black, half white; half Black, half Korean.

Do people ever confuse what your race is?

All the time.

Yeah, I get Filipino.

I don't get Black a lot.

I get just, like,

everything but what I am, pretty much.

♪ ♪

I think just, like,

being told all of my life that I'm so different

or I'm so unique, I just kind of--

as a kid, I kind of just, like, separated myself or, like,

put myself in a separate box

because I've always been told that I'm different

to the point where I was just like,

"I'm just too different."

♪ ♪

Through social media, there's, like, a lot of,

"Well, if you're not this Black,

you can't, like, do this or do that or"--

and, like, sometimes I just feel

almost excluded from my own race,

and sometimes I don't know whether I should tread lightly

or if I should-- or if I should try to fit in.

There's so many check marks on surveys

where I have to check what I am,

what I identify as, and--

my mom's gonna, like, get mad at me for saying this,

but she said when I first came to school in San Ramon,

she marked me off as white and Asian

and excluded Black, because she thought that maybe

I'd have a disadvantage if they knew that I was Black.

There's just, like, so many boxes,

and it's like--yeah.

- All right, let's get this straight.

Kaylin's mom is definitely proud to be Black.

And she also wants to protect her daughter

from America's anti-Blackness,

just like I wanted to protect my kids from anti-Blackness.

But nobody yet has come up with a surefire way

to do that.

These conversations are complicated.

Good thing for Kaylin, though,

she's got her uncle in her corner.

He gets it.

How do you know this person?

This my niece.

Tell me about this guy.

He's my favorite person.

[laughs]

I think I just have, like,

the best conversations with him.

[laughter]

He's just very funny and active

and very, like, just-- he listens.

Like, he's looking at me as I'm talking.

Like, he's a good listener.

He's just a good presence, positive.

Tell me about where you were born and raised.

So I was born in Oakland at Kaiser...

[laughs] And raised in Berkeley.

♪ ♪

It was always a trip growing up there.

It was, like, this liberal bastion of free speech

and all this kind of revolutionary radical energy,

and then-- but then when I was living--

you know, me growing up in, like,

mixed heritage, Black, you know, father,

white mother in a primarily whiteish neighborhood

around UC Berkeley,

it didn't feel all that liberal to me.

It was still, like, people, like, crossing the street

to get, like, away from me at night and--

and people pretty much, like, treating me

like I didn't belong in this place that I was from.

♪ ♪

It's like, you claim to like Black people,

but you don't want to be around Black people

or don't feel safe or comfortable

being around Black people.

So is it harder to, like, talk to Grammy's generation

with, like, Sally and Todd and, like, everybody?

Was it harder to talk to them?

Yes, 1,000%.

Like, one of the responses to racism is to run away

and to look away from it, and I think that that's

what happened a lot in the family,

and I think that that was my first experience of whiteness

was my mom, and just, like, to have somebody

who was unwilling to have a conversation with me

about race when you decided to have,

you know, Black children and, you know,

mixed-heritage children

taught me a lot about what whiteness

was and wasn't willing to do.

So just to be clear, your mom, who's white,

wasn't--didn't have access to the Black conversation.

Right, mm-hmm, yeah.

Yep, she just didn't, you know?

And I--you know, sorry, Mom, but, like, yeah.

It's what it was, and it really informed--

I think and because of that, it also shaped my experience

with wanting to be able to articulate and explain

everything I possibly could in the clearest type of way

to have it land with somebody who was already

hella resistant to it or just, like,

completely oblivious to it.

I have to create language that lands in such a way,

anybody could hear it.

And, like, that was the trauma response.

[laughter]

We talked about this in the car on the way here.

But yeah, it's--I mean, yeah, it's a trip, and--yeah,

it takes a lot to work through that, yeah.

Oh, today or yesterday?

Just why would you do that?

And I was just like, "Okay." I'm, like...

♪ ♪

A high percentage of interracial couples

have no idea what the experience is

for this child that they've brought into the world.

And then you have maybe one that is very experienced

in understanding racism.

The other one is completely naive, you know.

It's really a challenge

that, unfortunately for me,

I had to figure out by myself.

This is Roy.

Not only does Roy have over 80 years of experience

being mixed.

He's a community organizer and goes to kids' schools

to talk them about race and racism.

Roy is deep.

I was born at 6:44 p.m.

on the 26th day of February, 1941,

Providence hospital, Seattle, Washington,

King County.

My father is basically African American.

However, my--I can't remember how many greats it was

actually was a slave to the northern Creek Indians.

And our lineage comes out of that.

My mother identifies primarily as Norwegian.

So what--how did--

what did they call you when you were a kid?

What was the label for a kid who's half Black, half white?

I know I heard the word "mulatto."

And it didn't feel good to me, just the sound.

But then when I heard something about Louisiana,

"octagons" and "roctagons," I said,

sound like monkeys to me.

I didn't like it, you know?

And so I didn't have a label.

I just accepted Negro or colored.

That was okay with me.

Yeah, octoroon, I think, yeah.

Octoroon. That's it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, octoroon.

And my--one of my friends,

he said to me,

"My mother told me your mother cannot be white

because it's illegal."

You know, I didn't say a word.

I just was like...

You know, I just was like,

"Well, I'm not gonna argue with you or your mother."

And at some point, I realized who I am

whether you accept it or not.

I don't need you to validate who I am or who I'm not.

You can call me whatever you want.

♪ ♪

Throughout the history of this country,

mixed-race people like Roy have had to navigate a culture

where their very existence is in dispute,

even through the country's laws and institutions.

It wasn't until 1967 in the Supreme Court case

of Loving versus Virginia that non-white people

were allowed to marry white people

in every state of the Union.

But as always, court cases don't fix everything.

Interracial relationships might not seem

like a big deal now,

but it wasn't that long ago in our history

that this country worked overtime

to make sure white people and all the other races

didn't even hang out together.

You know what this needs?

Some grandmas.

I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana,

long before the Civil Rights Movement

when Indiana was basically like the South:

segregated, separate, and unequal.

So white people were not even real people

as far as I was concerned,

because they had no significant place in my life.

They were just the enemy.

Mm-hmm.

Because they kept us from going where we wanted to go

and working where we wanted to work

and living where we wanted to live.

Yeah.

That's my mom.

When I was growing up,

we had conversations like this regularly.

This is Melissa's mom.

And I'm sure when Melissa was growing up,

her and her mom did not talk like this.

So I decided to sit the grandmas down

and let them talk it out.

I grew up in San Jose, California,

where I had the exact opposite.

I only was ever around white people.

And I did not know a Black person

till I went to high school.

I had a Portuguese side of the family

and an Italian side of the family.

And the people that my parents were friends with

were either in the Italian or Portuguese community,

and we kind of did things as families together.

There was no tension about, like,

"You can't marry a Portuguese person," or...

- No. - "You can't marry an Italian"?

No, and--well, especially in the Italian part,

as long at the other person was Catholic,

that was okay.

It really--that was the first consideration,

not race.

Religion was always the first consideration.

And one of my cousins did marry somebody who was a Catholic,

and she heard no end of it from my grandmother.

So that was the first I ever even heard of,

"There's different kind of people,

and that's not our kind of people,"

was the religion part of it.

Although I bet if you had brought home

a Black Catholic...

I don't know. I didn't even know any, so...

You didn't even know they existed, huh?

No. [laughter]

You already had yours

[laughter]

- Yeah, she really likes that. - Yeah.

You know, when I was five years old

and was getting ready to start school,

and I had a playmate--

'cause we lived in a neighborhood

that was predominantly white, and I had a playmate

my age who was white.

And so we were gonna go to school together, we thought.

And then when I was telling my mother about this,

she had to sit me down and let me know.

That's when I was introduced to racial segregation.

'Cause she said, "You won't be going to the school

down the street."

Really?

I just had a tantrum.

I didn't know what else to do.

- I was mad. - Mm-hmm.

And I wonder, too,

is that when she learned she was white?

I mean, did she know she was white before that?

♪ ♪

I never thought of myself as Black before that.

♪ ♪

But with my granddaughters,

I tell them about these experiences.

They find it really hard to believe.

Yes, I can imagine.

♪ ♪

When GoGo said she went to a segregated school,

do you two know what "segregated" means?

- Yes. - Nope.

Sami, tell Juno what "segregated" means.

GoGo went to a school that was only for Black people.

And then somebody else might have gone to a school

that was only for white people.

They were separated.

They couldn't drink from the same water fountains,

go to the same parks,

shop at the same places, I'm guessing.

How do you feel when you hear about how Black people

have been treated in this country?

It makes me feel, like, upset,

and I feel like they were treated unfairly.

And a lot still are today, and I don't--

like, that makes me feel, like, frustrated,

but then I also know that definitely--

this is definitely true-- that not all white people

are bad, definitely, just because in--

'cause I know a lot of white people

who are not bad people,

but I also think about how Black people

have been treated unfairly that way.

Hello.

Not only do my kids have a lot of mixed-race friends.

We have other mixed-race people in our family.

Hi, Carter.

This is my goddaughter Carter.

Her mom is one of my people.

I wasn't sure Carter would want to talk on camera.

But she said she would as long as she was allowed

to bring her friend Nola.

Nola's one of her people.

Tell me something about this person right here, Carter.

Nola is a really good friend.

She's definitely, like, a friend that's, like,

you can always laugh with,

and she's really outspoken.

And she's really, like, mature

for her age, I feel like.

Tell me something about this person.

She is, like, a fierce protector

of her friends.

If you're her friend, she's, like--

you've got her back through thick and thin--

or she's got your back through--

[laughter]

Do you two identify as mixed?

- I do, yeah. - Yeah.

Can we talk about your parents' racial makeup?

One of my moms is white,

and one of my moms is Black.

And what are your racial mixes?

Well, it's kind of complicated,

but my moms, like, got a sperm donor,

and me and my sister have the same sperm donor,

so I actually don't know that much about, like,

biologically my race as much as, like,

I know other people do.

So that's kind of been harder for me, because, like,

I don't know that much, and I'm not really

supposed to know that much about it,

so yeah.

And what are your-- what are your racial mixes?

I identify myself as Afro-Latina.

It's kind of complicated for me,

'cause I'm adopted, and both of my moms are white,

but my birth mother is African American,

and we--and we're, like, most likely sure

that my birth father is Latino,

and so that's kind of how I identify myself as.

♪ ♪

And tell me about your older sister.

My older sister is Olivia.

She's 22.

And she and I are really, really close.

And I feel like because my moms are white,

they have a different perspective of the world,

and I know that they try hard to get into our minds

and teach us what we should know.

But it gets hard sometimes,

so then that's when I turn to my sister.

There is moments when we do just sit down,

and we talk, and she's definitely my, like,

role model for certain things.

Are there times when you're with your family

that people who are outside of your family

don't see you as a family, like,

don't see that you, like--talk about that.

Every single day.

I feel like if I'm walking around

with my whole family, people kind of, like--

if I'm just, like, a little bit to the side,

people think I'm, like, not with them or something,

or they either think that my sister is my mom,

or they think that one of my moms is my mom

and that my father is somewhere else, you know?

Or they think that, like--

and then they think that the other--

like, my other mom and my sister

are just friends or something sometimes.

We've gotten, like, they think

that one of my moms and my sister

are, like, a married couple.

Like, they, like-- which is really, really weird.

They just don't really understand that we're a family

while we're walking around in the outside, so...

Are there things that you think people who don't identify

as mixed-race can do a better job of understanding

about people who are mixed-race?

I think that, like, understanding that, like,

being multiple things doesn't make you any less

- of any of those things. - Mm-hmm.

- Yeah, I don't know. - Yeah.

You know, you got it.

[laughter] That's it.

'Cause I went over it, like, five times.

No, 'cause you know how teachers are like...

[tender cello music playing]

♪ ♪

My full name is Funmilayo, but most people call me Mila.

And my middle name is Chao Mei, which is a Chinese name.

And I am ten years old.

And I identify as Black and Asian.

And so where does your first name come from?

Funmilayo?

Well, I was named after this activist in Nigeria,

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti,

and my parents did a lot of research about her

and thought that would be a good fit for me.

Why do you think your parents worked so hard

to give you such-- you and your sister

such special names?

Well, I think they want it to have meaning,

because a name is something that you usually have for life.

So I feel like it's important for a name to have a meaning.

So do you have Chinese traditions

that you celebrate in your family?

We celebrate Chinese New Year every year,

and we usually go to dim sum.

We dress up, and we invite all our family,

like my second cousins and my great-grandparents.

Are there any traditions you saw

on your dad's side of the family

or anything your dad wants you to do

to sort of know about your Black side of the family?

He tells me a lot about, like, the history of racism

in our country

and a lot about hip-hop too.

And he also, like, makes sure I read books

and read articles and, like,

learn a lot about my Black roots.

[indistinct chatter]

[jazzy upright bass music]

You know, the way in which we raise our daughters,

it's reflective of the way that I was raised

in terms of just, like, this kind of confluence

of music and art and culture and food

and, you know, just tight-knit, loving family.

There was a certain level of intention

we had already had to bring to our own personal growth.

- Yeah. - So when we met each other,

there--I just felt like we had more tools

to be talking about things,

and we talked about being an interracial couple, like...

early on.

Do you remember one morning--

I think it was the morning time,

and you were like, "Do you think you're a racist?"

And I was like,

"Of course I am.

I grew up in this society."

Like, not that I'm, like--

I was testing you, babe,

'cause I don't trust anyone who lives in society

- who can't recognize it. - Yeah.

'Cause if you can't acknowledge it,

then you can't work against it, so...

Right, right.

And then I remember you hugged me.

'Cause I think, internally,

now that you're like, "I was testing you,"

it was like, "You passed! Oh"

- [laughs] - That was so--that's funny.

Yeah.

It's funny how different couples court each other.

[laughter]

♪ ♪

I have this intellectual commitment

to the Black family,

and so many Black women that I know are like, you know,

"Black men aren't checking for me."

And especially in the Bay, you know,

it's--there's a lot of Black men with Asian women.

And so I was like, "I-- you know, I feel--

"I feel some kind of way about us being together,

"and I feel a commitment to Black families,

"and I want to support Black families.

"And I also have a commitment to Asian families,

and I have a commitment to Asian men."

Yeah, so that was something we talked about.

And I remember Bryant saying, "You know, if we had a family,

"it would be a Black family.

And it would be an Asian family too."

- Yeah. - Yeah, it was, like, more--

it's more and more.

It's not less and less.

Or it's not that you have to bifurcate it, you know.

Yeah, so that was a really important conversation for me.

Yeah, and I had to kind of work through

my own feelings of guilt as well, you know,

in terms of just my commitment to Black liberation struggles

and Black people and coming from a Black family

and also just being like,

"This is a thing.

Like, I'm not--potentially not gonna marry a Black woman."

And I was just clear that I wanted to follow my heart.

And so it was all that,

and I think that we were just clear

that we could figure this out together.

I knew I wanted to have kids with you.

Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪

We would argue a lot around parenting,

right, because it's-- we have all of these embedded

cultural assumptions about what is good for our kids.

So for example, it's, like, 7:30 in the morning.

We're, like, arguing about whether Mila

should go out of the house with mismatching socks.

You know, 'cause I've thrown everything--

you know, I'm like, "Get out the door."

He's like, "You're not gonna let her out of the house

with mismatching socks."

So anyways, a big argument ensues.

But at a certain point, there's, like, enough unpacking

that at some point, Bryant says,

"She's a Black girl.

"Like, you don't need to send her out in mismatching socks.

Like, let's not give anybody any reason

to, like, think she's not put together."

'Cause for me, I'm like, "I grew up in Berkeley.

It's okay even if you wear two different shoes."

You know, and so it could be, like, 7:30 in the morning

and some socks, but, like, race is still there

and your desire to, like, give your kids the best chance

to, like, be accepted and seen

and, like, you know, respected out in the world.

And what I've come to discover from lots of therapy

is that it's trauma-based responses, you know?

Growing up in the South in Memphis

and dealing with just, like,

blatant racism and microaggressions and--

you know, just the whole gamut,

and so the lens through which I--

you know, in the beginning stages of being a parent,

it was just a lot of just anxiety and stress

and just wanting my child to be okay and, like,

always looking for whatever I could catch

to ensure that she's gonna be good.

Because I know that regardless, she's gonna be dealing

anti-Black racism.

She's gonna be dealing with these assumptions and biases,

so I just felt like anything that I can do to help to, like,

cut down on the ways in which

she might be perceived negatively or whatever,

I wanted to, like, you know, address that.

And now, you know, I-- I'm like, "Do your thing.

Wear mismatching socks. Be you."

Because I don't want my childhood trauma

to impact the way that she's, like, showing up in the world.

I want her to be a free Black girl.

I want her to be who she is and not have to worry

about pleasing anyone but her and her higher self.

And this is where I'm like, hands down--

and we're not even at the end of the journey

around parenting, but our kids and Mila

have been instruments of healing.

You know, so, like, when, Bryant, you talk

about trauma from growing up Black in the South

and how that is intergenerational trauma

and people are like, you know, when you heal your trauma,

you're healing seven generations back

and seven generations forward,

and, like, this kind of uncovering

just would have never happened if we didn't have kids.

- Mm-hmm. - You know, and so it's like,

Mila is an instrument of healing.

Yeah.

♪ This little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

all: ♪ This little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ♪

[cheers and applause]

A lot of people think that kids can't handle

discussions about race and racism.

What do you think about that idea

that kids aren't prepared to handle these discussions?

I don't think that's true at all, really.

And race is so important to our identities

and who we are, and it's really--

it really affects us on how we move through the world

and how we're treated in society.

So I think that kids can totally talk about that,

and they can have an understanding

of race and racism.

And to the people who say, "Well, teaching people--

"kids about race will just make them more divided,

and we should just let them be kids," et cetera, et cetera,

and I think that it's better for them to learn about race

and learn kind of what race means

and how race affects you when you're younger

rather than later.

What do you parents think about that?

That's my girl. That's my girl.

That's what I think. [laughs]

[soft music]

I recognize the look in their eyes.

It's the same look Melissa and I have in our eyes

when we look at our kids,

the same look all the parents and family members

and caregivers have in their eyes

when they look at these kids.

It's the look that says,

"The best thing I can do for you is to set you up

"and then get out of your way.

You got this. You know."

Is there anything you think us non-mixed-race people

need to know about mixed-race people?

It's not being less of one culture.

It's having the opportunity to learn

more about yourself

and to have a deeper connection to more cultures.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

I like to think that mirrors don't show everything.

Like, mirrors show the outside of you,

but they can't tell, like, the inside of you

or how you identify, like, just by the look of you.

And if I asked you, what ingredients make a Myles,

what are the ingredients that make you up?

Ingredients are

family, friends,

happiness,

thoughtfulness,

lots of emotion.

[chuckles]

Black, Asian, and love.

And a llama and a corgi.

That's it.

All right, my last question is, how am I doing?

How am I doing on this?

You're doing really good.

Thank you. What am I doing good at?

You're asking the right questions,

and I'm giving the right answers,

and you picked the--

and you picked the right kid.

♪ ♪

[bright tone]