My irk with Gates’ statement is around that. I often feel people throw out that “we’re all mixed” line as a way to minimize my experience. I think there is a different experience between a person of primarily German and Irish background, with a little Russian and a North African great-great grandmother, and my experience as a person with a black father from Mississippi (African of indeterminate origin, Native American of indeterminate tribe and French spiced) and a white mother from Maine (of English and Scottish, lineage yet “American” since the 17th Century), who grew up in the white suburbs. Same goes for a “black” person with two self-identified black parents who grew up in a predominantly black community, yet has an Irish great-great-grandfather. In a way I have a community of two – with my sister – and her experience is vastly different than mine.

So the point is that we all feel isolated to an extent and unaccepted. I just try to make myself understood in the communities I choose and the chips fall where they do. The thing I love about the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival community, is that, unlike some organizations that I’d previously encountered which seemed to self fetishize the mixed experience, this festival community really embraces the full diversity of a multicultural experience without judgment or stratification.