The Mixed Race Experience with Mixed in America 🤎

 "It was born out of our own need to communicate what this experience actually is like, the fullness of its complexity, and a desperate cry for community." 

"I just learned how to become the least triggering version for whoever was in front of me."

"We're not gonna ignore us. You're not gonna erase the multiracial experience anymore. Let's talk about it. Let's get rid of the binary and really talk about the in between."

Learn more in this conversation with Meagan and Jazmine, co-founders of Mixed in America. (This is part one, of a two-part conversation.)

• Meagan and Jazmine are mixed identity specialists who are dedicated to healing and empowering the mixed community.
• They have built a community organization via Instagram specifically for mixed race people, which has over 27,000 followers. And you can check them out at @mixed_in_america.
• And be sure to check out their website mixedinamerica.org! You can find out more about their  trauma-informed workshops, programs, events, seminars, lectures, online courses, and coaching services for the mixed race community. 

What do we talk about in this episode?
The mixed race experience; racial fluidity; erasure; Mixed in America's work; and our personal journeys as mixed-race individuals.

And welcome back to Multitudes, Season 2!

✨ On Multitudes, we talk about a multitude of different types of experiences, perspectives, and have conversations with different guests who offer their wisdom and the tools that have helped them navigate their life. Tune in every other Tuesday for a new guest episode!

✨ You can find out more about Multitudes by checking out multitudespodcast.com and heading over to our IG @multitudes.podcast. 

Transcript

0:02

Welcome back to the multitudes podcast. Podcast with me, your host, Nicole Carter. And I am so excited to introduce. Introduce season two, I am so grateful to. Have you here and if you're new to the multitudes podcast, Welcome. we talk about a multitude of different. Types of experiences, perspectives, and I have conversations with different guests who. Who offer their wisdom and the tool that have helped. Them. Navigate their life. And today I am so honored to have. The first conversation of the season with Megan and Jasmine. And who are the co-founders of makes an America and makes an America is a community organization looking to have a more nuanced conversation around race and America specifically through the multiracial lens. And their goal is to empower the mixed community. And they do this by having trauma informed workshops programs. on Instagram. they provide a lot of great content for mixed race people and their Instagram has. Over 27,000 followers and they've worked with hundreds of mixed. Mixed race individuals. so we talk about their organization. We talk about the mixed race experience, and this is a conversation that is also very important to me as I am of mixed race. And my hope is that if you identify as mixed race, or if you have people in your life that identify as mixed race, That this conversation will add a new perspective. Add nuance. We'll add resonance. For you and the people in your life. So I hope. Hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did Let's get started and thank you so much for tuning in.

Nicole 2:00

Thanks so much for joining Multitudes. Thank you

Meagan 2:03

so much for having us. Yes, thank you for having us.

Nicole 2:07

I would love to start with a little bit about your background, your story, wherever you would like to start,

Meagan 2:15

jazz and I are both grow. We both grew up in Vegas, and so we've been friends since we were like little girls. And our moms kind of bound us together because we are like the only mixed girls in our elementary school. And so it's very cute and we see it as destiny, I would say my mom is black, my dad is white. And I guess, you know, my parents growing up talked a lot about like how hard they had it as a couple, but I, I don't think, I don't think that they thought about or had the tools to really help myself and, and my brothers figure out how to like actually navigate what being mixed means. And it's like, as a kid, you're, you're kind of looking, you're looking to your parents to kind of like break it down for you. My mom was so good at like being there for me, you know, but yeah, I, I don't feel like I had tools, you know, like I feel like I was like, oh, okay, I'm mixed. That means question mark. Everybody's constantly obsessing over how I look and I don't feel like I belong anywhere. I don't really feel like, just don't feel like I fit in with anyone really. But I, I just learned how to become the least. Triggering version for whoever was in front of me. And that means, you know, whether it was like my peers, whether it was like, okay, it feels like the black girl's like when I'm like this or this seems the least threatening and you know, the white girl's like this. And, and then of course you have it with adults as well. So a lot of code switching and a lot of just like heightening certain parts of myself to fit whatever the need was. And it really wasn't until college that. I just had a total like, mental breakdown and, and so I'm, I'm an actor, so I was in college getting my acting degree and it was actually in voice class, uh, this thing called Alexander Technique, which is all about like freeing the natural voice. And I really just, I, I started having a lot of panic attacks and I started really struggling because I just didn't understand what my authentic voice was because I was so used to kind of, yeah, code switching or chameleon my way through. And now, you know, it's clear to me that it's a survival technique and it's a way to not rock the boat, to not upset people and to not, to try to make things a little less upsetting for those around me or something. It's like the world couldn't deal with. Me being more than one thing. And so I tried to spoonfeed it and make it a little easier for them. And then that stopped working, you know, once I was like, but who the hell am I? and I guess I'll pause there cuz then that brings me to how mixed America started. So I'll pass it to jazz.

Jazmine 5:46

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I had a really similar experiences and feelings and I think most mixed people do, you know, feeling really isolated and alone and confused as a child. Not sure, yeah. Where I fit in and feeling like I was the only one experiencing this thing. And, and even as kids, you know, me and Meg, we were friends and we had each other, but at the same time, it's not like we were talking about our racial identity as children. We, we didn't have the words. Right. Our, our parents didn't give us the words, the tools. So we had this understanding and didn't even know that I think that we were experiencing similar things. And so it just, it feels really isolating I think, as a mixed person, just kind of figuring it out on your own. And, you know, when you have Monoracial parents, not even, they understand what you're experiencing or know to even ask you about what you're experiencing. I think also our parents really grew up in a time where it was like the best of both worlds kind of vibe when it comes to interracial relationships and, and mixed people was very much that viewpoint and never focusing on the challenges and the struggles and the. Internal dialogue and battles that a mixed person has. And so, yeah, growing up with that, I think we did naturally just kind of adapt some coping strategies, which was, yeah, being the chameleon and, and trying to be whatever other people need us to be, whatever version of us they need us to be, like me said, in order to avoid triggering them. You know? Cause I think as a mixed race person, just your presence can trigger people for a variety of reasons. Um, and you get a lot of questions that start really young. What are you, what's your background? You know, it's, it's, it's really invasive. I think too, as a child, you really get taught early on and conditioned early on that people are entitled to information about you. People are entitled to your body in a weird way. It's, it's, it's a lot of really interesting conditioning I think that makes people go through. So then, You know, me and Meg call it the mixed existential crisis of when you get older and you're like, wait, who am I? You know, after years of being told to be a bunch of different ways with a bunch of different people and really just coping and adapting it, I think many mixed people have this moment of like, wait, but who am I actually authentically? Who do I wanna be? What does it mean to hold duality in all these different parts of myself at once? And it's a very painful experience, I think, when you have that mixed existential crisis. But it's also the, the beginning of the journey to finding that, that full empowered mixed identity. Yeah, and that's, and as me and Meg kind of had a mixed ex existential crisis around the same time, uh, we, we kind of lost touch as we got older. We went in different directions and so, We both had had a mixed existential crisis and Meg posted something in her story on Instagram and, and we hadn't talked in in a long time, right? Yeah. Meg, we hadn't talked in. Yeah, I mean years we hadn't seen each other. We both moved, ironically. We both moved to New York but didn't, didn't know really at the time. And she posted something in her story like Biracial Cries I think was the title

Meagan 9:02

of it right there. Yeah. It was really intensely dramatic. It was biracial Cries.

Jazmine 9:08

Yeah. And I like, I responded and I was like, oh my God, me too. Like what actually is happening? What is this mixed experience? Is anyone talking about this? What's going on? And we hopped on a phone, a phone call immediately. Cause we're like, oh my God, yes. We need somebody to talk to about this. And literally on that first FaceTime call, we. Decided to create a space to have these conversations and a platform just to have these conversations and, and, uh, dive into the mixed experience. Yeah. And it's, it's been a wild

Meagan 9:42

journey. Very wild. And nobody else responded to my story, by the way, just Jasmine. Yeah. None of my friends. Nobody, nobody knew what to say, so it was definitely like I think it's, it's so many business owners say like real, real powerful businesses and, uh, community organizations come out of like necessity. And I really feel that for with mixed in America, I feel like it, it was born outta first. First of all, Jasmine and I will always be the first to admit it was born outta our own need to communicate what this experience actually is like, the fullness of its complexity and a desperate cry for community and. Supports and to lean on one in one another and to really talk about this without getting such intense backlash. Hmm.

Nicole 10:39

Yeah. Well, first. Thank you for sharing both of your experiences and I was vigorously nodding as like, this is very echoing of my experience in terms of feeling that pressure to fit in while knowing that you don't quite fit in that pressure going up to feel like you have to explain why you look the way you do. And I really appreciate you sharing how you both had an existential crisis about your own experience and realizing, I felt growing up, realizing that I hadn't really talked about, about like being mixed and really seeing, not having the language for that. And so thank you for creating the space of mixed in America. And I would love to know like what happened when you come together and you're realizing you decided to create a space. Like were you thinking it would become an organization or like what were you thinking it would be birthed into?

Jazmine 11:39

Oh my goodness. Yeah. I think it's really evolved into so much more than we originally had imagined, I think. And that really is like, it's just a testament to how it aligned. I feel like with our purpose it is because we just kind of followed the feeling. We were just like, yes, we're craving this community. We're craving these conversations. And kind of from like, I had a lot of like anger about it too. I'm like, why are people talking about this? Like, this is crazy. I'm just, we're here suffering alone. You know? And, and we just, you know, we started with an Instagram. We're like, let's just create a platform and see if other people are wanting to have this conversation. And we quickly, Found out that many people wanted to have this conversation too, and felt exactly how we felt. And so it really just started as creating community. And then, you know, me and Meg are both healers and facilitators in our own spaces, outside of mixed America. And so as we started to grow this community, we decided to add our tools as facilitators and teachers and healers into this space. And, and that kinda just naturally evolved. It, it, the more that we dove in and realized how much our community needs healing. We need a space to voice these things. We need tools to work through these really unique challenges that we're experiencing. So we, we got to, to that type of work and, and developed programs and, and coaching spaces and events. Yeah. So it, it was like that wasn't our original intent. It was just a natural evolution, I think, of creating the space and, and creating the community and meeting the community and then finding ways to integrate. These other, these things that we're great at as, uh, facilitators and healers and, and also finding and meeting the needs of our community as well.

Meagan 13:30

Yeah, I was, uh, that's what I was thinking too. Jazz is like, it was a lot of listening A lot of like, what so many are not listening to mixed people because I think part of the wounding of the community of mixed race folks is that we're constantly being put in a box or we're constantly having to shift to the needs of one part of ourselves. So I think so much about mixed in America has been about how do we encourage people to find a sense of wholeness, you know, so like, what, what does that look like? And I think that is what is made. Mixed in America, very unique and is what has made community members feel like safe in our, in our, with our organization, because it's tough. People really kind of, I feel like society can really put constraints on multiracial people and be like, well, I need you to identify in a way that I see you. But not realizing that each perceiver perceives the mixed person in a different way. So we're really being thrown around as individuals a lot. So I think one thing that has meant a lot to Jasmine and I is like really letting multiracial people understand that they have the autonomy over their experience. And that mixed in America is a place for them to express themselves authentically, like jazz. And I, of course, you know, we have. Lots of tools and offerings that we are so excited to share with anyone willing to listen. But we really want mixed people to feel like they can come somewhere and feel held and feel supported and feel like they're not alone because people are struggling. People are really, really, really struggling. And I just don't think it's talked about enough how challenging it is to not have anyone to help you put the pieces of who you are together and then to, to live in a world that is, or a country, you know, that's so racist and that is so, uh, behind. It's just very difficult. So I think. Really, really loving support is something that we feel super strongly about and it's not, we're not obsessed with like policing people. We're not obsessed with like perfecting the way to talk about this. It's more like what has been true for you and have you ever had a space where you can actually unpack that? Cause I think that's what Jasmine and I do best is we allow people the space to unpack what's actually their truth. And that's what I'm really interested in personally as well. Yeah.

Nicole 16:34

I have engaged with your content and your courses and I really do love how you focus on you having the autonomy to identify as you feel, and showing up in your wholeness of your experience. it really resonated when you mentioned the idea of being thrown around or particular spaces expect you to shift to expressing one race over another, for example,

17:04

You're listening to the multitudes podcast with Nicole Carter. And today we are in conversation with Megan and Jasmine from mixed in America. And you can learn more about mixed in America and the multitudes podcast@multitudespodcast.com. And on Instagram and Tik TOK at multitude stop podcast.

Nicole 17:38

I would love to talk a little bit about your content and racial fluidity and racial imposter syndrome. And if you could talk a little bit about those concepts

Jazmine 17:53

Yeah. Yeah. Racial fluidity. That's, that's one of the terms that we've coined. we really find that it's kind of like the intentional, conscious and empowering version of code switching. There is an authentic, uh, fluidity to the mixed experience. We do have different versions of ourselves that year to be expressed, right? All these different cultures and, and parts of us that make up our identity. I think code switching is the version of that where we are adapting to make other people comfortable, where fluidity is an authentic desire to express a part of ourselves. And so I think that's a really important difference. And I think that's a part of the, the mixed healing journey is kind of going from that code switching and code switching feels so uncomfortable in the body too. It's. It brings social anxiety. You're constantly out of your body kind of dissociated cuz you're figuring out, okay, what does this space need? Who do you guys want me to be? Right? How do, who do I need to be? So that way I can feel claimed, right? Because it really comes from that desire of community and to feel claimed and accepted. So, so switching is very uncomfortable. It's very, out of body experience cuz we're trying to figure out who we need to be in order to be loved, right? And as you begin to kind of get back in your body and figure out how you actually feel and what's authentic to you and what makes you feel comfortable, I think that's where then. You can tap into that racial fluidity where it is then this authentic, oh, I really want to explore, my black heritage right now. And I wanna, I wanna try the foods and I wanna listen to the music and, and l learn the, cultures and customs. And then the next day it's like, you know what? I really wanna explore my European ancestry. what does that look like? And I think there is an authentic fluidity to the mixed race experience because we are all of these different things and we, and all of those things do have a desire to be expressed through us. And so that's really, uh, where we created that term racial fluidity is, is having that more empowering perspective around, That flow that mixed people can have and giving yourself permission to do so. That's something that, uh, we really preach a lot in a lot of our spaces and and programs, is allowing yourself to explore all of these different parts of yourself and allowing yourself to Yeah, see what all of these pieces of yourself need and want and how they want to be expressed. Yeah. And I think it's really beautiful when you can change your perspective around that.

Nicole 20:24

I love that you talk about authenticity and exploring like how you authentically want to show up, and I think that is a really important concept, especially in the context of erasure too. You also talk about in your content and courses about erasure and that feeling of feeling that our experience has been erased in some ways. I was wondering if you could share a little bit about the concept of erasure and why you felt it was important to emphasize that in your work.

Jazmine 20:55

Well, I

Meagan 20:57

think it makes, makes people feel, it's kind of, it's kind of bizarre. It's like in one, in one way we feel like, you know, an eyesore. Cuz everyone's always coming up to us like, what are you, what are you, what are you, what's going on? But on the other hand, nobody really is interested

Jazmine 21:18

in the

Meagan 21:20

full complexity of a multiracial person's identity. So, you know, I think that's one aspect of this erasure is like literally not being able to fully step into the wholeness of your identity. But also mixed de erasure is historical because we see people as one thing and because America's history is. To focus on whiteness, you know, things are shifting now, but it used to be the one drop rule. So you have one drop of POC something and that's what you are, rather than this person is black, an indigenous and whatever, and white, you know, it's like we don't say I'm this, this, this, and this, and that is who I am. We focus on, you know, usually on how we perceive them. So what do we see them as? Are they closer to white or are they closer to black or inter any other POC experience? And, you know, it, it's, it's fascinating. This is also in media. We see time and time again like people playing roles where it's a mixed race person, but they're playing a monoracial person that. Informs and that disrupts the truth telling of the story and also how we perceive people. So we, we, we really see it as black or white, rather than this person has a really complex experience that cannot be summed up in this or that, but we don't know how to talk about the whole package and so we just lump people into a category and cause we can't handle it. People have to just kind of deal with whatever the constraints of that box or the constraints of that category has in store for them based off of a very racist and flawed system. Yeah, and it's

Jazmine 23:37

like we're not new. It's not like we just like came on the scene. We've, we've always been around and so it's like historically that's, that is what we've done as a society. We have just erased Mixedness it you, I remember in history and I don't really remember ever learning about mixed people and yet we learned about a lot of mixed people. You know, like there's a lot of Frederick Douglass, like one of the biggest abolitionists I remember learning about him. I don't remember learning that he was mixed race. You know, I don't remember learning. There's some really prominent, historical figures that were mixed and we just put him in a box. And so that really starts that conditioning very early on that mixedness, it almost doesn't exist. It's like, we're just gonna ignore that we live in a binary pick one. You know, there's the one drop wool, right? There's all of these things that really erased Mixedness in the multiracial experience and. And, and just try to oversimplify it and yeah, check one box, right? And uh, and I think then that that just contributes to mixed people doing that within themselves and feeling pressured to do that within themselves. So that's, yeah, that's a, a really big part of our mission of Mixed America is to, is to force society to have these conversations. Like, you're not gonna ignore us. You're not gonna erase, erase the multiracial experience anymore. Let's talk about it. Let's get rid of the binary and really talk about the in between. Um, yeah, because we're

Meagan 24:58

not new. We've been around, it's interesting, we once posted about Frederick Douglas for making mixed history like a, something that we post every once in a while to like educate our followers about various mixed folks in history. And we had some people furious at us for simply just saying a fact, which is that he's mixed race, but. And Johns and I were like, wow. Like, I mean, people were hot over it. And it's not that we were e ever taking, it's not, you know, retracting his blackness. It's saying this person is the, the product of slave and a slave master. To deny that insane complexity is to deny who this human being is and to deny what they are coming from. So to me it's like, why are we denying what's true? It's because we have a hard time dealing with the level of, you know, hardship and, and complexity of it all. It's, it's difficult to grapple with, but that is true. I just think Frederick Douglass is kind of an amazing example of how America struggles to tell the whole

Jazmine 26:19

story. Totally. And, and what's crazy with the Fed Frederick Douglass example is that the reason he was able to do the things he did as an abolitionist was because of his mixedness. He had certain privileges and education that he received because he was mixed race, because he had white ancestry as well. And I think that is what is so important to, like, we can't erase mixedness because it's also a superpower in a lot of ways. We're, we're able to bridge the gap. We're able to do, we have privilege, those of us that are mixed with white, and we're able to utilize that to uplift our communities of color. And so to also feel like that's a race and kind of like shamed when it's, it's something that we really intentionally can use to uplift our POC communities. It's, it's hurtful. It's, it's, it's unfair.

Nicole 27:11

I'm really thinking about like how many historical figures, have we learned about in our classes that were of mixed race and just having that be erased. I really appreciate you sharing This is great. I'm just like soaking it up.

27:25

Thank you so much for tuning into today's conversation with Megan and Jasmine of mixed and America. I really encourage you to check out their work online and you can find all of the links and their show notes. come back to multitudes. Next time to hear the second part of our conversation. And if you liked this conversation, if you found this helpful, I would love if you share this episode with someone who you think would benefit from this as well.