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My Turn by Dmae Lo Roberts

I didn’t immediately embrace the term mixed-race. I usually had called myself biracial; prior to that I said multiracial; and even before that, I said "half-Asian." With each new generation and perhaps even with each new decade, the terminology for our cultural identities undergo change. Identity, after all, is fluid.

The term mixed stirred up some bad connotations regarding race purity and mixed-blood that existed when I was growing up. It really irked me when people trivialized racial identity by calling themselves, or me, a "mutt" or "Heinz 57."

Growing up in a mostly Scandinavian rural town in Oregon, I often felt undercover because people didn’t know what being mixed really looked like. To many white people in Oregon, in my experience, I just looked like some exotic and weird not-quite "white-ish" person.

Through the years, I learned to identify myself to people — especially when I heard a racist joke or derogatory Asian comment.

Some of the comments included things such as saying someone looked like a "Japanese houseboy" — meaning subservient — or declaring a "Chinese fire drill" — meaning a situation is chaotic or confusing.

I had to look the latter one up to clarify its real meaning. While searching, I discovered a large number of YouTube videos featuring white teens or college-age students getting out of a car stopped in traffic and running around said car in a circle before getting back into it. That’s apparently a Chinese fire drill. Uh, funny, right?

I used to jokingly call myself the "Secret Asian Woman" and I even created a radio documentary about it. Through the years, I’ve met other mixed Asians and we shared our similar experiences. I’ve often felt a kinship with other mixed-race Americans of any race more than monoracial Asians. For many mixed-race Americans, it can be a challenge to feel acceptance. You’re somehow not quite authentic enough. At least, that’s how I felt.

The reality is that mixed-race people are one of the fastest growing demographics in the United States. In the 2020 U.S. Census, the largest multiracial combinations were white and some other race (about 19.3 million people). Asian and white mixtures were around 2.7 million people. This data is helpful for me after having felt so isolated and alone throughout my adolescence and college years in Oregon.

I have spent a lot of creative energy writing and producing plays and essays on the topic of being mixed. For me, this exploration never ends because I still encounter people who want to deny my Asian-ness or want me to prove it somehow. Sometimes I wonder if I should carry around my DNA test that says I’m 44% East Asian and 4% Polynesian. In fact, I’m less white than people assume. I’m 31% British and 8% Western European. So yeah, I’m pretty proud of those results.

In the last decade or so, I’ve been fortunate to have had wonderful experiences connecting with other mixed-race people, particularly in theater. I always wanted to write a play that mixed-race actors of any combination could perform.

Earlier this year, I received an independent artist award from the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center (IFCC) Artist Grant & Residency Program to create a new play called MIXED, a mosaic comedy about our many mixtures.

I enlisted my writing partner from a commission we worked on together during the pandemic called Troy, USA to help co-write and co-direct it. Together we found a narrator and cast five talented actors of various mixtures to perform it as an enhanced staged reading.

We really need comedy these days. I hope MIXED is a joyful and perhaps a little irreverent experience exploring what it means to be mixed through the years and certainly right now. I’m producing it on my own and offering it for free. I hope that after the one-hour staged reading — with some movement choreographed by veteran artist Chisao Hata — we can stay a little longer to talk about our mixed-race backgrounds and what it means to us.

The staged readings of MIXED are scheduled for 7:00pm on August 14 and 2:00pm on August 15 at the IFCC, located at 5340 N. Interstate Avenue in Portland. And did I mention it’s free? To place a reservation, please visit <www.eventbrite.com/e/mixed-a-mosaic-comedy-about-our-many-mixtures-tickets-1994912281335>. But really, just come to the beautiful 90-seat IFCC theater. It was my first theater home when I moved to Portland and it feels good to come back and play there again.

To learn about the IFCC Artist Grant & Residency Program, visit <www.ifccfriends.org>.