Preface: Identities are deeply personal.  It can be difficult to identify oneself on the basis of race, gender and/or religion alone. The topic of non-identity explored in this share come from an influence of Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist studies of non-attachment and self liberation.

Join host Shadia Heenan Nilforoush as she introduces the podcast and shares her background as an Iranian-American with an Islamic Pakistani upbringing. She expresses her challenges around navigating mixed and multicultural identities, how it is impossible  to check only one identity box, and considers non-attachment to identity. Shadia indirectly poses the question: How does one proudly claim an identity when their identity is multifaceted?

Song clips include:

1. Velvet Underground - "Venus in Furs"
2. Nazia Hasan - "Disco Deewane" 
3. Liraz - "Mahtab"

Text read at the end of the episode included below:

Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People

By Maria P.P. Root

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-Not to justify my existence in this world.
-Not to keep the races separate within me.
-Not to be responsible for people's discomfort with my physical ambiguity. -Not to justify my ethnic legitimacy.

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-To identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify. -To identify myself differently from how my parents identify me. -To identify myself differently from my brothers and sisters.
-To identify myself differently in different situations.

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-To create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial.
-To change my identity over my lifetime -- and more than once.
-To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of people. 
-To freely choose whom I befriend and love

Maria P. P. Root, PhD, is author of "The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier"

IG: @blendedandblurred
www.shadiajoon.com/podcast