Multiracial Family Man

Ep. 73: Athena Asklipiadis is Japanese, Greek, Italian, Armenian, Egyptian. She is about as multiracial as they come! When her aunt, Esther Matsuguma, died in 2007 after a battle with Lymphoma -- and after a chance meeting with patient, Krissy Kobata's family at a marrow drive -- Athena recognized the need for outreach to for donors of bone marrow for multiracial/multi-ethnic patients. In 2008, she launched Mixed Marrow (http://mixedmarrow.org/) which is dedicated to this mission.

Listen as she talks about her own multiracial upbringing and how Mixed Marrow came into being.

And remember Athena's motto: "Being diagnosed with a life-threatening blood disease is not a death sentence. We can save each other."

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 72: Kevin Williams is a man of many hats, many talents, and many races and ethnicities. Hailing originally from St. Louis, Kevin has a heritage that is quintessentially American and that consists of Black, Native American, Welsh and Jewish ancestry.

An alum of Morehouse College and Stanford University's MBA program, Kevin is also a proud military man, having served in the US Navy. Before and after his MBA education, he worked on Wall Street, then he explored comedy as a creative outlet, and now he's found his true passion as an Ed-Tech professional for a California-based startup company.

He's also found the love of his life, who is about to marry. Interestingly, Kevin's fiancee is a White woman from Florida, adding yet another layer to Kevin's multiracial life and experience.

A man of wit, wisdom, humor and warmth, Kevin is a good guy, a good friend, and a raconteur when it comes to his life, life in general and what it means to be a multiracial man in this World. Take a listen.

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 71 - Barbara Savage is a woman of many hats (and talents). A multiracial (Black and Indian) woman who converted to Judaism as an adult, Barbara has myriad interests and talents. She's been a LA Raiders cheerleader, worked as a private investigator, and now she's a contestant on FOX's "Master Chef."

Along the way, given her multiracial heritage and Jewish faith, she's had an interesting vantage point from which to observe society and participate in her community. Listen as she talks about all this and about her dad's very interesting career.

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 70: Michelle Maltais serves as deputy director of audience engagement. Since she joined the Los Angeles Times in 1997 as a copy editor, Michelle has gone where no one has gone before. (Yes, she's a bit of a "Star Trek" nerd as well.) She served as the newsroom's first broadcast producer and interactive video executive producer, in addition to occasionally writing on a variety of topics including technology and family. In her off time, Michelle geeks out on grammar, sci-fi and movie minutiae.

Listen as Michelle discusses her Jamaican roots (her mother was a first-generation Jamaican immigrant), growing up multiracial, her decision to become a journalist, and life, now, as a multiracial family mom.

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 69: Delia Douglas is proud to be Black, White and Native (Choctaw). She was born in North Hollywood California. Her parents were the first interracial couple to marry and move in to the North Hollywood neighborhood now known as the NoHo Arts District. Well after the Loving vs. Virginia ruling, the year was 1972 and the Southern California Suburb probably considered itself to be rather open-minded because there were a lot "studio" people living there however we are told that local residents had taken up a petition to prohibit her parents from moving in to the neighborhood. By the time she and her brother arrived those same neighbors had a change of heart and were happily delivering gifts, flower bouquets, and baked goods as a warm welcome to the expanding family.

As a multiracial woman and mother to a multiracial child, Delia feels it's important that we share as much about our own culture as possible and that we teach our kids to embrace and celebrate all that they are.

Delia is grateful that this new generation of multiracial children have literature and tools to help them in celebrating their own heritage; a heritage unique from being identified solely as any one background, but instead by any of the many ethnic and racial backgrounds that make up the multiracial community, then and today. Delia Douglas is the Owner of DDHPR, a boutique public relations firm catering to an eclectic roster of fashion, beauty, multicultural, curve, non-profit and artist clients. Passionate about diversity, Delia is a board member of Multiracial Americans of Southern California and co-founder of Multiculti Corner, a culturally diverse community of multiracial people and families for social, educational, and celebratory news and events. An advocate for positive body image messaging within the media, Delia is the US Ambassador for Slink Magazine, UK's premiere print plus-size fashion and lifestyle magazine. A California native, Delia, her husband, and their 4 year old daughter reside in Venice, CA most commonly referred to as "Venice Beach: Where Art Meets Crime." Catch up with Delia and her family on Instagram @heartandsol and her business @ddhpr

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 68: Ingrid Rogers (http://www.theingridrogers.com/index.html) was born to Jamaican parents in Toronto, Canada and spent the first 9 years of her life in Jamaica. She was a big fan of the tropical lifestyle and the year-round warmth. And then… she moved back to Toronto, having never before owned a winter jacket or seen snow and yet finding herself in the middle of a winter that lasted what seemed like ten months! It was during this time inside thawing out that she became interested in the arts.

When she was in high school, the acting bug bit after her theatre arts class wrote a piece called "Syanova" based on a newspaper clipping that their teacher found about Apartheid.

After a short detour to the University of Toronto to study business, she found her way to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC. For the next 3 years, she immersed herself in everything from Bette Davis to Commedia dell'arte.

Two months after leaving AADA, she landed the role of Taylor Roxbury Cannon on "All My Children." One year into that role, she got the role of Steffie in "Carlito's Way" opposite Al Pacino and Sean Penn!

Through the years, she's had the good fortune of working with wonderfully acclaimed directors, including: Brian DePalma, Joel Schumacher and Woody Allen. And she's worked with such esteemed actors as Pacino, Penn, Benjamin Bratt, Jon Cryer, Ray Liotta and Tom Cavanagh. She's also done countless commercials. If you haven't fast forwarded through the commercials, in the past few years you may have seen her in ads for everything from Diet Coke with Heidi Klum, to Home Depot, Xerox, Old Navy, Fidelity and McDonald's to name a few.

In 1999, she became a mom and entered into the world of multiracial parenting. And, in 2002, she met her husband (at Whole Foods, having walked in for a salad and walked out with a family).

Listen as Ingrid describes her childhood, her career, her life as a parent and spouse, and her hopes and aspirations for the future (as well as who she'd choose if she got a choice to date Barack Obama or Justin Trudeau!).

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 67: Riana Anderson is a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Applied Psychology and Human Development Division (APHD). Her current fellowship is with Dr. Howard Stevenson in the Racial Empowerment Collaborative (REC), which centers on cultural pride, coping and parenting, culturally specific parenting strategies, and other ways of reducing race-related stress. She received her doctorate in Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Virginia and was a Clinical and Community Psychology Pre-doctoral Fellow at Yale University's School of Medicine. Dr. Anderson graduated from the University of Michigan in 2006 with degrees in Psychology and Political Science. She then taught for 2 years with Teach For America in Atlanta, GA. She has also conducted community based participatory research at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, and neuropsychological research at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Anderson aims to assist at-risk youth with practical applications of her research and clinical services, as well as through academic instruction and policy recommendations. She strives to improve the psychological outcomes for African American youth through expanded coping strategies, discovery and encouragement of alternative outcomes, culturally and contextually relevant parenting programs, and community building, participation, and collaboration. One of her goals is to create youth centers and interventions that support the mental and physical health— as well as educational goals—of African American youth in urban communities.

Dr. Anderson is interested in fostering positive outcomes among impoverished, urban, and Black youth in contextually relevant ways. She investigates how protective familial mechanisms such as parenting and racial socialization operate in the face of risks linked to poverty, discrimination, and residential environment. Dr. Anderson is particularly interested in how these factors predict familial functioning and subsequent child psychosocial and academic achievement, especially relating to family-based interventions. She is currently working on a four-session intervention to assess and alleviate racial stress and trauma in order to facilitate healthy parent-child relationships and racial assertiveness.

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 66 - Glenn Robinson is a White guy. He's married to a Mexican woman, and they have 2 Biracial and Bicultural kids.

Glenn is a devoted advocate for the multiracial and multicultural communities. He aggregates and curates content for several websites aimed at the issues confronting these communities. Those websites are:

Community Village http://www.communityvillageus.us/

Mixed American Life https://mixedamericanlife.wordpress.com/

500 Nations http://500nations.us/

Oppression Monitor http://oppressionmonitor.us/

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 64: Lorie Tensen is an author. She's also "bionic." It's not hard to see why. Having been dealt a number of challenges in life, she's rebuilt herself stronger than ever before.

She was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on May 7, 1966. The result of an affair between a married, Black detective and a foreigner: a woman from Honduras. Seven months later, she was adopted into a White, Dutch family and raised in a small, farming community two hours west of the Twin Cities.

At the age of 12, Lorie suffered a terrible accident, resulting in the loss of her right hand and lower arm. This led to years of grappling with her own self-image and self-esteem.

Later in life, she struggled through college, where her racial background set her apart. Then, she was a single mom working hard to make ends meet. She later married, but the marriage ended in divorce, and Lorie found herself struggling again.

But, by focusing on her passion, on raising her kids, and on her goal of giving back, she found herself on the right career path. Hers in an inspirational story, and you can read about it in her memoir: "Taking My Hand Out of My Pocket" available here: http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Hand-Out-My-Pocket/dp/0692266054

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ep. 63: Jordana Manchester is Biracial (White mom, Black dad). She was raised by her her mother and her White adoptive father (he married her mother when she was 4 years old and they had her younger brother a year later). So she was raised in an all-White household.

After several years in Winnipeg, where she suffered overt racism, Jordana and her family moved back to Vancouver, which marked the beginning of her ethnic and culturally confused adolescence. She was the only Black kid in school and kids swung from expecting her to "act Black" to accusing her of being "not Black enough" or acquaintances would refer to me as the "Whitest Black person I know."

After high school, Jordana embarked upon world travel, which eventually led her to study anthropology and these two things (travel and her studies) led her to create the travel and culture website, The Urban Xenophile, which Jordana hopes will help bring own racial barriers by inspiring ALL ethnic groups to travel and exchange ideas with one another.

For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic

To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST

Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/