Our True Colors: Mixed Race Voices and Other Stories of Belonging

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How would you answer if someone asked you what it means to "live out loud"?

In this episode of Our True Colors, Dr. Shawna Gann and co-host Marcel De Jonghe welcome Drew Faulkner, a Buffalo, New York native currently completing a Fulbright teaching internship in Klagenfurt, Austria. With a background in linguistics and German, Drew brings a thoughtful perspective on identity, belonging, cultural differences, and what it means to live out loud.

Together, we explore how moving between communities shapes our sense of belonging, how race and nationality influence the way others perceive us, and why the labels we use for people can carry assumptions we don't always recognize.

Drew also shares his perspective on masculinity, growing up with restrictive expectations, and finding the freedom to embrace aspects of himself that don't fit traditional ideas of what a man should be. Along the way, we discuss the differences between being called an expat and an immigrant, navigating identity across cultures, and the importance of finding people who accept and support us as we are.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Growing up between places and learning to find belonging
• Navigating racial ambiguity and identity across cultures
• The differences in how people perceive expats and immigrants
• Living authentically while navigating assumptions and stereotypes
• How traditional masculinity can limit self-expression
• The pressure to perform masculinity for other men
• Creating space for people to embrace their identities without apology

Continue the conversation

Learn more about Shawna's book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work, including the audiobook, which is now available.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

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About This Episode

Dr. Brittany Wiley has been teaching since before she had a classroom, assigning herself summer book reports and turning her siblings into students. Today she teaches ethnic studies at Cuesta College, and in this episode she and Dr. Shawna Gann talk about how identity, history, and teaching intersect.

Dr. Wiley walks through the history that shaped mixed identity in the United States, from the hereditary slavery laws of the 1660s to the literature of racial passing to census data showing mixed race as the fastest growing category. She shares a moment from a high school African American literature class when a teacher told her the world would see her as a Black woman, and how she has moved from identifying as biracial to mixed race after learning more about her Native American ancestry. Shawna reflects on being multi-generationally mixed, leading her first diversity workshop at 17, and the Midwest food culture that proves whiteness is not the absence of culture.

They also discuss how ethnic studies became a discipline through student demand in the late 1960s, what shifts for students who arrive reluctant, and why everyone, regardless of background, has a stake in learning about race.

About Dr. Brittany Wiley

Dr. Brittany Wiley (she/her) is a first-generation college student who studied English at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, then earned a master's in Ethnic Studies and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from San Francisco State University. She has taught ethnic studies at the CSU and community college level for more than fifteen years and currently teaches at Cuesta College. She loves reading, live music, video games, time with family, and being near the ocean.

Mentioned in This Episode

Hair Tales (Hulu), featuring Tracee Ellis Ross and Oprah Winfrey

New from Dr. Shawna Gann: Mixed Signals

Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work draws on research with 513 participants to show what multiracial experiences reveal about belonging in organizations, and why civility is really about membership, not politeness. It's available now in paperback, hardcover, and eBook, with the audiobook coming soon. Learn more at culturecrucible.com/mixed-signals.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

In this episode of Our True Colors, Shawna and Marcel talk with Mike Brown, a biracial Marine veteran, nonprofit fundraiser, veteran advocate, husband, and father. Mike shares what it has meant to grow up with both Black and white family histories, including a Black Southern father whose family roots run through Mississippi and a white mother whose family came to the United States from Europe.

Mike talks with us in this episode about growing up with questions about what he “was,” navigating racial ambiguity, and the importance of being able to name your own identity rather than having other people decide it for you. He also shares the powerful family stories he hopes to preserve for his children, including his grandmother's decision to leave Mississippi during the civil rights era and his parents' interracial marriage in the early 1970s.

We also talk about the power of oral history and storytelling, what gets lost when family histories aren't recorded, and the responsibility of carrying stories forward when the people who lived them are no longer here.

And, for this episode's Mixed Message, we talk about what it feels like when people treat your identity like a riddle they should be able to solve, and what might change if we simply asked instead of guessed.

About Mike Brown

Mike Brown is a Dover, Delaware native who now lives in the Cleveland, Ohio area with his wife and two children. A Marine veteran, nonprofit fundraising professional, veteran advocate, and community leader, Mike is passionate about service, family history, storytelling, and preserving the experiences of previous generations for the people who come after him.

BOOK NEWS

Shawna's book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work, will be available September 15, 2026, in hardcover, paperback, and eBook. The audiobook will be available a few weeks later.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

What a joy to spend time with our guest for this episode. Melissa Muganzo is an entertainer, entrepreneur, educator, and media producer based in Sacramento, California. She's a professor at Sacramento State, the founder of Mindy's Kitchen, a professional actress, and an award-winning entrepreneur and social justice documentarian. She was also raised inside a very particular kind of not-enoughness: not West Indian enough, not Afro-Latina enough, not Kenyan enough, and — according to plenty of people around her — not Black enough either.

This conversation goes everywhere. Melissa walks me through a childhood shaped by a Seventh-day Adventist mother, a Kenyan father with an entirely different spiritual inheritance, and the quiet math of a kid figuring out what it takes to be seen as good. They talk about what happens when the answer to every question you ask is "you just have to believe," and what it costs to keep editing your hair, your voice, your major, your whole life to keep the approval coming.

They also talk about the body — Melissa's affirmation that your body has been showing up for you the entire time you've been mean to it, and the therapist's line about what you're really saying when you criticize the features you inherited. I share what I have learned about vertical and horizontal morality and Melissa offers the frame of "the good girl". 

If you've ever wondered which parts of yourself you're still editing to make other people comfortable, this episode is for you.

CONNECT WITH MELISSA

Mindy's Kitchen:

• Website: www.mindyskitchen.com
• Instagram: @mindyskitchen_ca
• LinkedIn: Mindy's Kitchen of California

Muganzo Entertainment:

• Website: www.muganzoentertainment.com
• Instagram: @muganzoentertainment
• LinkedIn: Melissa Muganzo

Also Mentioned:
Vertical vs. Horizontal Morality: Why It Matters for the Workplace Today

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

In this episode, Shawna and Andre get into what he calls anti-mixed violence and how it gets folded into other categories. They talk about conditional acceptance, the pressure to perform blackness, and the difference between being a guest at the cookout and holding the umbrella. Andre describes what race looked like inside a racially segregated prison yard, where he ran raffles with Scrabble tiles and sold cheesecake made from mozzarella and coffee creamer, and where a kid got badly hurt for accepting a slice from someone of another race. They also work through where they disagree, including whether proximity to whiteness is a useful frame or a projection. Andre closes with an argument about resilience and what he calls injustice collecting: the more things you find to be broken by, the more breakable you become.

Content note: this episode includes candid discussion of violence, including childhood bullying and violence inside prison, and includes strong language.

About Andre

Andre grew up in Inglewood, California, where being mixed meant getting jumped on the way home from school. After three years in prison, he came home and began speaking publicly about the mixed race experience, particularly the pressure to choose sides, conform to fixed labels, or suppress parts of yourself to fit what other people expect. What started as a personal defense of his own identity became a broader mission: creating spaces where layered identities can exist without explanation or fractions, and advocating for mixed race people to be unapologetically mixed.

Today he is president of the mixed student union at Cal State Northridge, where he is completing his final semester, and he builds community online while taking a critical look at how current perspectives on race can harm multiracial people. He encourages mixed people to stand on business, refuse to bend the knee to monoracial groups, and push for nuance, self-definition, and belonging at a time when conversations about race are often reactive and binary. Through campus organizing, digital dialogue, and public discussion, he explores what it means to move beyond racial extremes and toward a more integrated understanding of identity. He is also a former professional dancer and is at work on a book about internet addiction and what three years without a phone did to his thinking.

Where to find Andre
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsoktobemixed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsoktobemixed/

Book news
Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work arrives in September. Follow Our True Colors on Instagram for updates and behind the scenes tidbits.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

Dr. Shawna Gann and her co-host, Marcel De Jonghe, sit down with Dr. Natalie Hart — speaker, consultant, and educator — for a warm, funny, and honest talk about growing up between cultures. Identifying as Afro-Latina and Latin Caribbean, Natalie shares how she moved past the pressure to prove she's "enough" for every community and learned to carry her full identity with confidence.
In this episode:

Why mixed-race folks feel they have to "prove" their heritage
The "no sabo kids" label and reclaiming culture across generations
Racial ambiguity as a superpower — and calling out harm in "safe spaces"
Representation vs. diversity, and what leadership reveals about a company's values

Plus Mixed Messages, on what really makes a workplace feel open-minded.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

What does it mean to reconnect with your ancestry when the journey doesn't come with a roadmap? In this episode of *Our True Colors*, Dr. Shawna Gann sits down with storyteller, community organizer, and anti oppression facilitator Jamison Schulz-Franco for a thoughtful conversation about identity, belonging, and the courage to remain curious. Together, they explore what it means to hold multiple cultural identities, reconnect with family history, and embrace the complexities that shape who we are. Rather than searching for simple answers, Jamison shares how listening to family stories, returning to ancestral homelands, and building relationships with people and the natural world have transformed the way they understand themselves.

Jamison also shares the inspiring story behind Special Bird Service, a community centered on creating welcoming outdoor spaces for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and queer communities through bird watching and connection to the land. From conversations about migration, oral history, and ancestral memory to reflections on cricket, community, and healing, this episode is an invitation to embrace the richness of our own stories while making space for the stories of others. If you've ever wondered where you belong or how to honor every part of your identity, this conversation offers both encouragement and hope.

Jamison Schulz-Franco is a storyteller, community organizer, and anti oppression facilitator whose work centers on community connection and embodied approaches to social justice. Born and raised on the ancestral territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking Peoples in what is now known as Victoria, British Columbia, Jamison's perspective is shaped by their South Indian, German, and Scottish ancestry. They currently work with a local land trust supporting Indigenous led stewardship on Southern Vancouver Island and co founded Special Bird Service, a bird watching community that brings people together through nature, belonging, and care for one another.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Why curiosity can be more powerful than certainty in understanding identity
• Reconnecting with ancestry through family stories and lived experience
• Creating community through bird watching and relationships with the land
• Navigating multiracial identity without forcing it into either or categories
• The importance of oral history, belonging, and intergenerational learning

If this conversation resonated with you, we'd love to hear what stood out. Leave a review, share this episode with someone who would enjoy it, or connect with us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Our True Colors Podcast.

Dr. Shawna Gann's upcoming book, *Mixed Signals: The Multiracial Case for Civility and Belonging at Work*, will be released in early Fall. Visit the website to sign up for updates about the book release and other exciting news.

Check out some more stuff!

The Christian Cooper Chronicles

Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper

The Blackfoot Wisdom that Inspired Maslow’s Hierarchy

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

What does it mean to have civil courage? And what happens when you refuse to forget?

In this special episode, Shawna talks with her friend of 35 years, Professor Dr. Mirjam Rein, about an extraordinary project that began with a simple classroom conversation. Students from HTL Mössingerstraße, a technical school in Klagenfurt, Carinthia in the south of Austria, spent months interviewing seven people whose stories embody the meaning of standing up, speaking out, and refusing to look away.

Shawna is one of those seven voices. Her story is now on display at the Kärnten Museum (June 17-August 16, 2026), part of an exhibition that speaks directly to the question: How do we remember what our society wants us to forget?

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why memory culture matters more than ever
• The concept of mono racism and what it means to exist in liminal space
• How civil courage lives in small moments (not just big protests)
• The stories of seven people standing for dignity, respect, and humanity: a refugee who lost everything, a historian reclaiming Holocaust memory, advocates for accessibility and women's safety, a human rights educator, a man honoring his family's resistance, and Shawna's own lived experience at the intersection of identity and belonging

This is a conversation about courage in action, humanity in practice, and the power of listening instead of looking away.

Download a companion guide here.

Learn more:

• Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones) Project
• Code of Courage Podcast (Full Series on Spotify) 
• "The 5 S's of Engagement: Navigating Your Path Through Allyship"
• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/arts/smithsonian-trump-activism-american-history.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wFA.zExk.breg3ZLbbnPV&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

In this episode of Our True Colors, Dr. Shawna Gann and Season 6 cohost Marcel DeJonghe sit down with Teressa Plammoottil, a first generation Indian American whose story explores identity, racial ambiguity, religion, family dynamics, and the complicated search for community. Raised in a traditional South Indian Catholic household and shaped by both life in India and the United States, Teressa reflects on the experience of living between cultures while constantly navigating how others perceive her.

Together, they unpack everything from language and representation to beauty standards, colorism, mixed identity assumptions, and the emotional impact of exclusion within one’s own community. Teressa also shares how leaving home as a teenager transformed her understanding of family, belonging, and resilience, ultimately shaping the compassionate and culturally aware person she is today.

As a discrimination complaint investigator for the State of California and commissioner on the City of Elk Grove’s Diversity and Inclusion Commission, Teressa brings both lived experience and professional insight to this deeply honest conversation about identity, empathy, and connection.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

•  Why racial ambiguity often creates both curiosity and exclusion 
•  The impact of colorism and Eurocentric beauty standards in South Asian communities 
•  How language can create a sense of home and belonging 
•  What it means to build chosen family after feeling disconnected from your own community 
•  The difference between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation 

Dr. Shawna Gann also shares reflections from her ongoing research into mixed identity experiences and belonging. Her upcoming book Mixed Signals: The Multiracial Case for Civility and Belonging at Work releases in early Fall. Visit the website to sign up for updates, book news, and upcoming conversations.

Connect with Teressa Plammoottil on Instagram @terenovah

Listen, subscribe, and share your thoughts with us. We’d love to hear how this conversation resonated with your own experiences of identity and belonging.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

Five years after his first appearance on the show, Joshua Grant returns for a deeply layered conversation with Dr. Shawna Gann about transitional justice, systemic inequity, activism, media manipulation, and what it means to be human in a time of fractured realities. Together, they unpack how movements born in moments of collective trauma continue shaping communities today, from Minneapolis organizing efforts after George Floyd’s murder to ongoing conversations around race, privilege, identity, and institutional power.

Joshua reflects on his experiences studying law and navigating spaces where justice and politics collide, while Dr. Shawna Gann challenges listeners to think critically about propaganda, accountability, and the choices people make in the information age. The episode also explores liminal identity, intersectionality, whiteness as a social construct, and how systems of power shape the stories we tell ourselves about fairness, equality, and belonging. This conversation is thoughtful, emotional, intellectually rigorous, and deeply human.

Listeners will hear discussions about:

• Transitional justice and reconciliation
• Race and systemic inequity in America
• Media algorithms and political polarization
• Activism and community care in Minneapolis
• Intersectionality and liminal identity
• The difference between equity and equality
• The role of honesty in social change

If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone who values courageous conversation and thoughtful dialogue. Subscribe, leave a review, and continue the conversation with us online.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. 

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!