Lexi Brock
I was born and raised in the deep south. There’s a lot to be thankful for in my sleepy small town. You won’t find tea any sweeter than ours, and there are never any traffic jams. But as illuminated by recent events, like Ahmuad Arbery’s murder, we’ve still got a lot of work to do down south to achieve equality and justice for people of color. My parents and I have been turned away from churches. Sometimes people don’t want to sit by us in restaurants. I’ve been laughed at and referred to as a ‘mixed-breed mutt.’ For a long time, this upset me. I was ashamed. I didn’t understand why this happened, and I most definitely didn’t feel celebrated. Project RACE was one of the first places where I felt welcomed and accepted, exactly as I was. My family wasn’t ‘too black’ nor were we ‘too white.’ We were a beautiful blend of cultures and customs. Multiracial Heritage Week is always an important reminder that families like mine deserve to be celebrated. There is a spot for us, and it isn’t in the ‘check other’ box. Each year, I hope that at least one new interracial family will join in on our celebration. A special kind of magic manifests itself when you begin to live your truth unapologetically.
Lexi Brock
OUR MISSION
Project RACE advocates for multiracial children, multiracial adults, and their families primarily through multiracial education and community awareness. We are committed to the appropriate inclusion of multiracial people on any forms that require racial identification. We support policies that make a positive impact on people of multiracial heritage at local, state, and national levels.
IMPORTANT
All forms should ideally have a “multiracial” box to check.
As an alternative, you may use the check all that apply format and put this wording in the instructions:
If you are multiracial, you may select two or more races.
DONATE
Project RACE never requires a membership fee. We are a non-profit, 501(c)(3), all volunteer organization supported by individual donations, contributions and grants. Donations are deductible, as provided by law. If you believe in our cause, please consider making a difference for multiracial people.
JOIN US
Being a part of an established community conquering racial identity makes multiracial people a part of a true movement. You can feel accepted and understood. You can pass our work on to your family and educate friends and the establishment. You can join us and do as much or as little as you please. Won’t you join us?
MEET SOME OF OUR FAMILIES
The Baldwin Family
I’m the youngest of three children. My black father was born in Houston in 1960 and remembers, as a young boy, seeing the anguish in his family when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. He met my white mother here in Ohio while she was in college and he was playing for the Cleveland Browns. They celebrated my oldest sister’s birth in South Central Los Angeles in the middle of the Rodney King trial. We moved to Ohio just months after the senseless murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Racial unrest, injustice, and violence are not new to my family’s consciousness, and it is sad that today, most people of color can say the same. Despite these issues constantly being present in my world, I have typically felt at least a little disconnected from them, thanks to my privilege and my loving family. Today I feel a stronger connection to the injustice and see it more clearly than ever before. But it remains incomprehensible. No one in this world has shown me more love than my black father, my white mother, and my multiracial sisters, and there is no one I love more than those very people. Growing up in a household with people of three distinct racial makeups has made understanding tension, distrust, and hatred based solely on race difficult. I’ve received no greater sense of joy than that of time spent simply watching movies, playing games, and eating with my family. These are the people I love and the people who have helped make me who I am. While I sincerely want to do all I can to enact change in this world, nothing will ever change that.
Karson Baldwin, Project RACE Teens President
The Wooten Family
My family consists of five which includes our dog Soleil. Of my sister and I, I am the youngest.
My Caucasian father was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1973, in an all White suburban area. It was very rare for my father to interact with people of color; especially African Americans. The most interaction he had with someone who was Black was with his tennis doubles partner. My father ate, slept, and breathed tennis. You could always find him training, playing tournaments, or conditioning at his racquet club which were predominantly White. Similar to my father, my African American mother, was born in Illinois, but was raised in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, another midwestern town. She was always surrounded by a majority of White people. My mother graduated as one of 17 African Americans in her graduating class in high school. Throughout her life she, her siblings and my grandparents experienced many hardships due to the color of their skin with name calling, stereotyping, and threats. My parents met in Indianapolis and eventually got married. They will celebrate 22 years of marriage this weekend. They later birthed my older sister who is now coming up on 20 years old, and then me who just turned 17 years old. We moved to Houston, Texas, where we both attended predominantly White schools. My parents have done well when it comes to teaching us to be proud of our mixed background and accepting our dual races. Even though it can be hard to choose when it comes to documents such as a license or even a census form, we have learned how to accept ourselves, and to be proud of our mixed racial background.
Skylar Wooten, Project RACE Teens Vice President
The Bossick-Pich Family
With everything going on in the world today, we hope that you are staying safe and healthy during these uncertain times. While it is important to keep these events in mind, our focus now shifts to what makes us, as multiracial people, so unique and special.
My mother who is mainly Caucasian was born in Tennessee in the early 80’s. Although I am biologically half-Caucasian, I have always felt a strong presence in the Puerto Rican community because of my step-grandmother. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, both of my step-grandmother’s parents are from Puerto Rico. Growing up, I spent a lot of time around this side of my family and embraced the culture as a part of my identity. I grew up eating Hispanic food, listening to Hispanic music, and even learning parts of the language. While I am not Hispanic by blood, I have always remained very close to this part of my family.
My father was born in Cambodia in 1979, during the Khmer Rouge Regime. While my grandmother is Chinese and fair skinned, my grandfather is Khmer and very much dark skinned, which led to my father and his siblings being mostly darker skinned. After escaping Communist Cambodia and ending up in a Thai refugee camp, my family was moved to the states in the early 80’s. The miscellaneous appearance of my father and his siblings led to a lot of confusion about his ethnicity from people of other races. They were often mistaken as African Americans, Hispanics, and even Hawaiians. While I am not as dark as my father, I myself am rarely ever considered to be of Asian descent. While difficult at times, I like to use other people’s confusion to explain and show my Asian heritage. Things like attending temple events, eating Khmer food, listening to Khmer music, and speaking the language always remind me of my family’s history and how important it is to me.
In my generation, I am the oldest of five siblings in my family. I have two Caucasian brothers on my mother’s side, and a brother and sister who are completely Asian on the other. While as a biracial person in this society, I realize that it is easier in some ways to identify as Caucasian, I have always tended to identify more strongly with the Asian and sometimes even the Hispanic parts of my family. I have had the opportunity to experience all kinds of cultures that many people will never get to see, which is what makes me love being multiracial and makes my perspective on race so unique. My goal is not to see people as members of separate races, but rather to use my diverse experiences to share my various cultures with others.
Matheson Bossick, Project RACE Teens Vice President
The Vasquez Family
As a multiracial family – Roy, Kelly and I just live our lives. Though we realize we’re a multiracial family, it’s never pointed out. We’ve never really had to deal with issues until it was time for Kelly to begin elementary school. As parents, we dreaded each year having to fill out the ‘first day of school’ forms. In these instances, we almost always selected Roy’s race on paper which is White because it’s noted on his birth certificate (something I’ll never understand except for his apparent skin hue at birth). But, since he is Kelly’s dad, I respected his choice. Once Kelly graduated toward Middle school, she wouldn’t have it! No one, regardless of authority, would ever identify for her again. It was now her right. Kelly began to write Biracial in the spot labeled ‘Other’, and then she selected Hispanic as her Ethnic group, but African American as her race. She says that doing this allows her to point out both heritages. By the way, I never liked the word ‘Other’ because I never looked at our child as an ‘Other’.
As a mom who is present on social media platforms, I knew the importance of shaping our daughter’s world around high self-esteem. I always taught her the importance of embracing both her heritages. My ideology stemmed from listening to biracial celebrities explaining how they dealt with, and felt about identity issues. Some shared how mentally draining it was never knowing which ethnic/racial groups would accept them, if at all. They often shared how confused, and the sense of loneliness they endured. Knowing this, I vowed that my interactions with our daughter would focus on her experiencing a balanced life loving all of who she is – her total self. To date, our daughter only identifies as biracial. She is adamant about not solely identifying as Hispanic or African American. Just recently Kelly informed us that she’s okay with using the word mixed (in a more relaxed setting), but always biracial (in professional settings). I’ve never advocated for the use of words such as mixed, swirl or mutt (as non-canine dogs are often called). Kelly will be 19 years old in three short months, so now she takes the lead.
During Multiracial Heritage Week, and throughout the years, I search for Instagram posts featuring multiracial family unions. I’m often disappointed when I read posts where moms refer to, or identify their biracial/multiracial children as one race. I’ve especially noticed that whenever I read these posts, oftentimes, one parent is black, therefore their children are told they’re black. In these instances, I do my best carefully thinking through the right words to use before leaving my comments, being sure to compliment the parents on their children, or their posts, and then I inform them that I’m a mom of a biracial child who solely identifies as biracial person in wholesome healthy ways, and I share my reasoning. I’m also certain to introduce the Project RACE link in hopes that they’ll take a closer look and understand the importance of lifting up, and esteeming their biracial child’s race.
Because of the current racial tensions surrounding the death of George Floyd, many parents are going LIVE on FB and/or writing posts on social networks – lovingly advocating for their ‘black’ children (who are clearly biracial). While I admire parents advocating for their children’s rights, I feel this one-race ideology is not fair to biracial children, and will ‘play into’ low self-esteem issues while damaging the outlook of their biracial children’s true identities. In addition, I feel strongly that due to these scenarios, the fight for race status on behalf of biracial people is an ongoing, uphill battle.
It is so important for biracial children to have their rightful identities. They are not one race over the other. They are indeed biracial/multiracial and can be taught to own their total self.
Cherry Vasquez
The McNally Family Story
Our family had the great fortune to become biracial when my daughter married her now former spouse several years ago. I was ecstatic to become the grandmother (and Nana) to Campbell in 2012 and am lucky enough to live in the same town as he and his parents. Campbell was the first (and remains the only) grandchild in our family and is, quite simply, adored. When my daughter was pregnant and I began the grandmother-to-be buying spree, I got my first inkling that my worldview was going to change. For the very first time, I am embarrassed to say, I noticed how few children of color were represented in baby toys, clothes and books. I began to actively seek out these items, but it was not always easy. I well remember how happy I was the day I discovered that the Michael’s Craft stores has Santas of more than one race! I guess I had assumed that having a biracial or multiracial grandchild would be exactly the same as if he were Caucasian – you just give them lots of love. Of course, the love part is true, but I also began to realize that it was important that I honor and acknowledge Campbell’s full heritage. We now seek out art and literature for our home not only reflecting the black community but all cultures.
But that was just one part of my experience. As Campbell got older and I babysat and took him places regularly, I began to notice the puzzled looks and the questions (Are you the nanny? Why does he look different than you? Is he adopted?). It was hard not to get annoyed….had none of these people ever seen a biracial family???? However, there was one episode questioning my relationship with Campbell that I will not soon forget. I was giving him swimming lesson at our local county pool when a staff member came over to inform me that only family members could give swim lessons. I explained that I was Campbell’s grandmother whereupon she replied that it could only be “biological” relatives. I explained in no uncertain terms that I was his biological grandmother but that that should not matter in any event. There were so many things to unpack from her statement that I got out of the pool and asked for a manager. After a month of trying, I thought that I had an assurance from the county swim manager that no such thing would ever happen again. But I was wrong – that manager emailed me a few days later to say that he had been overruled because, suddenly, the policy was that no family members could give lesson at all. I was stunned since I knew that not to be true. We live in a progressive, liberal county outside of a major city and yet this happened. It strengthened my resolve to do all I could to protect not only my own grandson, but all multicultural families from this type of prejudice. The past few weeks has been very difficult emotionally for anyone with compassion and empathy but also an eye opener on how little those not of color really know about the day to day lives of our fellow citizens who are not white. I have had only a tiny glimpse of this world and know that I am very very far from really understanding and feeling what it is like to be the subject of discrimination and prejudice. But I also know that I will do everything I can to help change America so that we celebrate multicultural families instead of treat them as somehow different. Grandmothers can be a fierce bunch when it comes to their grandchildren.
Beth (Project RACE Grandparents President.)
The Rempel Family
Unfortunately this year, my family and the rest of the world mourn the lives that have been lost at the hands of injustice. Once again we are reminded of the long history of disparities that the African American community has faced over the last four centuries. I always hear my parents say “when one part hurts we all hurt”, and a part of our humanity is hurting so we hurt with our African American brothers and sisters. Even though the world sees differences in race pull us apart, my reality has been the opposite and I want to celebrate that!
My father is white and my mother is Dominican. My father grew up in a small town in Minnesota with a mostly white community with little exposure to diversity until his college years. My father’s eyes were opened to new realities, new worlds, and challenged to broaden his perspective. He was eager to explore them. On the other hand, my mom, originally born in the Dominican Republic is multiracial (she is of African, Arawak and of Spanish descent), moved to New Jersey into a community composed of mostly minorities. The reality of her upbringing is very different from my father’s. My mom had her unique set of challenges moving to a new country. My mom identifies as black, brown, or multiracial depending on the experience she is trying to explain. As a minority, her experience with racism is complex, and one that has taken time to verbalize.
Despite my parents’ racial differences and upbringing, they fell in love while pursuing the same passion of helping others. From the beginning of my parent’s relationship, race has been an ongoing discussion within my family not as a point of tension or division but as a part of us that we celebrate, embrace and brings us together. My parents’ love for each other, friends and family of different races, has taught me that love is a unifying force that allows us to celebrate our differences instead of feeling threatened by them. These examples have shaped my character into what it is today, and my eagerness to stand up for racial injustice. It has also guided my journey of discovering my multiracial heritage and embracing my identity.
Madelyn Rempel (Project RACE Kids President)
The Malaga Family
Being biracial in America demands a choice of what we choose to remember and what we are forced to leave behind. Through these choices, biracial people craft unique identities, conglomerations of families, cultures, and heritages, collections of places, stories, and recipes. Others may try to demote you, or categorize you into one group. So indeed, just like swimming against an ocean tide, remembering requires effort. To hold your place, you must work for it; talk to your relatives, listen to their stories, and empathize with their struggles. If you do nothing, you risk being swept along with the tide of Americanization, your unique voice washed away by an ocean of oppression.
My family is half-Chinese, half-white. My mother’s parents immigrated from Shanghai and my father’s family is from Southern Italy. My brothers and I were raised on the bridge between the two cultures. On that bridge was stir-fried gnocchi with soy sauce and napa cabbage. There was spicy, glazed shrimp over angel-hair pasta. On the bridge there were Skype Mandarin classes on Sundays and Italian class in school on Mondays. There were Roman-Catholic crosses laying upon intricately painted Shanghainese cabinets. The bridge was a connection between two families and the hyphen in my name.
And yet, despite the vibrant combination of our heritages, there is much we still leave behind. Like many other biracial families in America, our identity is a constant process. We acknowledge our shortcomings, continue to listen our grandparents’ stories, and develop our unique identities.
Ian Shen-Costello
Susan Graham
I was born in Detroit and went through all my schooling in Michigan. I pursued careers in public relations, writing, industrial real estate, telecommunications, and finance. I married a black husband in 1981 and we had two multiracial children. I now have two grandchildren whom I spoil and adore. I divorced and re-married in 2005 to my husband of 15 years, a poet and retired educator. We live in California’s Central Valley.
My son Ryan and I started Project RACE in 1990. I am still the CEO and Ryan is on our Board of Directors. He has testified twice before congressional committees at their request and I have testified three times. We have worked for over 30 years to help gain equality for the multiracial population. We have made a lot of progress with the Census Bureau, government agencies, schools, companies, and medical facilities.
In May 2019, my memoir, Born Biracial: How One Mother Took on Race in America was published. I am working on a novel about families and a murder.
We still have a long way to go and we appreciate all our members.
Susan Graham, President, Project RACE
Subscribe to our mailing list
Sign up for our newletter
Please add projectrace@projectrace.com to your address book. This will ensure delivery to your inbox.
OUR BLOG
What?!
Susan Graham2021-03-08T14:43:52+00:00March 8th, 2021|Tags: Meghan Markle, Oprah Winfrey|
What?! I watched Oprah Winfrey’s much hyped interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. I hope you saw it too. The subject of race was brought up by Oprah many times. When Meghan told Oprah that there had been some discussions with members of the royal family, or “the firm” as Meghan called it, Oprah said, “WHAT?!” The talks centered around baby Archie’s color. Would he be too dark to represent royalty? Why was that even brought up as a royal issue? It’s a pity that the subject had to [...]
Interracial Relationships in Advertising
Susan Graham2021-03-07T21:01:53+00:00March 7th, 2021|Tags: Biracial Advertising|
Americans See More Interracial Relationships in Advertising By Deborah Block March 07, 2021 03:29 AM Actors portray a biracial family in an ad for the Old Navy clothing retailer. (Courtesy Old Navy) A happy interracial family hugging each other while wearing apparel from clothing retailer Old Navy. A smiling Black man giving his white girlfriend an engagement ring in a State Farm insurance ad. And a biracial couple and their kids on a road trip in a vehicle made by Hyundai. These are among the increasing number of advertisements selling everything [...]
RECENT POSTS
News Flash
Susan Graham2021-03-05T17:14:34+00:00March 5th, 2021|
Multiracial Population Change
Susan Graham2021-03-02T18:16:12+00:00March 2nd, 2021|
About Tiger Woods…
Susan Graham2021-02-27T16:31:36+00:00February 27th, 2021|
It’s Famous Friday!
Susan Graham2021-02-26T16:04:44+00:00February 26th, 2021|
It’s Famous Friday!
Susan Graham2021-02-18T23:51:16+00:00February 18th, 2021|
Interracial Marriage and Kamala Harris
Susan Graham2021-02-15T17:58:51+00:00February 15th, 2021|
Prince Harry and Meghan are expecting another child
Susan Graham2021-02-15T14:53:12+00:00February 15th, 2021|