Ep. 225: Whitney Yang, the second child of Debra (white of European descent) and Philip (Asian of Chinese descent), an interracial couple who met and married in the Untied States in 1974.
Whitney was born in Hong Kong while her parents both worked for the United States government. She feels extremely fortunate to have grown up immersed in Chinese culture and to have attended international schools with peers of diverse backgrounds.
Whitney loves being mixed and strongly identifies with her Chinese/Asian heritage. She admits that she feels most comfortable and free from judgement with other mixed race people who share her experiences.
But Whitney also recalls the challenges she faced as a child and adolescent — teachers who couldn’t pronounce her Chinese name, conflicting messages from people in her environment about Chinese culture and people, racist jokes and comments made at her expense, and the constant feeling of being an outsider.
Despite her international upbringing, Whitney has lived thirty years regularly being asked questions like, “what are you?,” “where are you from?,” and “what’s your heritage?”. She never knows quite how to answer in a way that makes her feel whole without being disbelieved or rejected (as she has been, many, many times).
Mixed (Me)dia grew out of Whitney’s graduate studies research into everyday forms of political resistance, media representations of people of color, mixed race identity formation, and child development.
Mixed (Me)dia is an online resource center for mixed race* children and adults, parents and educators of mixed race children, and anyone who is interested in understanding what it’s like to be mixed race in the United States.
For more about Mixed (Me)dia or Whitney, please visit her website: https://wearemixed.org/
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
Huge shout out to our “Super-Duper Supporters” Elizabeth A. Atkins and Catherine Atkins Greenspan of Two Sisters Writing and Publishing
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/
One Comment on “Advocating for the Multiracial Community with Mixed Media founder, Whitney Yang, Ep. 225”
A very well-done interview! Great questions that spanned a gamut in a brief period of time. Enjoyed listening to Whitney’s story and learned a few things I hadn’t known before about my niece.
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