Recognizing that his own children, born to a Black father and White mother, and growing up in a country still deeply divided by race, would have very different experiences in America than he and his wife did, embarks on a journey of discovery in his family’s Bay Area community.
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The documentary focuses on interracial families from the San Francisco Bay Area, featuring interviews with multiracial children from about 7-years-old up to 16-years old, interracial couples, and field experts. While it will include different perspectives, Bell aims to largely showcase the experience of multiracial children and how their racial identity is a formative part of growing up.
In a series of playful and impactful conversations, Bell explores how these young people navigate issues of identity in a world that can ask them to pick a side and thoughtful exchanges with families reveal the many joys and complexities of what it means to raise multiracial children.
In his trademark fashion, Bell maintains a serious focus while keeping the discussions lively and accessible, proving along the way that children are more than capable of understanding and furthering complex conversations about race, culture, and identity.
Featured participants, include many who come from families of Asian combined with other races.:
- Sami (10) is Black and White and looks up to Alicia Keys and Juno, Sami’s sister (7), will tell you why it’s the best to be a middle child.
- Myles (11) is Black and Filipino-American, likes to play basketball, and helps his lola (grandmother) compete in a Filipino cook off.
- Presley (10) is White and Filipino-American. She has her own punk band and occasionally rides around San Francisco with her dad belting tunes from his Karaoke motorcycle.
- Kanani (10) is White, Indigenous, and Latina. She and her parents spend every summer with her dad’s tribe in Costa Rica.
- Anisa (11) is Black and Pakistani-British and she considers being Muslim as much a part of her “mix” as race.
- Her friend Mila (10) is Chinese American and Black. She is deeply thoughtful and speaks in the measured tones of a future world leader while her parents discuss the deeper implications of wearing mismatching socks.
- Sumaya (7) is Guinean and Punjabi and has strong opinions about mangoes, dogs, and llamas.
- Carter (13) is Black and Latina and her best friend Nola (13) is Black and White. They both have two moms but very different birth stories.
- Kaylin (16) has two mixed-race parents. She’s part White, part Black, and part Korean.
- Older family members also participate in the discussions including siblings, parents, grandparents, as well as other adults, and professionals invested in these issues.
To some observers, the increase in the number of Americans identifying as more than one race shows that barriers are breaking down. But the increase also may reflect changes to census questions designed to tease out the heritage of multiracial people.
It may also be attributed to the high-profile presence and acceptance of mixed race individuals in the public eye, including:
Former President Obama and current Vice President Kamala Harris are of mixed race as is Justin Jones, who was in the news recently as one of the Tennessee 3 who were expelled from the Tennessee legislature..
Include AANHPI actors Dwayne Johnson, Jason Momoa and Vanessa Hudgens as mixed race; as well as entertainers Olivia Rodrigo, H.E.R. and Saweetie and athletes tennis player Naomi Osaka and NFL quarterback Kyler Murray.
Journalist Alex Wagner, who is of Burmese and White descent, talks about the moment she realized she was of mixed race in an interview with HelloGiggles:
There were a few discrete moments, though, where I understood that I wasn’t “generically American.” One of them, which I talked about in the book, was this time when I was about 12 years old, when my dad and I were at the local diner, and my dad, who was white, got up and went to use the men’s room. The line cook looked at me and said, “Are you adopted?” It was the first time I thought, “Oh wait, he thinks I look really different. He thinks that I don’t belong in this particular family picture. Why is that?” I was embarrassed in that moment, and I was ashamed for myself, which is totally messed up on a number of levels, but is, I think, a natural reaction to being made to feel like you don’t belong, that you’re an outsider. That was the seed of like, “Okay, wait a second. What does it mean to not be of this place? Where do I fit in the American story? Where does a mixed-race person find that sense of cultural rootedness?”According to the 2020 US Census, California had the largest numeric increase in people identifying as more than one race, growing 61% from 2010 to slightly over 2 million. People who identified as both White and Asian made up the largest group in both years. Americans identifying as White and American Indian grew by 84% to 384,600.
As children of older generations struggled to fit in and find themselves, the children in Bell's HBO special as the next generation of mixed-race Americans, are offering their own definition of themselves, which could also help define the new America emerging from the old Black-White paradigm.
FYI: "1000% Me: Growin Up Mixed" airs at 8 p.m., Monday, May 1, 2023 on HBO.
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