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[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is made possible through generous funding from the Henry loose foundation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In conjunction with the Asian Pacific American Religious Research Initiative, Apari, and the Institute for Religion Media and Civic Engagement.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 2003, four years after our wedding.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We'd eased into an equilibrium.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our parents accepted our marriage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We loved exploring each other's religious communities, rituals, and practices.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Life felt rich as we balanced a racially and religiously mixed household.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Just the two of us.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then it all changed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When we found out we were expecting, I knew that the process we started in our engagement and wedding would begin all over again.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Only this time, there was more at stake than our ceremony in pictures.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We had to figure out how to take care of a racially and religiously mixed child and during a world that would try to force them into reductive categories and little boxes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There was also an element of this that was about our own identities.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We're having children is about passing on heritage, rituals, and identity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can you raise a child who is both?
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[SPEAKER_01]: One who inherits an embodies both their parents' ethnic and religious traditions?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can you raise them to see themselves as both?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Without forcing them to choose or letting the world convince them that they have to choose.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was scared, not the ordinary kind of scared.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The kind where you realize your heart is about to walk around outside your body.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it feels like waiting for a baby.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I like control, ask anyone who watched me plan my own wedding down to the last detail, I ran the whole operation, but even before my son was born, I knew this was different.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't control every reaction he'd get, every remark from a teacher, a friend, a bully.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So the question I've been sitting with for 21 years now is this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How do you protect a mixed kid from harmful messages when you can't always be in the room to protect him?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Dr. Kathy Joshee.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a scholar of race, religion, and education.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A tenure professor who has spent two decades teaching about and studying how identity actually gets formed, not just in textbooks, but in kitchens, classrooms, and car rides home.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've written six books, including White Christian Privilege, the illusion of religious equality in America, teaching for diversity in social justice, and Asian Americans in Dixie.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've spoken to audiences from university lecture halls to the White House.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But this podcast isn't just research, it's personal.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's where the scholarship and lived experience meet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is mixed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The first test was that universal parental right of passage, the name conversation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know the one, you open a baby name book, you immediately veto half the names used in human history.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But in our house, this wasn't just about what sounded cute on the kindergarten cubby.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This was strategy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because when you're raising a mixed child, a name is not just a name, it's biography, it's geography, it's theology, it's a future resume material, unfortunately people do discriminate based on names.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We knew that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We wanted to give our child room, room to grow, room to shift, room to choose who he felt most aligned with at different points in his life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Room to tell his story in full, page by page, chapter by chapter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we named him Kebar Wallace Bartlett.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kiddhar, rooted in the Indian Hindu family, my family are followers of Lord Shiva, one of the central deities in Hinduism.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kiddhar not for which Kiddhar is named is Shiva's abode in the Himalayan mountains, where my family went on pilgrimage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Wallace, John's mother's maiden name,
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[SPEAKER_01]: signals the family lineage back to the Mayflower, a point of pride for John.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He and now Kiddar are members of the Mayflower Society.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now let's be honest, when you give your child a name like Kiddar, you know you are also giving Starbucks baristas a lifelong challenge.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but we loved it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And from the beginning, we made something clear.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If he felt deeply connected to his Indian Hindu identity, he could go by Kiddar.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If at some point in his life, he didn't feel that connection, if the name felt heavy, complicated, or misaligned, he had Wallace, not as an escape hatch, not as rejection.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but as an option, and that option was intentional, because identity isn't static.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It moves, it deepens, it sometimes retreats, it evolves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for multiracial kids especially, affiliation can shift depending on age, environment, geography, community, family, and even peer group.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Middle school hits differently than preschool.
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[SPEAKER_01]: College hits differently than high school.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't want him trapped inside a single expression of himself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We wanted to normalize fluidity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So as he got older, we would casually remind him, your middle name is Wallace.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you ever want to go by Wallace, that's completely fine.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No drama, no offense, no family summit meeting required.
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[SPEAKER_01]: just choice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the important part.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It had to be a given name.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not something he invented out of frustration at age 19.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not something chosen in rebellion.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This name was already his.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Already legitimate, already on his birth certificate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There is something powerful about that, because mixed kids constantly receive subtle and not so subtle messages that they must choose.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What are you really?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Which religion?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you feel more at home?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Those questions often feel like cross-examination.
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[SPEAKER_01]: so we wanted to build choice in from the beginning, a name that says you are fully both.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And if at some point you lean more one way that doesn't erase the other.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It just reflects where you are.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, did we overthink this?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is what happens when you have academics as parents.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We were debating existential identity architecture.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because here's the thing, names carry psychological weight.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Studies show that names affect how people are perceived in classrooms on job applications in social settings.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We knew that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We also knew that giving him flexibility was a form of empowerment, because allowing biracial and multiracial people to choose to adjust, to switch how they present themselves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's not confusion, that's agency.
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[SPEAKER_01]: An agency is stabilizing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When you tell a child, you get to decide how you want to show up, something relaxes inside of them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're not performing for either side.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're not trying to prove loyalty.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're simply becoming.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're simply being.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, to be clear, we didn't expect him to wake up at age seven and announce a rebrand.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This wasn't a corporate pivot strategy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was a safety valve.
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[SPEAKER_01]: an acknowledgment that identity is a journey, not a fixed assignment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the irony.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When you give someone the freedom to shift, they often feel less pressure to do so.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because the choice itself reduces the tension, reduces the stress.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So Kiddharwala's Bartlett carries both stories, both lineages, his Mayflower Father and his immigrant mother.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And the message underneath his name has always been this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to choose between your worlds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But if you ever need to express one more loudly than the other for a season, you can.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not betraying anyone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Listen to this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One day, when Kiddar was three years old, I took him to Toys R Us, which in our house was a rare and exciting event.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He was a toddler sitting up front in the shopping cart, chatting away as we made our way through the store and then out to the parking lot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As we were leaving, a woman approached me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She handed me a card and said very casually.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Your English is really great.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're ever looking for another nanny job, you should call me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now let me be clear.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She had just heard me speaking in the store.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She knew I spoke fluent English, and still, what she saw when she looked at me, a darker skinned woman with a lighter skin child overwrote everything else.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I am a South Asian American woman with brown skin.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kather is a white presenting mixed race toddler.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In her mind, I could only be the nanny.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I took the card, I didn't say anything.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For a moment, I was furious.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As a scholar of race and identity, I could dissect exactly what had just happened.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The racial assumptions, the hierarchies of belonging, the way phenotype gets red as race, I knew all of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But at that moment, my primary concern wasn't correcting her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't educating her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't even responding to her racism.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My first concern was my son.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The second she walked away, I turned to him and said, Baba, I am your mama.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, we've talked about this just because you and I don't match, doesn't mean I'm not your mama.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And he nodded, because this was not the first time he had heard me say it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that was intentional, that was preparation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As a parent and someone who studies race, I knew that my son and I would encounter moments like this, not once or twice, but repeatedly.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And the issue isn't a single comment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The issue is accumulation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's the steady
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was trying to interrupt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At home, we reinforced this constantly.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We read books.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There was a sesame street book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We loved about difference and belonging.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about it openly.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I repeated again and again, I am your mom, I am your mom, I am your mom.
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[SPEAKER_01]: John never had to have this conversation with him since K.D.R.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and John quote unquote match.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But John had other messages to send.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If we were in a social situation and people didn't think I was with both of them, he would give me an intentional embrace or pick on the cheek to show that we all belong together.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes our messages to Kaydhar were subtle, sometimes they were very direct.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We were always intentional.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because here's the truth.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Children don't just absorb what we say.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They absorb what the world reflects back at them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when the world keeps reflecting back a mismatch, when strangers question a soon misidentify, all that shapes a child sense of self and security if we don't actively counter it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this didn't start in a parking lot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It started the day I brought Kather home from the hospital.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My father was there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kather was and is very light-skinned with brown hair that even has hints of red in it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My father looked at him and jokingly said, wow, you'd never know his mother is Indian.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, he didn't mean harm.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is important.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But still, in that instance, I worried that all the things John and I had sewn together in our marriage would be ripped apart in the identity of our son.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I also became fiercely protective.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I looked at my dad and I said slowly and clearly.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Dad, that's the last time you were going to say something like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But even a joke like that, plants a seed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: it suggests separation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It introduces the idea that maybe somehow this child and his mother don't visibly belong to each other.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And therefore, maybe don't fully belong to each other at all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I explained it to him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I told him why it mattered and to his credit, he understood immediately.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's the work.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're parenting a mixed race child or really any child navigating identity, you have two responsibilities.
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[SPEAKER_01]: First, educate yourself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You have to understand that dynamics your child is going to face, not just abstractly, but in lived everyday interactions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Second, you educate the people around you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Family, friends, even well-meaning strangers when necessary, because a lot of harm doesn't come from malice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It comes from unexamined assumptions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But, and this is the part I really want to emphasize.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You don't do that work in a way that centers the adult who made that mistake.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You do it in a way that centers the child.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In that parking lot, I didn't correct the woman.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe on another day I would have.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But in that moment, the most important thing was making sure my son heard clearly and immediately.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Who I was to him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I.M.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Your Mama.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's zoom out for a moment and talk about the bigger picture here, because what we're really dealing with isn't just individual moments or awkward encounters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a system of socialization that starts very early.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As both a parent and a scholar, I think it's important to say this
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kids are never too young to notice race.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're already forming ideas about who they are, about who others are, about how the world organizes people, based on what they see, and what we, as adults, reinforce.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're watching us, they're listening, and they're picking up on the patterns.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The same is true for religion.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In families where religion is part of life, religious socialization also starts early.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Children learn what rituals matter, what stories matter, what identities matter, and just as importantly, some learn what boundaries exist.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're raising a child who is mixed racially, religiously or both,
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[SPEAKER_01]: What that means is that your child is navigating identity as an ongoing process.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a one-time decision.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a box to check.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a negotiation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a negotiation between their own internal sense of self, the social context they move through, and the longer historical forces that shape those contexts in the first place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, it's exhausting for the child.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say more on that later.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the through line that shows up again and again when we're talking about race or religion.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Society keeps sending the same message.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You can't be both.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In the United States especially, we are deeply conditioned to think in binaries.
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[SPEAKER_01]: you are black or white, you are Christian or Jewish, you are one thing or the other, not both.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that didn't happen by accident.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a long history behind it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our racial classification system, for example, has always been built on the idea that identity is singular, bounded, and mutually exclusive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at something as basic as our senses, for most of U.S. history, people were required to fit into one category, one box, one identity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That logic, this idea that you must be one thing or another, didn't stay on government forms.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's seeped into everyday life, into families, schools, into institutions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And over time, it became a lived pressure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Pick aside.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We actually have data on this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: About one in five mixed race Americans say they felt pressure from friends, from family, from society at large, to identify as a single race.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And a similar number say they've tried to look or behave a certain way to influence how others perceive them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So this isn't abstract.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is lived experience.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And historically, for some communities, it wasn't even framed as a choice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a concept called hypodescent, often referred to as the one drop rule.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what that meant, especially for people with black ancestry, is that if you had even one drop of black heritage, you were classified as black.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not could be, not might be.
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[SPEAKER_01]: were.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So instead of being asked to choose this system, chose for you, and it always chose in the direction of the racially marginalized category.
20:39.795 --> 20:42.316
[SPEAKER_01]: That has real psychological consequences.
20:43.156 --> 20:48.238
[SPEAKER_01]: For generations, multiracial identity wasn't just discourage, it was erased.
20:49.353 --> 20:58.878
[SPEAKER_01]: Many people hid parts of their heritage as a survival strategy, because claiming a mixed identity wasn't socially or legally viable.
20:59.898 --> 21:05.481
[SPEAKER_01]: And this system didn't just shape identity, it shaped families.
21:06.121 --> 21:13.665
[SPEAKER_01]: For much of U.S. history, interracial marriage itself was illegal in many states under anti-missed
21:15.326 --> 21:20.252
[SPEAKER_01]: mixed-race children were deemed illegitimate and lost rights to inheritances.
21:21.173 --> 21:31.886
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't until the loving versus Virginia decision in 1967, which we discussed in episode 1, that those laws were struck down nationwide.
21:33.070 --> 21:44.596
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we talk about mixed families today, racially mixed, religiously mixed, we have to understand these families were relatively recent in terms of social legitimacy.
21:45.497 --> 21:50.899
[SPEAKER_01]: They are forming in a society whose structures were literally built to prevent them from existing.
21:52.200 --> 21:53.701
[SPEAKER_01]: That context matters.
22:03.884 --> 22:08.667
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, when we shift to religion, we see a very similar dynamic.
22:10.168 --> 22:15.912
[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed faith children are often navigating the same kind of pressure to simplify themselves.
22:16.532 --> 22:23.276
[SPEAKER_01]: To choose one tradition, to present as legible within a system that prefers clarity over complexity.
22:24.397 --> 22:30.441
[SPEAKER_01]: Religious institutions, like racial systems, have historically been organized around singular belonging.
22:30.901 --> 22:32.262
[SPEAKER_01]: You are this or you are that.
22:33.533 --> 22:37.917
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, interfaith families often face the same question over and over again.
22:38.397 --> 22:39.758
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you going to do with the children?
22:41.079 --> 22:48.785
[SPEAKER_01]: Underlying that question is an assumption that having two religious traditions will be confusing or harmful or unstable.
22:50.787 --> 22:53.129
[SPEAKER_01]: This assumption is worth challenging.
22:54.503 --> 22:58.485
[SPEAKER_01]: because what we often don't ask is, what might be gained?
22:59.405 --> 23:08.329
[SPEAKER_01]: What kinds of empathy, flexibility, and depth of understanding might come from being raised with more than one framework?
23:14.121 --> 23:21.187
[SPEAKER_01]: We do have to be honest that not all forms of, quote unquote, mixing are experienced equally.
23:21.968 --> 23:24.209
[SPEAKER_01]: It matters which religions are involved.
23:24.810 --> 23:29.814
[SPEAKER_01]: It matters how visible or legible those traditions are in American society.
23:30.535 --> 23:31.195
[SPEAKER_01]: For example,
23:32.176 --> 23:37.644
[SPEAKER_01]: Jewish identity is widely recognized in the United States even if misunderstood at times.
23:38.565 --> 23:48.259
[SPEAKER_01]: Hindu or Buddhist identities on the other hand are often less understood by the general population, which creates a different kind of negotiation for families.
23:49.339 --> 24:07.678
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you layer on politics, geopolitics, immigration histories, transnational ties, the theologies of the religions themselves, all of that shapes, how children experience both race and religion in their daily lives.
24:09.179 --> 24:12.623
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we step back, what we see is this.
24:14.004 --> 24:21.406
[SPEAKER_01]: whether we're talking about race or religion, mixed identity children are not just figuring out who they are.
24:30.610 --> 24:33.450
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw this play out very clearly with my cousin Neha.
24:34.251 --> 24:40.613
[SPEAKER_01]: She grew up with a white Catholic mother, my aunt, and an Indian Hindu father, my uncle.
24:41.871 --> 24:43.412
[SPEAKER_01]: She spent Sunday's at church.
24:43.992 --> 24:47.074
[SPEAKER_01]: She spent time with her Catholic relatives in Wisconsin.
24:47.934 --> 24:51.817
[SPEAKER_01]: And she also attended Indian Cultural School on the weekends.
24:52.357 --> 24:58.300
[SPEAKER_01]: Spent time with our extended family and traveled to India to spend time with our family members there.
24:59.541 --> 25:02.002
[SPEAKER_01]: She was deeply rooted in both worlds.
25:03.103 --> 25:06.945
[SPEAKER_01]: In her early 20s, she called me one day and said,
25:08.578 --> 25:12.463
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm Hindu, or maybe more Hindu than Catholic.
25:13.444 --> 25:16.868
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, okay, you can identify however you want.
25:17.949 --> 25:21.934
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she said something I have never forgotten.
25:21.954 --> 25:26.199
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want my mom to think I love her any less.
25:28.015 --> 25:42.342
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the moment right there, because in her mind, choosing a faith wasn't just about belief, it felt like choosing a parent, like affirming one relationship and by implication diminishing another.
25:43.602 --> 25:47.504
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not a theological problem, that's not even a cultural problem.
25:48.324 --> 25:55.007
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an emotional and relational problem created by a system that insists on a singular
25:56.911 --> 26:05.954
[SPEAKER_01]: I reassured her, I told her that her mom wouldn't see it that way, or at least that she needed to have that conversation openly with her.
26:06.894 --> 26:15.117
[SPEAKER_01]: Because these are the kind of things that can sit quietly beneath the surface and shape how people move through their identities.
26:21.159 --> 26:26.241
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we talk about choice for mixed identity individuals, we have to be honest.
26:27.225 --> 26:30.670
[SPEAKER_01]: It's rarely a free, uncomplicated choice.
26:31.631 --> 26:36.938
[SPEAKER_01]: It's shaped by pressure, by perception, by relationships, by history.
26:38.595 --> 26:44.476
[SPEAKER_01]: Choice or the lack of it is one of the constants in the lives of mixed identity people.
26:45.336 --> 26:50.557
[SPEAKER_01]: We often talk about identity as something personal, something you get to define for yourself.
26:51.418 --> 27:01.059
[SPEAKER_01]: And in theory that's true, but in practice it's much more complicated, because sometimes you don't actually get to choose, at least not fully.
27:01.960 --> 27:03.360
[SPEAKER_01]: External forces step in.
27:04.590 --> 27:16.113
[SPEAKER_01]: When someone looks a certain way, the world makes assumptions, and those assumptions shape how that person is treated, long before they've had the chance to articulate who they are.
27:16.873 --> 27:21.915
[SPEAKER_01]: So identity isn't just about internal truth, it's also about social perception.
27:22.975 --> 27:31.258
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a well-known moment where President Barack Obama in an interview with Barbara Walters talked about how he identifies.
27:32.178 --> 27:38.860
[SPEAKER_01]: He said essentially that his identity is shaped by lived experience and by how society perceives him.
27:39.701 --> 27:43.562
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of how he looks, he is treated as a black man in America.
27:44.682 --> 27:46.483
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though he is biracial.
27:48.182 --> 27:55.648
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes, what looks like a simple decision from the outside carries a much deeper question on the inside.
27:57.009 --> 28:01.192
[SPEAKER_01]: What am I being asked to give up in order to belong?
28:07.562 --> 28:12.505
[SPEAKER_01]: One day, Kay, that was in first grade, and he came home from school, and he'd just seemed off.
28:13.446 --> 28:16.968
[SPEAKER_01]: He was six years old, a little person growing into his own.
28:17.708 --> 28:21.570
[SPEAKER_01]: Every day felt like a revelation of his personality and identity.
28:22.411 --> 28:24.612
[SPEAKER_01]: He had that kid's silk thing going on.
28:25.793 --> 28:27.014
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know that energy?
28:28.114 --> 28:30.516
[SPEAKER_01]: Backpack dropped, shoes have kicked.
28:31.513 --> 28:33.955
[SPEAKER_01]: face kind of slightly cloudy.
28:34.655 --> 28:35.936
[SPEAKER_01]: How was school I asked?
28:36.516 --> 28:36.916
[SPEAKER_01]: Fine.
28:37.957 --> 28:41.780
[SPEAKER_01]: That universal child answer that means absolutely nothing.
28:43.120 --> 28:48.944
[SPEAKER_01]: We go through the afternoon, I ask again and again, then I get a good.
28:50.705 --> 28:52.566
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, he blurt's it out.
28:53.927 --> 28:55.808
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to take something to school tomorrow
29:02.404 --> 29:05.465
[SPEAKER_01]: and instantly, I knew.
29:05.485 --> 29:09.527
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't know what was bothering him, but I did.
29:10.227 --> 29:15.649
[SPEAKER_01]: Because one thing isn't neutral when you're a mixed kid.
29:17.270 --> 29:19.891
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing meant, do I bring something Indian?
29:20.511 --> 29:26.413
[SPEAKER_01]: That represents Mama, or do I bring something American that represents Papa?
29:27.253 --> 29:30.815
[SPEAKER_01]: He couldn't articulate that tension, but he was feeling it.
29:32.084 --> 29:33.845
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the thing about first graders.
29:34.245 --> 29:38.146
[SPEAKER_01]: They are rule followers, devoutly, religiously.
29:38.726 --> 29:43.308
[SPEAKER_01]: If the teacher says one thing, they will only bring one thing.
29:44.248 --> 29:49.630
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, you kind of wish that level of compliance would stay with them through middle school, but I digress.
29:50.410 --> 29:52.751
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, why don't you take two things?
29:53.431 --> 29:56.912
[SPEAKER_01]: He looked at me, like I had suggested committing a crime.
30:01.050 --> 30:04.512
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah yes, the sacred authority of the first grade directive.
30:05.212 --> 30:08.514
[SPEAKER_01]: So he picked a stuffed animal, neutral, safe.
30:11.396 --> 30:15.939
[SPEAKER_01]: The next morning, I dropped him off and then I asked to speak to the teacher.
30:16.919 --> 30:27.125
[SPEAKER_01]: As a teacher educator, I was always careful to be present as a parent and not professor, though in this instance it was difficult to separate the two identities.
30:28.428 --> 30:33.733
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually I do that by asking for help or advice, and not lecturing the teacher.
30:35.434 --> 30:36.955
[SPEAKER_01]: I asked her about the assignment.
30:37.516 --> 30:40.198
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a reason they're limited to one item?
30:40.979 --> 30:45.903
[SPEAKER_01]: She laughed and said, If I let them bring more, they'll show up with half their bedroom.
30:46.503 --> 30:47.484
[SPEAKER_01]: She was not wrong.
30:47.824 --> 30:50.607
[SPEAKER_01]: First graders are tiny hoarders with backpacks.
30:52.148 --> 30:53.229
[SPEAKER_01]: We both laughed.
30:54.718 --> 31:02.107
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I explained, forget our, and for some of the other kids in this class, this assignment is harder than it sounds.
31:02.807 --> 31:13.279
[SPEAKER_01]: I told her that when you're by racial or mixed, being asked to bring, quote, one thing that represents your family can feel like being asked to choose.
31:14.673 --> 31:22.116
[SPEAKER_01]: choose which parent, choose which culture, choose which side counts more.
31:23.096 --> 31:28.918
[SPEAKER_01]: The kids don't even consciously know that's what's happening and it's often the same situation with adults.
31:29.318 --> 31:32.940
[SPEAKER_01]: They just feel anxious and even might act out.
31:34.160 --> 31:38.522
[SPEAKER_01]: She paused and to her credit immediately said,
31:42.700 --> 31:43.881
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course it wasn't.
31:44.241 --> 31:47.123
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the time, the issue isn't intent.
31:47.483 --> 31:48.384
[SPEAKER_01]: It's impact.
31:49.164 --> 31:53.507
[SPEAKER_01]: I asked, would it be possible for the kids to bring two or three things?
31:54.568 --> 32:03.013
[SPEAKER_01]: She hesitated for a half second, probably picturing 22 backpack stuffed with legos, and then said, yes, we can do that.
32:04.454 --> 32:10.298
[SPEAKER_01]: She admitted the other reason for the one item rule was space, limited classroom space, again,
32:12.525 --> 32:17.490
[SPEAKER_01]: But once she understood the emotional weight of the assignment, the policy changed.
32:18.030 --> 32:20.953
[SPEAKER_01]: That afternoon, Kiddharp burst into the car.
32:21.673 --> 32:23.015
[SPEAKER_01]: How was school I asked?
32:23.495 --> 32:24.416
[SPEAKER_01]: It was great!
32:25.843 --> 32:28.244
[SPEAKER_01]: capital letters, exclamation point.
32:28.785 --> 32:39.170
[SPEAKER_01]: Mama, the teacher changed her mind, and I have to take two or three things to school about our family, the joy in his voice pure relief.
32:40.211 --> 32:47.775
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't choosing, he was representing, and that difference matters more than people realize.
32:59.536 --> 33:01.316
[SPEAKER_01]: Because here's the psychological truth.
33:01.917 --> 33:08.078
[SPEAKER_01]: Being forced to choose is one of the most harmful messages, mixed kids, and adults receive.
33:08.678 --> 33:12.819
[SPEAKER_01]: It's subtle, it's constant, and it shows up everywhere.
33:14.000 --> 33:17.560
[SPEAKER_01]: School forms with instructions like, check only one box.
33:18.141 --> 33:20.541
[SPEAKER_01]: Casual questions like, what are you?
33:21.161 --> 33:24.762
[SPEAKER_01]: Family members who say, well, you're more this than that.
33:28.449 --> 33:36.493
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't be both pick and kids internalize that long before they have the language for it.
33:37.013 --> 33:41.135
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to give them language, we have to help them understand.
33:41.976 --> 33:50.660
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we expand the assignment from one thing to two or three, it's not about the stuffed animals, it's identity oxygen.
33:52.043 --> 33:55.706
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about not being stressed and just being who they are.
33:56.567 --> 34:01.491
[SPEAKER_01]: It's saying, you don't have to split yourself in half to make the adults comfortable.
34:02.351 --> 34:03.772
[SPEAKER_01]: You get to be whole.
34:06.795 --> 34:11.419
[SPEAKER_01]: What struck me most about that moment wasn't that the teacher got it wrong.
34:12.536 --> 34:15.177
[SPEAKER_01]: It was that once she understood, she changed it.
34:15.817 --> 34:16.677
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the work.
34:17.257 --> 34:22.319
[SPEAKER_01]: Not perfection, awareness, not shame, adjustment.
34:23.299 --> 34:31.422
[SPEAKER_01]: And that small pedagogical shift in a first grade classroom, that's culture change at the molecular level.
34:32.142 --> 34:38.424
[SPEAKER_01]: Because every time a child is told explicitly or implicitly that they can fully beat themselves,
34:42.607 --> 34:43.547
[SPEAKER_01]: something settles.
34:44.388 --> 34:47.969
[SPEAKER_01]: And for mixed kids, that stability is priceless.
34:48.569 --> 34:50.130
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like air for their lungs.
34:50.870 --> 34:55.332
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, we laugh about first graders being rule followers and tiny hoarders.
34:56.469 --> 34:57.750
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's the deeper lesson.
34:58.290 --> 35:00.151
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the rules need to change.
35:00.792 --> 35:11.938
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when the rule forces a child to choose between one parent and the other, between chicken, dica and casseroles, between two halves of themselves, that's not a good rule.
35:12.739 --> 35:15.581
[SPEAKER_01]: The joy in his voice pure relief.
35:16.702 --> 35:28.328
[SPEAKER_01]: He was all smiles as he walked into school, carrying a toy rickshaw that he got in Indian one hand, and his Thomas the Tank Engine, that his grandpa John's dad gave him in the other hand.
35:29.028 --> 35:36.092
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't choosing, he was representing, and that difference matters more than people realize.
35:39.396 --> 35:45.941
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we thought about raising Kiddar, from birth to age six, the question wasn't just, what did we teach him?
35:46.562 --> 35:49.504
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, what messages are we protecting him from?
35:50.845 --> 35:53.648
[SPEAKER_01]: And what messages are we replacing them with?
35:55.069 --> 35:57.531
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the world will say, you can't be both.
35:58.091 --> 36:00.033
[SPEAKER_01]: Our job is to say, you already are.
36:01.900 --> 36:11.183
[SPEAKER_01]: and to build environments at home in school, in community, where that wholeness is not just allowed, but expected and embraced.
36:12.663 --> 36:27.628
[SPEAKER_01]: Because every time a child is told, they don't have to divide themselves to belong, something stabilizes, something settles, and that's what we're after, not perfection, not control, but wholeness.
36:34.665 --> 36:36.171
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
37:05.948 --> 37:07.929
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it for this episode of Mixed.
37:08.290 --> 37:09.671
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening.
37:10.151 --> 37:19.898
[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed was created by me, Dr. Kathy Joshee, in conjunction with the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement, and Access Mundi Media.
37:20.638 --> 37:27.563
[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed was produced by Andrew Gill and Bradley O'Neshee, and the original music and engineering by Scott O'Kamoto.
37:28.224 --> 37:30.826
[SPEAKER_01]: Cari O'Neshee provided production assistance.
37:31.486 --> 37:33.468
[SPEAKER_01]: Our story editor is Lee Epang.
37:34.148 --> 37:43.827
[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed was made possible through generous funding from the Henry loose foundation and is made in collaboration with a party and the under God's project.
00:00.031 --> 00:03.713
[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is made possible through generous funding from the Henry loose foundation.
00:03.873 --> 00:11.477
[SPEAKER_00]: In conjunction with the Asian Pacific American Religious Research Initiative, Apari, and the Institute for Religion Media and Civic Engagement.
00:28.890 --> 00:31.553
[SPEAKER_01]: 2003, four years after our wedding.
00:32.615 --> 00:34.337
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd eased into an equilibrium.
00:34.617 --> 00:36.199
[SPEAKER_01]: Our parents accepted our marriage.
00:36.399 --> 00:40.564
[SPEAKER_01]: We loved exploring each other's religious communities, rituals, and practices.
00:41.205 --> 00:45.430
[SPEAKER_01]: Life felt rich as we balanced a racially and religiously mixed household.
00:45.790 --> 00:46.691
[SPEAKER_01]: Just the two of us.
00:47.692 --> 00:48.934
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it all changed.
00:50.946 --> 00:58.048
[SPEAKER_01]: When we found out we were expecting, I knew that the process we started in our engagement and wedding would begin all over again.
00:58.888 --> 01:02.929
[SPEAKER_01]: Only this time, there was more at stake than our ceremony in pictures.
01:03.749 --> 01:14.752
[SPEAKER_01]: We had to figure out how to take care of a racially and religiously mixed child and during a world that would try to force them into reductive categories and little boxes.
01:15.552 --> 01:18.973
[SPEAKER_01]: There was also an element of this that was about our own identities.
01:19.733 --> 01:24.114
[SPEAKER_01]: We're having children is about passing on heritage, rituals, and identity.
01:25.055 --> 01:26.775
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you raise a child who is both?
01:27.716 --> 01:32.397
[SPEAKER_01]: One who inherits an embodies both their parents' ethnic and religious traditions?
01:33.137 --> 01:35.418
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you raise them to see themselves as both?
01:35.998 --> 01:40.620
[SPEAKER_01]: Without forcing them to choose or letting the world convince them that they have to choose.
01:43.004 --> 01:45.805
[SPEAKER_01]: I was scared, not the ordinary kind of scared.
01:46.345 --> 01:50.006
[SPEAKER_01]: The kind where you realize your heart is about to walk around outside your body.
01:50.546 --> 01:52.747
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it feels like waiting for a baby.
01:53.767 --> 02:05.090
[SPEAKER_01]: I like control, ask anyone who watched me plan my own wedding down to the last detail, I ran the whole operation, but even before my son was born, I knew this was different.
02:05.630 --> 02:11.412
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't control every reaction he'd get, every remark from a teacher, a friend, a bully.
02:12.012 --> 02:15.634
[SPEAKER_01]: So the question I've been sitting with for 21 years now is this.
02:17.215 --> 02:23.538
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you protect a mixed kid from harmful messages when you can't always be in the room to protect him?
03:03.714 --> 03:05.135
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Dr. Kathy Joshee.
03:05.495 --> 03:07.896
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a scholar of race, religion, and education.
03:08.277 --> 03:19.323
[SPEAKER_01]: A tenure professor who has spent two decades teaching about and studying how identity actually gets formed, not just in textbooks, but in kitchens, classrooms, and car rides home.
03:20.144 --> 03:30.870
[SPEAKER_01]: I've written six books, including White Christian Privilege, the illusion of religious equality in America, teaching for diversity in social justice, and Asian Americans in Dixie.
03:31.510 --> 03:34.975
[SPEAKER_01]: I've spoken to audiences from university lecture halls to the White House.
03:35.676 --> 03:38.860
[SPEAKER_01]: But this podcast isn't just research, it's personal.
03:39.501 --> 03:42.865
[SPEAKER_01]: It's where the scholarship and lived experience meet.
03:43.686 --> 03:44.768
[SPEAKER_01]: This is mixed.
04:00.506 --> 04:06.852
[SPEAKER_01]: The first test was that universal parental right of passage, the name conversation.
04:07.413 --> 04:13.359
[SPEAKER_01]: You know the one, you open a baby name book, you immediately veto half the names used in human history.
04:14.300 --> 04:18.584
[SPEAKER_01]: But in our house, this wasn't just about what sounded cute on the kindergarten cubby.
04:19.785 --> 04:21.427
[SPEAKER_01]: This was strategy.
04:22.832 --> 04:37.900
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when you're raising a mixed child, a name is not just a name, it's biography, it's geography, it's theology, it's a future resume material, unfortunately people do discriminate based on names.
04:38.380 --> 04:39.081
[SPEAKER_01]: We knew that.
04:51.421 --> 05:02.744
[SPEAKER_01]: We wanted to give our child room, room to grow, room to shift, room to choose who he felt most aligned with at different points in his life.
05:03.464 --> 05:08.006
[SPEAKER_01]: Room to tell his story in full, page by page, chapter by chapter.
05:08.626 --> 05:12.087
[SPEAKER_01]: So we named him Kebar Wallace Bartlett.
05:13.200 --> 05:20.905
[SPEAKER_01]: Kiddhar, rooted in the Indian Hindu family, my family are followers of Lord Shiva, one of the central deities in Hinduism.
05:21.765 --> 05:29.730
[SPEAKER_01]: Kiddhar not for which Kiddhar is named is Shiva's abode in the Himalayan mountains, where my family went on pilgrimage.
05:31.411 --> 05:34.393
[SPEAKER_01]: Wallace, John's mother's maiden name,
05:35.603 --> 05:40.168
[SPEAKER_01]: signals the family lineage back to the Mayflower, a point of pride for John.
05:40.709 --> 05:44.132
[SPEAKER_01]: He and now Kiddar are members of the Mayflower Society.
05:45.194 --> 05:53.603
[SPEAKER_01]: Now let's be honest, when you give your child a name like Kiddar, you know you are also giving Starbucks baristas a lifelong challenge.
05:55.115 --> 05:55.836
[SPEAKER_01]: but we loved it.
05:56.496 --> 05:59.839
[SPEAKER_01]: And from the beginning, we made something clear.
06:00.820 --> 06:05.664
[SPEAKER_01]: If he felt deeply connected to his Indian Hindu identity, he could go by Kiddar.
06:06.585 --> 06:20.456
[SPEAKER_01]: If at some point in his life, he didn't feel that connection, if the name felt heavy, complicated, or misaligned, he had Wallace, not as an escape hatch, not as rejection.
06:21.513 --> 06:29.259
[SPEAKER_01]: but as an option, and that option was intentional, because identity isn't static.
06:29.919 --> 06:35.863
[SPEAKER_01]: It moves, it deepens, it sometimes retreats, it evolves.
06:36.664 --> 06:49.513
[SPEAKER_01]: And for multiracial kids especially, affiliation can shift depending on age, environment, geography, community, family, and even peer group.
06:51.419 --> 06:54.220
[SPEAKER_01]: Middle school hits differently than preschool.
06:55.100 --> 06:57.400
[SPEAKER_01]: College hits differently than high school.
06:58.381 --> 07:02.442
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't want him trapped inside a single expression of himself.
07:03.282 --> 07:06.182
[SPEAKER_01]: We wanted to normalize fluidity.
07:07.083 --> 07:11.804
[SPEAKER_01]: So as he got older, we would casually remind him, your middle name is Wallace.
07:12.384 --> 07:15.425
[SPEAKER_01]: If you ever want to go by Wallace, that's completely fine.
07:16.145 --> 07:20.966
[SPEAKER_01]: No drama, no offense, no family summit meeting required.
07:22.297 --> 07:23.137
[SPEAKER_01]: just choice.
07:24.478 --> 07:25.898
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the important part.
07:27.999 --> 07:29.460
[SPEAKER_01]: It had to be a given name.
07:29.900 --> 07:33.261
[SPEAKER_01]: Not something he invented out of frustration at age 19.
07:33.901 --> 07:36.002
[SPEAKER_01]: Not something chosen in rebellion.
07:37.735 --> 07:39.196
[SPEAKER_01]: This name was already his.
07:40.136 --> 07:43.557
[SPEAKER_01]: Already legitimate, already on his birth certificate.
07:44.357 --> 07:54.981
[SPEAKER_01]: There is something powerful about that, because mixed kids constantly receive subtle and not so subtle messages that they must choose.
07:55.941 --> 07:56.802
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you really?
07:57.722 --> 07:58.682
[SPEAKER_01]: Which religion?
07:59.563 --> 08:01.443
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you feel more at home?
08:02.384 --> 08:05.845
[SPEAKER_01]: Those questions often feel like cross-examination.
08:06.978 --> 08:14.204
[SPEAKER_01]: so we wanted to build choice in from the beginning, a name that says you are fully both.
08:15.425 --> 08:19.969
[SPEAKER_01]: And if at some point you lean more one way that doesn't erase the other.
08:20.789 --> 08:22.411
[SPEAKER_01]: It just reflects where you are.
08:24.092 --> 08:26.354
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, did we overthink this?
08:27.234 --> 08:27.795
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
08:27.835 --> 08:30.617
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what happens when you have academics as parents.
08:36.978 --> 08:39.940
[SPEAKER_01]: We were debating existential identity architecture.
08:41.800 --> 08:45.162
[SPEAKER_01]: Because here's the thing, names carry psychological weight.
08:46.163 --> 08:51.865
[SPEAKER_01]: Studies show that names affect how people are perceived in classrooms on job applications in social settings.
08:52.226 --> 08:52.866
[SPEAKER_01]: We knew that.
08:54.114 --> 09:05.380
[SPEAKER_01]: We also knew that giving him flexibility was a form of empowerment, because allowing biracial and multiracial people to choose to adjust, to switch how they present themselves.
09:06.260 --> 09:09.021
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not confusion, that's agency.
09:09.662 --> 09:12.063
[SPEAKER_01]: An agency is stabilizing.
09:13.424 --> 09:19.947
[SPEAKER_01]: When you tell a child, you get to decide how you want to show up, something relaxes inside of them.
09:21.428 --> 09:23.569
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not performing for either side.
09:24.169 --> 09:26.071
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not trying to prove loyalty.
09:27.751 --> 09:28.992
[SPEAKER_01]: They're simply becoming.
09:29.552 --> 09:30.633
[SPEAKER_01]: They're simply being.
09:32.054 --> 09:37.917
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, to be clear, we didn't expect him to wake up at age seven and announce a rebrand.
09:38.958 --> 09:41.279
[SPEAKER_01]: This wasn't a corporate pivot strategy.
09:41.939 --> 09:43.180
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a safety valve.
09:44.722 --> 09:49.305
[SPEAKER_01]: an acknowledgment that identity is a journey, not a fixed assignment.
09:49.966 --> 09:51.047
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the irony.
09:51.767 --> 09:56.911
[SPEAKER_01]: When you give someone the freedom to shift, they often feel less pressure to do so.
09:58.352 --> 10:02.595
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the choice itself reduces the tension, reduces the stress.
10:04.176 --> 10:11.862
[SPEAKER_01]: So Kiddharwala's Bartlett carries both stories, both lineages, his Mayflower Father and his immigrant mother.
10:13.123 --> 10:16.107
[SPEAKER_01]: And the message underneath his name has always been this.
10:17.208 --> 10:19.371
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to choose between your worlds.
10:19.852 --> 10:25.299
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you ever need to express one more loudly than the other for a season, you can.
10:26.281 --> 10:28.724
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not betraying anyone.
10:35.083 --> 10:35.724
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen to this.
10:36.645 --> 10:43.992
[SPEAKER_01]: One day, when Kiddar was three years old, I took him to Toys R Us, which in our house was a rare and exciting event.
10:45.333 --> 10:53.301
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a toddler sitting up front in the shopping cart, chatting away as we made our way through the store and then out to the parking lot.
10:54.182 --> 10:56.324
[SPEAKER_01]: As we were leaving, a woman approached me.
10:57.257 --> 10:59.779
[SPEAKER_01]: She handed me a card and said very casually.
11:00.500 --> 11:01.841
[SPEAKER_01]: Your English is really great.
11:02.341 --> 11:05.543
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're ever looking for another nanny job, you should call me.
11:06.404 --> 11:07.285
[SPEAKER_01]: Now let me be clear.
11:08.105 --> 11:10.027
[SPEAKER_01]: She had just heard me speaking in the store.
11:10.547 --> 11:20.755
[SPEAKER_01]: She knew I spoke fluent English, and still, what she saw when she looked at me, a darker skinned woman with a lighter skin child overwrote everything else.
11:22.060 --> 11:24.701
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a South Asian American woman with brown skin.
11:25.382 --> 11:28.463
[SPEAKER_01]: Kather is a white presenting mixed race toddler.
11:29.284 --> 11:31.725
[SPEAKER_00]: In her mind, I could only be the nanny.
11:32.926 --> 11:35.447
[SPEAKER_01]: I took the card, I didn't say anything.
11:36.127 --> 11:38.468
[SPEAKER_01]: For a moment, I was furious.
11:39.069 --> 11:43.311
[SPEAKER_01]: As a scholar of race and identity, I could dissect exactly what had just happened.
11:43.791 --> 11:50.935
[SPEAKER_01]: The racial assumptions, the hierarchies of belonging, the way phenotype gets red as race, I knew all of it.
11:51.707 --> 11:55.028
[SPEAKER_01]: But at that moment, my primary concern wasn't correcting her.
11:55.729 --> 11:57.189
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't educating her.
11:57.830 --> 12:00.151
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't even responding to her racism.
12:01.151 --> 12:02.852
[SPEAKER_01]: My first concern was my son.
12:03.852 --> 12:08.715
[SPEAKER_01]: The second she walked away, I turned to him and said, Baba, I am your mama.
12:09.595 --> 12:15.237
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, we've talked about this just because you and I don't match, doesn't mean I'm not your mama.
12:15.998 --> 12:20.080
[SPEAKER_01]: And he nodded, because this was not the first time he had heard me say it.
12:20.980 --> 12:23.781
[SPEAKER_01]: that was intentional, that was preparation.
12:24.682 --> 12:32.786
[SPEAKER_01]: As a parent and someone who studies race, I knew that my son and I would encounter moments like this, not once or twice, but repeatedly.
12:33.646 --> 12:36.087
[SPEAKER_01]: And the issue isn't a single comment.
12:36.868 --> 12:39.409
[SPEAKER_01]: The issue is accumulation.
12:40.410 --> 12:41.370
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the steady
12:50.988 --> 12:52.729
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was trying to interrupt.
12:53.670 --> 12:57.073
[SPEAKER_01]: At home, we reinforced this constantly.
12:57.673 --> 12:58.534
[SPEAKER_01]: We read books.
12:58.814 --> 13:00.395
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a sesame street book.
13:00.535 --> 13:02.597
[SPEAKER_01]: We loved about difference and belonging.
13:03.177 --> 13:04.638
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about it openly.
13:05.519 --> 13:10.482
[SPEAKER_01]: And I repeated again and again, I am your mom, I am your mom, I am your mom.
13:11.423 --> 13:14.605
[SPEAKER_01]: John never had to have this conversation with him since K.D.R.
13:14.645 --> 13:16.327
[SPEAKER_01]: and John quote unquote match.
13:17.395 --> 13:19.316
[SPEAKER_01]: But John had other messages to send.
13:19.977 --> 13:29.463
[SPEAKER_01]: If we were in a social situation and people didn't think I was with both of them, he would give me an intentional embrace or pick on the cheek to show that we all belong together.
13:30.684 --> 13:35.427
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes our messages to Kaydhar were subtle, sometimes they were very direct.
13:36.936 --> 13:38.877
[SPEAKER_01]: We were always intentional.
13:39.617 --> 13:40.678
[SPEAKER_01]: Because here's the truth.
13:41.558 --> 13:43.920
[SPEAKER_01]: Children don't just absorb what we say.
13:44.280 --> 13:47.501
[SPEAKER_01]: They absorb what the world reflects back at them.
13:48.782 --> 14:01.789
[SPEAKER_01]: And when the world keeps reflecting back a mismatch, when strangers question a soon misidentify, all that shapes a child sense of self and security if we don't actively counter it.
14:03.503 --> 14:05.364
[SPEAKER_00]: And this didn't start in a parking lot.
14:05.684 --> 14:08.486
[SPEAKER_01]: It started the day I brought Kather home from the hospital.
14:09.246 --> 14:10.247
[SPEAKER_01]: My father was there.
14:10.807 --> 14:16.971
[SPEAKER_01]: Kather was and is very light-skinned with brown hair that even has hints of red in it.
14:17.892 --> 14:23.875
[SPEAKER_01]: My father looked at him and jokingly said, wow, you'd never know his mother is Indian.
14:24.996 --> 14:26.757
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, he didn't mean harm.
14:27.317 --> 14:28.258
[SPEAKER_01]: This is important.
14:28.978 --> 14:38.103
[SPEAKER_01]: But still, in that instance, I worried that all the things John and I had sewn together in our marriage would be ripped apart in the identity of our son.
14:39.124 --> 14:41.325
[SPEAKER_01]: I also became fiercely protective.
14:42.146 --> 14:45.508
[SPEAKER_01]: I looked at my dad and I said slowly and clearly.
14:46.368 --> 14:50.191
[SPEAKER_01]: Dad, that's the last time you were going to say something like that.
14:51.591 --> 14:55.634
[SPEAKER_01]: But even a joke like that, plants a seed.
14:56.939 --> 14:58.922
[SPEAKER_01]: it suggests separation.
14:59.763 --> 15:06.511
[SPEAKER_01]: It introduces the idea that maybe somehow this child and his mother don't visibly belong to each other.
15:06.831 --> 15:11.016
[SPEAKER_01]: And therefore, maybe don't fully belong to each other at all.
15:12.137 --> 15:13.359
[SPEAKER_01]: I explained it to him.
15:14.865 --> 15:19.128
[SPEAKER_01]: I told him why it mattered and to his credit, he understood immediately.
15:19.849 --> 15:20.689
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the work.
15:21.270 --> 15:29.555
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're parenting a mixed race child or really any child navigating identity, you have two responsibilities.
15:30.536 --> 15:32.377
[SPEAKER_01]: First, educate yourself.
15:33.038 --> 15:41.944
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to understand that dynamics your child is going to face, not just abstractly, but in lived everyday interactions.
15:42.885 --> 15:45.727
[SPEAKER_01]: Second, you educate the people around you.
15:46.307 --> 15:53.412
[SPEAKER_01]: Family, friends, even well-meaning strangers when necessary, because a lot of harm doesn't come from malice.
15:54.133 --> 15:56.635
[SPEAKER_01]: It comes from unexamined assumptions.
15:58.247 --> 16:01.369
[SPEAKER_01]: But, and this is the part I really want to emphasize.
16:02.449 --> 16:06.752
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't do that work in a way that centers the adult who made that mistake.
16:08.193 --> 16:10.694
[SPEAKER_01]: You do it in a way that centers the child.
16:12.535 --> 16:14.736
[SPEAKER_01]: In that parking lot, I didn't correct the woman.
16:15.137 --> 16:16.858
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe on another day I would have.
16:17.758 --> 16:23.541
[SPEAKER_01]: But in that moment, the most important thing was making sure my son heard clearly and immediately.
16:24.602 --> 16:25.883
[SPEAKER_01]: Who I was to him.
16:27.452 --> 16:27.812
[SPEAKER_01]: I.M.
16:27.872 --> 16:28.973
[SPEAKER_01]: Your Mama.
16:31.936 --> 16:41.964
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's zoom out for a moment and talk about the bigger picture here, because what we're really dealing with isn't just individual moments or awkward encounters.
16:42.764 --> 16:46.027
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a system of socialization that starts very early.
16:47.128 --> 16:50.931
[SPEAKER_01]: As both a parent and a scholar, I think it's important to say this
16:55.875 --> 16:58.976
[SPEAKER_01]: Kids are never too young to notice race.
16:59.716 --> 17:12.880
[SPEAKER_01]: They're already forming ideas about who they are, about who others are, about how the world organizes people, based on what they see, and what we, as adults, reinforce.
17:13.941 --> 17:18.562
[SPEAKER_01]: They're watching us, they're listening, and they're picking up on the patterns.
17:22.288 --> 17:23.769
[SPEAKER_01]: The same is true for religion.
17:24.509 --> 17:29.591
[SPEAKER_01]: In families where religion is part of life, religious socialization also starts early.
17:30.251 --> 17:40.675
[SPEAKER_01]: Children learn what rituals matter, what stories matter, what identities matter, and just as importantly, some learn what boundaries exist.
17:41.775 --> 17:45.997
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're raising a child who is mixed racially, religiously or both,
17:46.993 --> 17:53.135
[SPEAKER_01]: What that means is that your child is navigating identity as an ongoing process.
17:53.896 --> 17:55.356
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a one-time decision.
17:56.136 --> 17:57.537
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a box to check.
17:58.037 --> 17:59.438
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a negotiation.
18:00.838 --> 18:13.823
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a negotiation between their own internal sense of self, the social context they move through, and the longer historical forces that shape those contexts in the first place.
18:15.005 --> 18:17.487
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, it's exhausting for the child.
18:17.987 --> 18:19.208
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say more on that later.
18:20.929 --> 18:27.053
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the through line that shows up again and again when we're talking about race or religion.
18:28.034 --> 18:30.195
[SPEAKER_01]: Society keeps sending the same message.
18:30.715 --> 18:31.896
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't be both.
18:33.918 --> 18:38.621
[SPEAKER_01]: In the United States especially, we are deeply conditioned to think in binaries.
18:39.359 --> 18:45.804
[SPEAKER_01]: you are black or white, you are Christian or Jewish, you are one thing or the other, not both.
18:47.105 --> 18:48.846
[SPEAKER_01]: And that didn't happen by accident.
18:49.447 --> 18:51.528
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a long history behind it.
18:53.970 --> 19:03.398
[SPEAKER_01]: Our racial classification system, for example, has always been built on the idea that identity is singular, bounded, and mutually exclusive.
19:04.672 --> 19:16.977
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at something as basic as our senses, for most of U.S. history, people were required to fit into one category, one box, one identity.
19:18.178 --> 19:24.540
[SPEAKER_01]: That logic, this idea that you must be one thing or another, didn't stay on government forms.
19:25.040 --> 19:30.563
[SPEAKER_01]: It's seeped into everyday life, into families, schools, into institutions.
19:31.607 --> 19:35.842
[SPEAKER_01]: And over time, it became a lived pressure.
19:36.624 --> 19:37.246
[SPEAKER_01]: Pick aside.
19:38.300 --> 19:39.660
[SPEAKER_01]: We actually have data on this.
19:40.241 --> 19:49.464
[SPEAKER_01]: About one in five mixed race Americans say they felt pressure from friends, from family, from society at large, to identify as a single race.
19:50.504 --> 19:56.566
[SPEAKER_01]: And a similar number say they've tried to look or behave a certain way to influence how others perceive them.
19:57.587 --> 19:58.947
[SPEAKER_01]: So this isn't abstract.
19:59.507 --> 20:01.028
[SPEAKER_01]: This is lived experience.
20:01.568 --> 20:06.510
[SPEAKER_01]: And historically, for some communities, it wasn't even framed as a choice.
20:07.710 --> 20:13.652
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a concept called hypodescent, often referred to as the one drop rule.
20:14.192 --> 20:24.334
[SPEAKER_01]: And what that meant, especially for people with black ancestry, is that if you had even one drop of black heritage, you were classified as black.
20:25.414 --> 20:27.275
[SPEAKER_01]: Not could be, not might be.
20:28.350 --> 20:28.630
[SPEAKER_01]: were.
20:29.230 --> 20:38.874
[SPEAKER_01]: So instead of being asked to choose this system, chose for you, and it always chose in the direction of the racially marginalized category.
20:39.795 --> 20:42.316
[SPEAKER_01]: That has real psychological consequences.
20:43.156 --> 20:48.238
[SPEAKER_01]: For generations, multiracial identity wasn't just discourage, it was erased.
20:49.353 --> 20:58.878
[SPEAKER_01]: Many people hid parts of their heritage as a survival strategy, because claiming a mixed identity wasn't socially or legally viable.
20:59.898 --> 21:05.481
[SPEAKER_01]: And this system didn't just shape identity, it shaped families.
21:06.121 --> 21:13.665
[SPEAKER_01]: For much of U.S. history, interracial marriage itself was illegal in many states under anti-missed
21:15.326 --> 21:20.252
[SPEAKER_01]: mixed-race children were deemed illegitimate and lost rights to inheritances.
21:21.173 --> 21:31.886
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't until the loving versus Virginia decision in 1967, which we discussed in episode 1, that those laws were struck down nationwide.
21:33.070 --> 21:44.596
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we talk about mixed families today, racially mixed, religiously mixed, we have to understand these families were relatively recent in terms of social legitimacy.
21:45.497 --> 21:50.899
[SPEAKER_01]: They are forming in a society whose structures were literally built to prevent them from existing.
21:52.200 --> 21:53.701
[SPEAKER_01]: That context matters.
22:03.884 --> 22:08.667
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, when we shift to religion, we see a very similar dynamic.
22:10.168 --> 22:15.912
[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed faith children are often navigating the same kind of pressure to simplify themselves.
22:16.532 --> 22:23.276
[SPEAKER_01]: To choose one tradition, to present as legible within a system that prefers clarity over complexity.
22:24.397 --> 22:30.441
[SPEAKER_01]: Religious institutions, like racial systems, have historically been organized around singular belonging.
22:30.901 --> 22:32.262
[SPEAKER_01]: You are this or you are that.
22:33.533 --> 22:37.917
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, interfaith families often face the same question over and over again.
22:38.397 --> 22:39.758
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you going to do with the children?
22:41.079 --> 22:48.785
[SPEAKER_01]: Underlying that question is an assumption that having two religious traditions will be confusing or harmful or unstable.
22:50.787 --> 22:53.129
[SPEAKER_01]: This assumption is worth challenging.
22:54.503 --> 22:58.485
[SPEAKER_01]: because what we often don't ask is, what might be gained?
22:59.405 --> 23:08.329
[SPEAKER_01]: What kinds of empathy, flexibility, and depth of understanding might come from being raised with more than one framework?
23:14.121 --> 23:21.187
[SPEAKER_01]: We do have to be honest that not all forms of, quote unquote, mixing are experienced equally.
23:21.968 --> 23:24.209
[SPEAKER_01]: It matters which religions are involved.
23:24.810 --> 23:29.814
[SPEAKER_01]: It matters how visible or legible those traditions are in American society.
23:30.535 --> 23:31.195
[SPEAKER_01]: For example,
23:32.176 --> 23:37.644
[SPEAKER_01]: Jewish identity is widely recognized in the United States even if misunderstood at times.
23:38.565 --> 23:48.259
[SPEAKER_01]: Hindu or Buddhist identities on the other hand are often less understood by the general population, which creates a different kind of negotiation for families.
23:49.339 --> 24:07.678
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you layer on politics, geopolitics, immigration histories, transnational ties, the theologies of the religions themselves, all of that shapes, how children experience both race and religion in their daily lives.
24:09.179 --> 24:12.623
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we step back, what we see is this.
24:14.004 --> 24:21.406
[SPEAKER_01]: whether we're talking about race or religion, mixed identity children are not just figuring out who they are.
24:30.610 --> 24:33.450
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw this play out very clearly with my cousin Neha.
24:34.251 --> 24:40.613
[SPEAKER_01]: She grew up with a white Catholic mother, my aunt, and an Indian Hindu father, my uncle.
24:41.871 --> 24:43.412
[SPEAKER_01]: She spent Sunday's at church.
24:43.992 --> 24:47.074
[SPEAKER_01]: She spent time with her Catholic relatives in Wisconsin.
24:47.934 --> 24:51.817
[SPEAKER_01]: And she also attended Indian Cultural School on the weekends.
24:52.357 --> 24:58.300
[SPEAKER_01]: Spent time with our extended family and traveled to India to spend time with our family members there.
24:59.541 --> 25:02.002
[SPEAKER_01]: She was deeply rooted in both worlds.
25:03.103 --> 25:06.945
[SPEAKER_01]: In her early 20s, she called me one day and said,
25:08.578 --> 25:12.463
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm Hindu, or maybe more Hindu than Catholic.
25:13.444 --> 25:16.868
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, okay, you can identify however you want.
25:17.949 --> 25:21.934
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she said something I have never forgotten.
25:21.954 --> 25:26.199
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want my mom to think I love her any less.
25:28.015 --> 25:42.342
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the moment right there, because in her mind, choosing a faith wasn't just about belief, it felt like choosing a parent, like affirming one relationship and by implication diminishing another.
25:43.602 --> 25:47.504
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not a theological problem, that's not even a cultural problem.
25:48.324 --> 25:55.007
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an emotional and relational problem created by a system that insists on a singular
25:56.911 --> 26:05.954
[SPEAKER_01]: I reassured her, I told her that her mom wouldn't see it that way, or at least that she needed to have that conversation openly with her.
26:06.894 --> 26:15.117
[SPEAKER_01]: Because these are the kind of things that can sit quietly beneath the surface and shape how people move through their identities.
26:21.159 --> 26:26.241
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we talk about choice for mixed identity individuals, we have to be honest.
26:27.225 --> 26:30.670
[SPEAKER_01]: It's rarely a free, uncomplicated choice.
26:31.631 --> 26:36.938
[SPEAKER_01]: It's shaped by pressure, by perception, by relationships, by history.
26:38.595 --> 26:44.476
[SPEAKER_01]: Choice or the lack of it is one of the constants in the lives of mixed identity people.
26:45.336 --> 26:50.557
[SPEAKER_01]: We often talk about identity as something personal, something you get to define for yourself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And in theory that's true, but in practice it's much more complicated, because sometimes you don't actually get to choose, at least not fully.
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[SPEAKER_01]: External forces step in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When someone looks a certain way, the world makes assumptions, and those assumptions shape how that person is treated, long before they've had the chance to articulate who they are.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So identity isn't just about internal truth, it's also about social perception.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a well-known moment where President Barack Obama in an interview with Barbara Walters talked about how he identifies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He said essentially that his identity is shaped by lived experience and by how society perceives him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because of how he looks, he is treated as a black man in America.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Even though he is biracial.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes, what looks like a simple decision from the outside carries a much deeper question on the inside.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What am I being asked to give up in order to belong?
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[SPEAKER_01]: One day, Kay, that was in first grade, and he came home from school, and he'd just seemed off.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He was six years old, a little person growing into his own.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Every day felt like a revelation of his personality and identity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had that kid's silk thing going on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know that energy?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Backpack dropped, shoes have kicked.
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[SPEAKER_01]: face kind of slightly cloudy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How was school I asked?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Fine.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That universal child answer that means absolutely nothing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We go through the afternoon, I ask again and again, then I get a good.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, he blurt's it out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have to take something to school tomorrow
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[SPEAKER_01]: and instantly, I knew.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't know what was bothering him, but I did.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because one thing isn't neutral when you're a mixed kid.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One thing meant, do I bring something Indian?
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[SPEAKER_01]: That represents Mama, or do I bring something American that represents Papa?
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[SPEAKER_01]: He couldn't articulate that tension, but he was feeling it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the thing about first graders.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They are rule followers, devoutly, religiously.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If the teacher says one thing, they will only bring one thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, you kind of wish that level of compliance would stay with them through middle school, but I digress.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, why don't you take two things?
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[SPEAKER_01]: He looked at me, like I had suggested committing a crime.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Ah yes, the sacred authority of the first grade directive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So he picked a stuffed animal, neutral, safe.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The next morning, I dropped him off and then I asked to speak to the teacher.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As a teacher educator, I was always careful to be present as a parent and not professor, though in this instance it was difficult to separate the two identities.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Usually I do that by asking for help or advice, and not lecturing the teacher.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I asked her about the assignment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a reason they're limited to one item?
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[SPEAKER_01]: She laughed and said, If I let them bring more, they'll show up with half their bedroom.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She was not wrong.
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[SPEAKER_01]: First graders are tiny hoarders with backpacks.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We both laughed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then I explained, forget our, and for some of the other kids in this class, this assignment is harder than it sounds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I told her that when you're by racial or mixed, being asked to bring, quote, one thing that represents your family can feel like being asked to choose.
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[SPEAKER_01]: choose which parent, choose which culture, choose which side counts more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The kids don't even consciously know that's what's happening and it's often the same situation with adults.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They just feel anxious and even might act out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She paused and to her credit immediately said,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Of course it wasn't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the time, the issue isn't intent.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's impact.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I asked, would it be possible for the kids to bring two or three things?
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[SPEAKER_01]: She hesitated for a half second, probably picturing 22 backpack stuffed with legos, and then said, yes, we can do that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She admitted the other reason for the one item rule was space, limited classroom space, again,
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[SPEAKER_01]: But once she understood the emotional weight of the assignment, the policy changed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That afternoon, Kiddharp burst into the car.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How was school I asked?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was great!
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[SPEAKER_01]: capital letters, exclamation point.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Mama, the teacher changed her mind, and I have to take two or three things to school about our family, the joy in his voice pure relief.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't choosing, he was representing, and that difference matters more than people realize.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because here's the psychological truth.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Being forced to choose is one of the most harmful messages, mixed kids, and adults receive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's subtle, it's constant, and it shows up everywhere.
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[SPEAKER_01]: School forms with instructions like, check only one box.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Casual questions like, what are you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Family members who say, well, you're more this than that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You can't be both pick and kids internalize that long before they have the language for it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We have to give them language, we have to help them understand.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when we expand the assignment from one thing to two or three, it's not about the stuffed animals, it's identity oxygen.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's about not being stressed and just being who they are.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's saying, you don't have to split yourself in half to make the adults comfortable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You get to be whole.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What struck me most about that moment wasn't that the teacher got it wrong.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was that once she understood, she changed it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's the work.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not perfection, awareness, not shame, adjustment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that small pedagogical shift in a first grade classroom, that's culture change at the molecular level.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because every time a child is told explicitly or implicitly that they can fully beat themselves,
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[SPEAKER_01]: something settles.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for mixed kids, that stability is priceless.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like air for their lungs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, we laugh about first graders being rule followers and tiny hoarders.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But here's the deeper lesson.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the rules need to change.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because when the rule forces a child to choose between one parent and the other, between chicken, dica and casseroles, between two halves of themselves, that's not a good rule.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The joy in his voice pure relief.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He was all smiles as he walked into school, carrying a toy rickshaw that he got in Indian one hand, and his Thomas the Tank Engine, that his grandpa John's dad gave him in the other hand.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't choosing, he was representing, and that difference matters more than people realize.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when we thought about raising Kiddar, from birth to age six, the question wasn't just, what did we teach him?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was, what messages are we protecting him from?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what messages are we replacing them with?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because the world will say, you can't be both.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our job is to say, you already are.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and to build environments at home in school, in community, where that wholeness is not just allowed, but expected and embraced.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because every time a child is told, they don't have to divide themselves to belong, something stabilizes, something settles, and that's what we're after, not perfection, not control, but wholeness.
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[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's it for this episode of Mixed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed was created by me, Dr. Kathy Joshee, in conjunction with the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement, and Access Mundi Media.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed was produced by Andrew Gill and Bradley O'Neshee, and the original music and engineering by Scott O'Kamoto.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Cari O'Neshee provided production assistance.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our story editor is Lee Epang.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed was made possible through generous funding from the Henry loose foundation and is made in collaboration with a party and the under God's project.
