by Tom Nguyen

Sunday, June 12 is Loving Day, a holiday commemorating the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia that struck down bans against interracial marriage and multiracial families. In this election year of open racism and blatant xenophobia, it’s so important for us to remember the hard-fought victories by people like Mildred and Richard Loving to overcome hatred and intolerance enforced by the very laws of the land.

The folks who have always swam against societal currents that pressure us to stay segregated are the folks who dare cross the color lines for love. While the majority of couples prefer to date their own race or ethnicity, interracial unions are on the rise! According to Pew Research, “Multiracial Americans are at the cutting edge of social and demographic change in the U.S.—young, proud, tolerant and growing at a rate three times as fast as the population as a whole.”

Despite their growth (currently about 10% of US households), biracial and multiracial individuals, couples and families are an exceedingly complex group, many of whom feel very misunderstood by their own families and communities at large. They face different forms of discrimination, intolerance and misunderstanding, depending on their combination of race and ethnicity, and are underrepresented in public policy, health care issues, media and more.

One festival which aims to raise awareness on the mixed race experience is Mixed Remixed Festival, which is the nation’s largest gathering of mixed-race and multiracial families and people, taking place at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles, June 10-11, 2016. In its third year, the all-volunteer festival is free to the public and brings together film and book lovers, innovative and emerging artists, and multiracial and multicultural families and individuals for workshops, readings, performances, and film screenings.

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