Tom Kobayashi, Landscape, Manzanar Relocation Center, California. From the collection of Ansel Adams’s photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar .

While for us here at Audrey, every day is an Asian American/Pacific Islander heritage celebration, for the rest of the U.S., it’s May and that means it’s officially Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Congratulations on being us!

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Happy Loving Day!

What is Loving Day? Well, read on.

Maya Soetoro-Ng.

We previously told you about the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, an art festival dedicated to celebrating the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and hapa experience, going on all weekend. At the festival, Maya Soetoro-Ng, whose father is Indonesian and brother is the POTUS, and Kip Fulbeck will be discussing identity, culture and growing up multiracial in America in the Japanese American National Museum‘s on-going series “Conversations,” tonight, Saturday, June 12, beginning at 7:30 pm in the Tateuchi Democracy Forum.

Artist, author, filmmaker Kip Fulbeck.

Also at the presentation, the Loving Prize will be awarded by the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival. The Loving Prize is named in honor of the aptly named June 12, 1967 Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia, in which the remaining anti-miscegenation laws in 16 states, which banned marriages between the races, were finally struck down. Groups and organizations around the nation now commemorate that landmark case by celebrating June 12 as Loving Day.

The Loving Prize is awarded annually to outstanding artists, storytellers and community leaders for inspiration dedication to celebrating and illuminating the mixed racial and cultural experience.

So head on over to the festival today or tomorrow.

And if Loving Day has special meaning to you or your loved ones, check out Asian American designers Ken & Dana‘s specially made rings in honor of Loving Day.

Ken & Dana Designs "Loving Day" sterling silver band and gold band, etched with the Supreme Court case number and date of "Loving v. Virginia," $220 each.

Ken & Dana Designs "Rights - Loving Day" ring, $95.

Census 2010 shed light on the gaps in our understanding of race — especially what happens when our cut-and-dry textbook definitions of race collide. Multiracial individuals and transnational adoptees are among those who may have paused at an uncomfortable length when asked to indicate their race(s). A simple check-mark won’t do. “The mixed experience”, which refers to interracial and intercultural relationships, transracial and transcultural adoptions, and anyone who identifies as having biracial, multiracial, hapa or mixed identity, prompts more than Census form complications; explorations of the mixed experience unearths twists and turns in ancestry, geography, language, self-identification, social constructs and American nationality — all of which make for good stories and food for thought.

A portrait by Kip Fulbeck.

Maya Soetoro-Ng.

To that end, the Third Annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, an arts festival held at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, seeks to share and nurture storytelling of the mixed experience with its exciting roster of readings, short and feature films, activities, speakers, panels and a marketplace. In particular, multicultural and global educator Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng (that’s right, President Barack Obama’s sister) will lead a discussion on identity, family and what it means to be multiracial in America, with slam poet, filmmaker and author Kip Fulbeck (Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids by Kip Fulbeck), moderated by actor Amy Hill, in a special ticketed presentation on Saturday, June 12.

– Audrey Sunu

DETAILS

A portrait by Kip Fulbeck.

The Third Annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, June 12-13, 2010

Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, CA

Most events are free and open to the public.

Artist, author, filmmaker Kip Fulbeck.

For tickets to “Conversations & Loving Prize* Presentation with Kip Fulbeck & Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng,” go to MXroots.org and Janm.org, or call (213) 625-0414.

And don’t miss Kip Fulbeck’s newest collection of works, called “Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids by Kip Fulbeck,” in a family-friendly exhibition that offers a playful yet powerful perspective on contemporary American identity. On display now through September 26, 2010.