Mixed Blessings: The Story of a Biracial America

Once in a life time, something comes across your path that is so perfect it is hard to believe it is real. This contest is one of those things. Imagine, $50,000 to travel across the country documenting in photographs and words, your dream assignment.

It didn’t take me very long to decide upon my dream. I am biracial, and identifying as such has shaped everything about me. I spent my senior year in the USC sociology department studying biracial and multiracial identity. Since then it has been a dream of mine to document and photograph other biracial and multiracial individuals around the country.

With the election of Barack Obama as President I feel that now is the perfect time to discover what the new faces of America have to say, and how we can learn that we are not all so very different after all.

I hope that you will help me in achieving my dream. Please “Pic” my assignment, and please, if you feel that this is a valuable endeavor, share this with your friends and family. http://www.nameyourdreamassignment.com/the-ideas/lawahine/mixed-blessings-the-story-of-a-biracial-america/

Thank you.

A Celebration of Life

Last night I attending services for my boss’s wife. She was an amazing woman, as the 600 or so guests would testify to. Sadly, I didn’t really know her. I only met her a few times at office functions, but even then she would give the most amazing hugs and her inquires into your life felt so genuine. I did speak to her many times when she would call in to talk to her hubby. As many speakers last night said, she just had a way about her that made people feel special. Just hearing her voice made me smile.

Besides being a spectacular person to her family and friends, she was also a very giving human being. She gave of not only her money, but her time as well. The testimonies to the many causes she championed were countless.

She was truly one of those people whom you do not forget meeting and will remain in my mind as an example of goodness and love in a world that can often feel cruel and cold.

My heart aches for her family, and her dear friends whom I know will miss her very, very much.

Saint Patrick’s Day

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everyone!

That being said, I have no idea what that means. According to Wikipedia, Saint Patrick’s Day is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick, one of the patron saints of Ireland.

The only significance St. Paddy’s day has to me is that as a kid I had to be very conscious of wearing green that day. If you were caught without any green, you were going to get pinched, and, as a rule, children will find any excuse to pinch another child. For the life of me I never understood why you get pinched for not wearing green. According to my “trusty” Wikipedia, this pinching thing seems to only be a tradition in the US. Even in Hawaii where the Irish population was pretty small pinching was rampant on St. Paddy’s day.

So other than sore arms, four leaf clovers, rainbows and pots of gold, St. Partick’s Day means very little to me. It seem like just another excuse for people to drink until turning rivers green seems logical.

I am certainly not one to condemn anyone’s idea of a good time, just be safe.