Episode 189 - I'm Not the Black Sheep, I'm the Mold with Jennifer Siripong
This week I am joined by Jennifer Siripong, co-founder of https://www.rootandseed.com/. We talk about aggressive assimilation and reclaiming heritage through oral storytelling.
Check out Root and Seed here.
Transcript for Episode 189 - I’m NOT the Black Sheep, I’m the mold.
ManeHustle Media 0:08
This is a ManeHustle Media podcast
Hello and welcome to the show. My name is Jacque Oh and you're listening to Militantly Mixed. Yo, this Rashanii, from the Single Simulcast when I'm not making you laugh, or making a parody songs. I'm kicking back, listening to Militantly Mixed.
ManeHustle Media Podcasts are recorded on the ancestral lands of the Chumash Tonga, Karankawa, and Hohokam people, and I wish to pay my respects to the people of those nations both past and present.
Sharmane Fury 0:54
Hey, y'all, welcome to Militantly Mixed the podcast about race and identity from a Mixed race perspective. I am your Sir Auntie Sharmane Fury aka daBlasian Blerd the busiest Mixed Race, biender, bisexual-polyamorous, Atheists, comic book nerd, cat mom, and two time Asian American Podcasters Association's Golden Crane Award winning podcaster in this podcasting game.
This is episode 189 and I am coming at you from my hotel in San Diego, California. I came out here this weekend to present at the Black and Brown Nerds Expo at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, California, which is a little bit north of San Diego. I was here with my PODnah from Blerdcomixed, Shawnbay, aka BlerdVision. And we did a panel called Podcasting is for the Blerds, we had a good time. Shout out to Nikki one of the former Militantly Mixed cousins on the show, who actually came out to meet us at the Black Nerds Expo a couple of years ago in person, she came back to see us again here this weekend. So those very fun, shout out to you, Nikki. And it turns out it was just a lot cheaper to stay two days than it was to just fly in and fly out airline travel is so weird. Like the way they approach it out is very strange. So I ended up making a weekend of it. And today, the time I'm recording is Sunday, November 6. And I spent all day at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido, which is I haven't been since I was like 11 or 12. It's this park that has representations of of Africa and Asia and Australia. And you get on these little trams and you drive through and you see what's looked like natural habitats for all the different animals that you see. They still have their cage type things zoo type things too, but they have these huge expansive natural habitats, which is why I prefer the safari park to most zoos. And since I haven't been since I was a kid, I was like, you know, I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna go hang out there. I had a great day. I really loved it. I got my little 10,000 steps and had a good day. I'm also from California. So every time I'm home, I gotta get me a round table pizza, Thai and garlic supreme. That's my jam. Think I got food poisoning, which I wouldn't normally blame a Round Table Pizza. But the immediacy of which I got sick after eating, I didn't eat the whole thing. I ate more than I normally do by like one slice, but I got sick immediately. So I've been resting a little bit trying to get myself back. So I can record this intro. But the way I feel feels more than just I ate too much. It feels like I'm gonna have a rough day for the rest of the day. So let me get through this intro before it gets worse. So that I can get on a plane tomorrow. And hopefully it won't be bad on the plane. Yeah, it can. Yeah, yeah. I'm not feeling very good. Yeah. So forgive me because I'm like hell out of breath too, because of how bad I feel. So I'm going to try to get through this and try not to make it too long. This is supposed to be the Mixed Auntie Confidential episode that we do on the second Tuesday of every month with myself and Auntie TaRessa Stovall. Unfortunately for the show, but not unfortunately for TaRessa. She, as a freelance journalist has been tapped to write article after article this month for various publications, which is amazing. And so we haven't been able to get together to record in addition to her schedule being wild. This has been a very difficult month for me since a little bit before I went to New York, I invited a friend in that needed a place to stay to stay with me. And that's extending longer than I had originally planned. And having that extra person in the house has just been very taxing. Everybody works from home, it's loud all the time. It's also just hard to accommodate someone for longer than you have planned, we don't really have the room for an extra person. So it's just been tough. It's been a real tough. And because of that, it's been hard to find time recording. And I haven't really been as present for the shows as I would like to be as I would normally be because because this was been tough, I honestly honest, has been tough. So as a result, I haven't really been actively doing the things that I've been needing to do like promoting the t-shirt sales and promoting the fundraiser, even though the show is in a very desperate state right now and absolutely fucking needs this fundraiser to work out. So I'm trying to convey that through the intros as much as possible. But hopefully, I get my house back sometime next week, hopefully. And maybe I can start refocusing to try to really nail home, how desperate it is for us to get this fundraiser to really start popping off because we haven't actually gotten any donations since the very first week that I posted the fundraiser. So it's a little scary. Not gonna lie. Not gonna lie, the state of the financial the financial state of the show is pretty scary right now. Wow. I meant to go talk about Auntie TaRessa's recent article and an app talking about how difficult a month it was. That's interesting. But yes, it took us and I will try to get together to record Mixed Auntie Confidential a little bit later after she finishes these assignments, because we have a really good topic that we would like to share. And I'd like to get that out before I go on to my December hiatus. But if not, we'll table it until January. It's still a good topic no matter what. But I did want to highlight that. In addition to her freelance writing, she also maintains her Mixed anti confidential blog, and she posted an article that I saw today November 6, called Mixed-Black identity in the political crosshairs. What will the Supreme Court decide. So there has been some articles going around lately, that's been talking about how the Supreme Court is going to be deciding Mixed black identity like how we are able to identify politically, and what that means for voting, and gerrymandering and redlining and all the other kinds of stuff, right. I haven't had a chance to read this article yet, because it came in this morning, and I've been out at the safari park and then sick, but I'm gonna tag it in the shownotes for y'all. And just encourage you to join the Mixed Auntie confidential blog so that you can get those notifications when they drop in your mailbox, because she's an amazing writer and, and the way she can break down things like the way I understand how the census works. Now, a lot of that comes from what I've learned from her in the past and things like that, too. So absolutely. Go check out this article. And, or be like me put a Google alert on Torres name so that every time she writes something, you get a hit. Okay, I'm a little bit out of breath.
The day this episode drops, November 8, Tuesday is a six days until the end of the Be Your Mixed ass self 2022 annual T-shirt sales. Those are available on MilitantlyMixed.com on the merch tab. And I gotta be honest, I am fucking shocked that that T-shirt didn't do better. And I know I've only posted about it once or twice. But like I thought once people saw the design, this thing would fly off the internet shelves. And I guess I was wrong. We've only sold about 13 or 14 shirts so far, over the course of the last three weeks, and only from about five people. So people bought multiple ones. But I seriously thought this was gonna fly off the shelves I didn't I didn't realize that it was such a personal design for me that I couldn't tell the other people might not be into it. But hopefully, maybe people were just waiting for paychecks. And those will start, you know, buying them up before the end of the week. But we only have until November 14 For that T-shirt to be available. So if you can get it please get it now. The proceeds of which the after we pay for the cost of the shirts and everything like that it has been going into the show. So I have been able to keep up on some show bills, which has been really helpful. In addition to that, we've increased our pape, our Patreon sponsorship over the last month as well. So that has been amazing. We've increased and then last but we're still higher than we were. So we're in a pretty good spot on Patreon at the moment. It's still very much a goal to hit five They're dollars a month for Patreon sponsorship, and we're at 405 right now. So we're the, we're like the, well, last week, we were the closest we ever were at 411, we've lost some Patreon sponsorship, we're at 405 right now. So closest we've ever been to be able to achieve that $500 a month. But if we can get there, that'll go a long way in in supporting the show. In addition to that, though, I have the very, very real need for the GoFundMe to start collecting donations. We haven't actually gotten a GoFundMe donation since the very first week that I dropped it. And I know that that is a very ambitious goal. But unfortunately, I desperately need to hit that amount if I'm going to be able to maintain doing this show because it is beyond financially unsustainable for me to do it. And since I haven't been able to be present this last month on social media, and kind of to a certain degree with the shows, I haven't been able to do my IG lives and stuff like that, which I kind of started to do on Mondays. It's just been really tough, I'll be honest, it's been a tough month. And to have this dreaded thing like I need to hit the goal of this fundraiser hanging over my head while also not really being able to do anything about it has has had me and kind of a motional Tizzy over the last few days, but I tried to put it on pause so I can do this trip and and hopefully, if I'm able to get my house back at the end of the week, I can start being more present and, and being more active on social media so that I can convey then the necessity for that fundraiser. So if you would like to support the show, number of ways to do it. As always, there is the Patreon sponsorship, which you can support the show on a monthly or annual basis. There is that is patreon.com/militantly Mixed, there are different rewards depending on what level you choose. All of that goes into supporting the show. The goal there is to get to at least $500 a month. Although once we start passing $500 a month, that's when I can actually get team members brought in and stuff like that. So that's the goal. In addition to that, there is always the T-shirt sales that are militantly mixed.com. On the merch tab. Right now we have the b or MCs SF annual T-shirt that will go away on November 14. But in addition to that, there's the logo tees and some of the message tees, there's a few designs I've been meaning to get up or re put back up like Mixed AF and stuff like that. I just haven't had a chance to do that yet. But those will be there and all everything that is on top of the what we pay the print company for goes back into the show. And then there is the GoFundMe fundraiser. So just gofundme.com or.org Whichever it is go ahead and type Militantly Mixed will be the only thing that pops up. And you can donate there and help help me keep this show going. In terms of the hard work of it all, nothing is going to slow me down from doing Militantly Mixed Militantly Mixed his is a necessity for my life to keep going for the financial experts of the show. It is currently unsustainable. And I can't guarantee that I can keep it going at the present cost. So if I'm not able to raise enough funds to pay off the debt from 2021 or 2022, there's no reason why you should incur debt for 2023. Also, I've maxed out my ability to incur more debt. So that's, that's why I'm doing this very ambitious fundraiser now to try to pay all that off. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm tired. This not feeling very well. So hopefully I've conveyed everything I needed to convey. Or I'm in a fever dream, and I sound crazy, and it's gonna go live and I won't know until after I feel better. One of those two things that happened. My guest today is amazing though, and I'm really excited about what we talked about. So I can't wait for y'all to hear. And I guess today is Jennifer Siripong. She is one of the co-founders of Root and Seed which is this amazing online company that allows you to connect with family members where you can ask them a series of questions that are provided to you from the website so that you can record they can record their answers in the oral traditions of your families and keep it in sort of a centralized location for you and your family to access so that you can maintain and the family traditions, the oral histories and things like that. It is free. It is private for you and your family. And it is something that has the potential to grow into an amazing, amazing opportunity for you to share with other family members. And to kind of piece together the stories of what made you you know, the stories that come before you, your aunts, your uncles, your grandparents, your parents stuff like that. I am. So into this kind of work, like honestly, if I, if I if I could have a job that someone else paid me for, it would be to do something like this to be able to archive people's oral oral traditions and oral stories and stuff like that, which is kind of what I tried to do with Militantly Mixed to a degree I've been wanting to create an archive of mixes and the still you know, stories of people. So that hopefully you could share if you're on the show, and episode with your family and things like that. But in the way that I do it on the show and the way that Root and Seedootandseed.com/ is doing it, I would love to do what route and seed is doing. So I am 100% gung ho, in support of what route and seed is doing, I'm gonna tag all the links in the show notes for this, so you can check it out for yourself. There's no reason not to try it right now. Because it is free. So you might as well do it well, while it is free. But for those of you who might struggle with how to get your family members to start talking about their past and different stories from your family, they have things that have been created by cultural anthropologists and linguists and things like that, showing you the ways you can ask questions to get them to start talking, versus just blurting out something that might make them close up and not be willing to share. I am so into this. And we talked both about Jennifer's story as a Mixed person, and leading up to her co founding of this company. And what that has done for her investigation into her own Mixed news beyond what she already knew about herself growing up. And it's just so beautiful. I cannot wait for y'all to hear this episode. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming our latest cousin to the Militantly Mixed family Jennifer Siripong.
Today I'm joined by our latest cousin Jennifer Siripong. Jennifer why don't you introduce yourself to everybody, and let's get into it.
Jennifer Siripong, Root and Seed Co-Founder
Jennifer Siripong 17:32
Definitely. Thank you first, thank you for having me on here. I'm so excited to be having a conversation with you. I am Jennifer Siripong. I am a guest on the traditional territory of the Mississauga as of the Credit (First Nation), the Chippewa, the Jota nashoni. And the Wendake people which is otherwise known as Toronto, Canada. And I guess seeing is how we are on Militantly Mixed it's kind of what kind of Mixed am I and it's weird because normally I describe myself based on the value I bring to the world. So like I was a digital advertising leader, and then I shifted into to entrepreneurship. I'm a mother, I'm a daughter, I'm a wife, I've never traditionally identified myself based on my race, or my religion or ethnicity. And honestly, it's probably because it's just been too complicated. I'm, I'm a heavy product of assimilation. And so I've just kind of avoided it unless, you know, I awkwardly get probed. And because of the way I was raised, I've just always been good at being a social shapeshifter, making myself a little bit easier to digest based on whoever I'm around. But I grew up in Boston. And so I guess as a child growing up there, I would have just described myself as half Asian, just leave it at that. I am half Thai, my father is Thai, and half Irish, if we're gonna get into it, and there's like so much more in there. But now I live in Canada. I'm married to a Jew, and I have two kids who are my beautiful quarter Asians.
Sharmane Fury 19:15
So, um, when we first started talking, you didn't mention that you're a heavy product of assimilation. You brought it up here too, which is understandable. I mean, we live in societies that kind of forced us into that kind of stuff. Did people point out that you didn't look quote like "white enough" for them to ask what the other thing is? Did you did you get the question all the time? Let it go Let it
Jennifer Siripong 19:37
I definitely got asked a lot. And in in the neighborhood or in the town that I grew up in, it was it was it was a very heavy Irish population, everybody with like redheaded, freckled, blue eyes and so I was very much the different person. At first I was the outcast but again, like because I was raised. So I grew up in an intergenerational home, my grandparents on my mother's side. So a French grandmother and an Irish grandfather pretty much raised me while my parents were working. And so I oddly didn't realize I was different. Until a lot later. Like, I just thought I was ugly, or I wore glasses, or I was awkward, like I never knew to associate it with my race. In hindsight, that was definitely what made me different. But maybe that ignorance is what allowed me to walk through the world as an adult with so much confidence, I guess you could call it privilege to but I think my dad did what he thought was best for my brother and I just did to give us a very, very Irish upbringing so that we could be as "normal" as we could around everyone else.
Sharmane Fury 20:50
And is your father, first generation Thai in America or
Jennifer Siripong 20:55
He is so he moved to Boston when he just finished his army service, the required service in Thailand. So he was about 20 years old, he barely spoke English, he had, you know, a few dollars in his pocket. He came because he had a couple friends who are already here. But oddly, when he landed, he started at a community college where he met my uncle through that came to a couple of family dinners and met my mom. After a few years, they started dating, and it just became one of those beautiful romances. And so my mom is very, like French-Irish. And I guess back then it was a little bit odd to have a, you know, Asian man and a white woman. But it was actually through a lot of the work that I've been doing. So I started a company about 18 months ago with a founder, a co founder. And we're on a mission to help people rediscover and reclaim their cultural identity. So I mentioned that, like, I'm the product of assimilation, I never questioned, yeah, I don't need celebrate Asian holidays. And how come I don't know you know anything about my father's family? And I didn't start asking those questions until I started this company called Root and Seed and since I have one of the coolest discoveries that I've made, and this is just like asking questions to like my aunts, and to my mom, and whoever is around, I realized that my family goes generations deep, like, at least for generations that I know of, where the first born woman will marry somebody who is of a different citizenship, a different religion, likely have a who speaks a different language. And, and like, this literally goes from like, me, moving to Canada, marrying a Jew, my mom, marrying a Thai man who was a different religion, her mother, met my grandfather, my grandfather was an Irish or he's an American soldier in World War Two stationed in Paris, and he met a French woman brought her back to Boston, and he goes on and on and on.
Sharmane Fury 23:08
That's awesome.
Jennifer Siripong 23:09
So my family, having Mixed marriages, where, you know, internally, like a language barrier isn't a big deal, but to the rest of society, it's like, you guys are weird. That's just been normal. And I think that's why I was raised in such like a home where, you know, my Irish grandfather presented me as his very Asian granddaughter, like it was no big deal at all.
Sharmane Fury 23:38
And it's very much a part of like the Asian immigrant story of where you stifle the Asian and just assimilate into American culture. My my Japanese grandmother, the same type of thing like even to the extended family because my father was Black, we would say to our extended Japanese family, our dad was American, because they didn't want my grandma didn't want that question answered, you know, so it was like, Whatever, whatever that meant to the extended family. They were just curious why we were so brown compared to the rest of them, you know, but it is very much a product of like the Asian and well maybe it's I can only really as an Asian immigrant story, like family or something like that. Like we definitely repress the Asian this. Outside, we might do it at home still. But in your case, you said you didn't grow up with like you didn't celebrate Thai holidays or there was when you didn't you have no aspects of your father's religion either.
Jennifer Siripong 24:30
None at all. Like I remember he when I was younger, he would take a moment in the evening to pray, but in most cases, my mother would shuffle my brother and I off so he would have his privacy and he wore a Buddha around his neck and that was really the extent of it because I was raised Irish Catholic. He actually made a commitment to his friend, the priest to you know, he met you know, early in his immigration. I In order to marry my mother in a Catholic church, he promised that his children would be confirmed and so he held that promise
Sharmane Fury 25:07
Did he have to take the classes to my aunt also married a Catholic and they they had to take like, nine months of classes before they actually got married for
Jennifer Siripong 25:15
Noooo you know what I think everything with my parents was so like, prolong so they knew each other for like a decade they were dating for eight years. And my, my dad always had intention of getting his, you know, speak learning to speak perfect English getting his master's moving back to Bangkok and becoming like a huge businessman who could do cross cross country work. My mom was like, I'll go with you, I'll go with you. And he was like, you're not coming like, expected it to
Sharmane Fury 25:46
I'm not going with a White lady (laughter)
Jennifer Siripong 25:50
fizzle out. And after eight years, and they were engaged for too. My mom found out she was pregnant. And so in a month in a day, my dad managed to convince the priests to let them get married in the church, and they were married, and nobody was any the wiser until, you know.
Sharmane Fury 26:10
We all have stories like that are our families, too. So what happened first getting involved in the company? And then asking the questions or asked and...
Jennifer Siripong 26:22
Sadly I believe it was getting involved in the Root and Seed, so my partner grew up in a very beautifully Hindu rich culture of family. And he lost her mom in a weekend. And then she realized, like, I don't know how to pass along my traditions and my heritage. And she called me because as a digital marketer, she's like, you're the technology person? How do I turn this into a technology company? And I was like, well, not only am I going to help you with that, I love what you're doing. So I'm gonna jump on board. Because I was like, I need to learn more about my heritage. But it's not because I lost it with the passing of a loved one. It's because I have never known it, I've never experienced it. And while my dad is still here, while I still have aunts, and uncles who I can ask, I'm going to I'm going to go when, through this journey, too, because there have to be more people like me. And as we've started the company, we realized that there are so many more people. And it's not just assimilation, it's not just loss. It's the fact that there's so much across the world of migration, there is intermarriage. It's the fact that generations are being born with a wider gap between them. And heritage and culture usually skips a generation. So it will be a child learning from their grandparent, or a great aunt. It's not the child learning from the parent or their immediate aunts and uncles. And so as that distance is getting wider, the opportunity for the grandparents to share is is disappearing. So there is a genuine risk of loss of tradition, loss of culture, loss of stories. And in the Mixed world in the second generation immigrant world, you can't go to Google and search like what's Nana's biryani recipe? And you can you know, go to YouTube and find out how does Auntie do her prayers for Chinese New Year like, the way your family does it is unique and it deserves to be captured and documented and honored and celebrated. Because even if you're not ready to celebrate it now, you probably will be ready at some point. And the biggest regret most people have is that it's not available.
Sharmane Fury 28:39
Yeah. And I'm like a little choked up just thinking about it too. Because I know that in the early parts of my childhood I was always very close my Japanese grandmother, more so than my British grandmother. And when I was younger, she would answer some questions, but not a lot. Because she's still even though it had been like 30 years, or since she'd been in the United States. She still had the fear of the military telling her don't teach your kids different language, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like they they made her take American domesticity classes, which in my family, we refer to them as "Yellow bride classes" because literally it was all the Asian wives that had to take these classes to like learn how to make an American meatloaf and you know all that kind of stuff. And so she still had the fear when I was little she wouldn't really share much but as I got older and as I started making my own investigation like learning language myself and stuff like that in college, bit by bit, she would start to let stories slip out. And and I think you know, part of that is I'll say specifically Japanese so that I don't like oh Asians do this. But I feel like it's a lot of us where we like keep that stuff tight because it's like, oh, I came to America to become an American. You don't need to know about back home kind of a thing. Or at least specifically with my family. That's how it was and to think about these opportunity missed opportunities of like, I don't have a recording of my grandmother's voice telling me a story. I just have a memory of her telling me.
Jennifer Siripong 30:00
Yeah
Sharmane Fury 30:01
and I wish there were ways that, you know, I would have that now. So I could go back into and I think that is a little bit of the motivation of doing a show like Militantly Mixed too is that, you know, maybe in 10 years, someone can say, hey, I did this podcast once and I talked a little bit about our family, you know, or something like that. I would love to know that, like something like Militantly Mixed would create that opportunity for people or
Jennifer Siripong 30:23
100%. Episode is going to be a treasure for somebody.
Sharmane Fury 30:28
Yeah, I think so. So I love this idea. And I was really excited when I when I pulled your name up and started to look on the website, because you can really help people learn because that's the other part is learning how to ask those questions.
Jennifer Siripong 30:43
Oh, my gosh, yeah. So first, I mean, it's the fact that a lot of people don't even think that they have a culture worth celebrating, right? You know, that they have heritage or meanings of heirlooms that haven't been discovered or recipes, because you don't think about it until it's lost. Exactly. And so we started content, so like a blog and a podcast to help spark people's recognition from like hearing other people's story that like, oh, my gosh, I have it worth it for me to dig into it. And we created a tool. So it's digital now. But we're creating a physical component to where after a ton of research, we realized that the biggest blocker in someone figuring out their family story is because they're afraid to ask the questions. Or they don't know what questions to ask. So are our digital tool, it's like no download required. It's just a mobile app, because we wanted to make it really easy for like, even Boomers to be able to use. And if there are questions for kids and their questions for adults. So we realize kids are fantastic icebreakers. If they're going to talk to their grandparents, and adults who want to have more introspective questions, we have a different kind of questions for for them. But it's the themes of culture, tradition. Sorry, tradition, celebration, food and family stories. And these are the questions that, you know, aren't typically being asked in, like all the other conversation cards that are out there. And we also realize if you ask a question like "Hey, Grandpa, what what was your childhood like?" Either there's a lot of trauma that they don't want to get into or they just think it's like, mundane, and they're like, man, it was, you know, a childhood. So the tool has dig deeper questions. So every question has six to eight additional questions in it so that your person can approach the question from a different perspective, or a different angle. So it might ask, what was your childhood? like growing up? I don't know. Okay, what who made you breakfast in the morning? Because now, I love a caretaker, you're thinking about the flavors and smells? It will be like, what did your bedroom look like? Because maybe you had your own bedroom? Or maybe you shared your bedroom with six siblings? Or maybe you all slept in the same room together? Right? It's gonna make you remember that? Yeah, that that was a part of my life. Or it could be how did you get in trouble as a kid? And so it just helps people have conversations. It is all about oral storytelling. So we help you capture it, there's a record button on the tool. So you know, it's audio. It's not a video that you use to, you know, literally. And honestly, the art of oral storytelling is just so beautiful, because you listen to them afterwards. And you have, you know, your loved ones giggle. Or and you hear the story in their words, which we all know as soon as someone tells us a story and you try to like, write it down afterwards. You've lost
Sharmane Fury 33:50
part of it. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, this is like a dre... like, I can't even explain the time amount of times I've gotten involved in something that's somewhat like this. And then it just fizzles out. I used to when I used to live in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, but south of Boston, but I used to work with these Boston filmmakers that did this kind of stuff on video with families in and they ran out of funding. So I didn't get to keep on that thing. You know, there's other things where I've been a part of, of documentaries or something like that, where someone's trying to capture the oral histories of things. And man, like, I want to do that, like that's why I do the podcast because I want to do some version of this. I'm so excited that a product like this exists.
Jennifer Siripong 34:32
Oh, I think the whole idea is like, Yeah, we don't need to be professional historian or cultural anthropologist, like I'm not presumed to be like, I'm on my own discovery. And so we've worked with journalists and cultural linguists to make sure that these questions are appropriate. They're culturally sensitive. So you know, we talk about not necessarily dating but courtship. How all of those are
Sharmane Fury 34:57
Understanding like the age and time context of how you would ask a question like that. That's, that's good.
Jennifer Siripong 35:03
Exactly. So yeah, I think it's just important for people to know that they can do this on their own. And if you have the tool, it almost presents this allowance like a, I'm allowed to ask you this question because it's on a card.
Sharmane Fury 35:16
That's funny. That's so good. I'm, I'm, well, first of all, I'm excited that the thing exists. But I'm also excited that even though you weren't thinking about it, just being tapped for the skill set that you have got you actually thinking about it for yourself? Was there anything that was a huge shock that you started to learn about yourself that you're willing to share? Of course, oh, my gosh, when I started asking questions.
Jennifer Siripong 35:40
So I mean, I asked my dad, I was, you know, my dad was the last person I asked. So he's, he's Thai. My whole other side of the family is they love talking about history. They love talking about their superstitions, I've never actually got it down. So it was nice that I got it down. And my dad would always kind of like avoid, you know, sitting at the table with us when we were recording histories. But the one thing that I did notice, I would ask my quiet uncle, a couple of questions, like who's the first person who immigrated to this country and all of a sudden, like, after two or three minutes of chatting, this quiet uncle has like, amazing stories. And then other people will walk by my mom or my aunt will walk by and they'll be like "what are you talking about that's not how it happened."
Sharmane Fury 36:23
Oh, I love it!
Jennifer Siripong 36:25
Tons of perspectives and like, people are adding to the story and it just because like there's a lively conversation, it's so nice. But after a couple of months, I was like, You know what, Dad, can I can I ask you a question? And he's like, "umm I don't know" and I was okay. I'm not gonna record it. I'm just going to ask you a question. And now he loves recording answers, and it really gets so good. So one of the things that I asked him that I thought were like, super simple, but I was like, blown away. So my last name is Siripong. I knew my parents changed my name at birth. So my parents last name is Siraponboonsit 16 letters, no spaces, like no hypen, just Siraponboonsit and that's essentially the Smith of Thailand. Like everyone's got a Siripong. Okay, and they shortened it for me again to help me assembly. But I asked my dad finally, it was only about two months ago, like what's the meaning of Siripong? Like there's got to be some like really cool background, like most Asian names have definitions. And he's like, no is literally the next name on the list. Though it starts with Siripong and then it's Siraponboonsee and then the Siraponboonsit and the next person who is getting their Thai citizenship and use a passport they get a Thai name and so I ended up with Siraponboonsit and I was like, such like a lunch bag letdown but at the same time, like now now I know that the background of my name and I was like, wait a minute, how come you didn't have a name? All right. Did you get a tie name? When you got your your passport? And he's like, because we were Teochews like your, your grandmother and grandfather immigrated from China to Thailand during you know, communism. I'm not Thai can we still win? Because I'm half Thai. I'm special. I'm cool. I'm Yeah. No, actually, I'm half Chinese.
Sharmane Fury 38:15
So ethnic Chinese but Thai. So, a lot of yeah, a lot of my my Thai friends are ethnic Chinese. Yeah, as well. And I have this seems to happen like in Taiwan, Thailand, even a Vietnam has some ethnic Chinese and stuff like that as well. That's interesting. It's funny, because, like, Japan does that as well. If you if you're gonna get Japanese citizenship, you have to change your last name to a Japanese last name. Even if they are they're on like a work pass or something like that. So like a lot of South Asians that come up to Japan to get jobs, they have to change. They have to, they have to, like renounce their other Asian name, culture, heritage and like, adopt a Japanese name. It's pretty wild. It's crazy. It's interesting that we don't necessarily do that here. I mean, I wonder if that's even an option if you immigrate here, if they're like, you can change your name to an American name if you want. I don't know if that Hi, I feel like it is
Jennifer Siripong 39:07
pretty common when people would pass through later Lady Liberty and have their name changed or the spelling changed because spelling it phonetically. And that ends up being what you're stuck with. For
Sharmane Fury 39:19
years. I thought my family wasn't my my mother's white side of the family was an Ellis Island family, but come to find out they actually had been here since 1711. So their last name doesn't even match any of the places they think they're from that I think like we started doing like okay Irish, Scotland, and Germany or where they think they're from and where they have a relative or a story that somebody lived in this place. There are no Wolf's and it's Wolfe W-O-L-F-E and no, but not many people have that except for here in America. So that's why I thought it was an Ellis Island because I thought they spelt it wrong when they came through. But no, they just Appalachian white people who've been here since 1711.
Jennifer Siripong 40:00
And this is the thing like you don't? These are things you take for granted. Yeah. If you don't ask you'll, you'll never find out. And so there's there's two benefits to what we created. And one, it helps create more meaningful intergenerational conversations because sadly, so many of us have forgotten how to have a conversation. And two, it brings up questions that you would never think to ask. And so before the moment passes, you can ask these random questions that maybe you don't think has an answer. And if they don't, that's totally okay. You move on. But you might be surprised with what you learn when you ask.
Sharmane Fury 40:31
Yeah, in some cases, you do have to be prepared for like the tough answer. I have on my Black side of family. We have some tough answers that we that we learned and it's like, oh, well, I mean, at least I know. But yikes it's you know, there's, there's definitely some stories that are pretty rough out there.
Jennifer Siripong 40:46
Yeah. And you know, what, it's hard to hear. And it's probably even harder to tell. But some, there are incredible studies out there, they've been doing studies for the last 20 years, at least that I've been reading that shows that when children understand their history, their heritage, the roots, they are more confident in being who they are meant to be that they're more empowered to create and be what, you know, the world intends for them, as opposed to being you know, made to be small by society.
Sharmane Fury 41:20
Right? That's interesting, because I was the inquisitive kid that wanted to know all the things I asked my Black grandfather, where we came from, as my Japanese grandma, my British grandmother, like I asked the questions, my brother, very much product of assimilation. It's weird that we even grew up in the same household. Like, it's I don't, it doesn't it's so strange how different we are about this. And he was a far less confident kid. I don't know, necessarily. I feel like he's found his tribe and his confidence now. But for me, like it was knowing all the stuff that happened, like, it was very important to me that I understand the reason why my grandma does some of the things she does, because she was from wartime Japan, you know, and like, "Grandma, don't don't eat that, that expired food" "war time," you know, like, why does she say this all the time. Now, I have to understand the famine and the stuff that happened back then. And that's why she is this way. And it puts that into context. More of just like when I'm being, you know, like a privileged little American kid that's like, oh, this yogurt is a day old. I'm gonna go ahead and chuck that right. Where's that my grandma would probably eat it a week later, you know, because wartime, and being able to ask those questions and understand that stuff is really important. Do you feel like since you went on this journey, I mean, it's very difficult because you're a full grown adult, by the time you're doing this, are you able to, I don't know what your situation is with, with children and things. But are you in a better position to help if you do have children? Or if you do, if you have them?
Jennifer Siripong 42:45
You mean, are you in a better position to
Sharmane Fury 42:48
To share? Like, where you your histories and things like that? Do you feel a little bit more confident in that to pass it on?
Jennifer Siripong 42:54
100% and the crazy part was, I was so assimilation was so normalized in my world, that when I had my children, when I got married, I converted to Judaism. I am living in Canada, all of a sudden, and I have children and I start raising them no questions asked is Canadian Jews, like that's it? Like, there is no quick Christmas has gone and Easter Bunny doesn't exist. Okay. Maybe if we go to Boston, and you know, Santa visits Nana, but like, we are Canadian Jews. And that was so what I just felt compelled to bring forth to my children, because that's what my dear mom, and generations back that's just what happened. And then I started going down this path of creating Root and Seed and realize that I have every right to celebrate my Asian heritage because I have been given that birthright I have been given I have the blood in me that says that I can celebrate Thai and Asian holidays and be proud of it. And so we brought a lot of those learnings of the richness of what my children have in them to my kids now that they're older. And I like a lot of it happened during the pandemic. So it was like we're hoping now like we will talk about the holidays. And so it kind of worked out they didn't really think too much of it other than like Mama's all we got now. But it's it's been a really incredible journey because we would call my parents over zoom and be like, "Hey, Dad, like did you ever celebrate Chinese New Year when you were a kid? And what other holidays did you celebrate?" And we learned about it, because now listen, I feel comfortable asking about it. Whereas it just didn't feel like I had the right to. I'm also a lot more confident about it. I'm a more confident person. And it's kind of sad that I had to get this far in my life in order to realize it and that's why we want to help people figure it out earlier and sooner so that they can Feel this pride in their heritage and also make sure it doesn't get lost. But like in our world where there is so much oppression, like assimilation is sinister. And I've had to work through a lot of internalized oppression and internalized inferiority. Because as a Mixed person, like, I'm not white, but I'm not Asian. And as a Mixed person was felt like Asian people had more of a right than I did, white people have more right than I do. So now that I can feel proud about all of the sides of myself, I'm breaking down those those, you know, issues.
Sharmane Fury 45:42
That makes me happy to hear because I know that one of the things that pops up a lot on this show is, is the permission for access feeling that a lot of us have, and in some cases, you just need somebody from that culture, that group to grant you the permission. And then you're like, okay, great, even though that's not that person's job. But you that's, that's how you're compelled to do it. And I'm hoping that with things like Root and Seed or Militantly Mixed, or any of the other Mixed things that are out there, that people will just start to take up that space themselves. Because like, yeah, like you said, it's in there. It's all coursing through your body at the same time. So why why shouldn't you have access to it for decision that you can make, you know, even decide to be born a Mixed Asian and white person, you your parents made that decision, their parents made the decisions that they made. So you know, you can't always feel like you don't belong, like, you should feel like you have access. And that's a hard thing to teach people. It's a hard thing to empower people with unless they see other people doing it. So I think you know, like maybe your kids seeing you do this will make it a little bit more interesting for them to do. So if they do choose to have kids when they get older to that they'll be able to keep some of those things on. So you didn't have words like one or two little Thai words or something like that, that your father always said growing up that you kind of say or understood, you don't have any
Jennifer Siripong 46:56
No, I mean . Hello, which I think we learned when we were teenagers. And I went to visit Thailand, because just as a university students, like I left Boston was 17, I moved to Canada to go to university. And I think there was something there, like I was raised in a predominantly white but Mixed household, I definitely identify as white. And in Boston, like we talked about it as a stew, everybody's just brought into the same and blended up. But in Canada, especially in Montreal, whereas going to school, it was considered more of a stew like everybody was able to maintain their individuality and live amongst each other. And I started really being like, okay, like, I know, I'm Thai, I know nothing about it. And so I decided to go to Thailand over the summer, and my dad really hated that beak for months after I returned. And it's because he thought I was going to come back and judge him judge him for no rolling up, I was sleeping on a straw mat on the floor, or using the types of bathrooms that are normal in Thailand, and I came back and I had so much more respect for him, but it took months for him to even be willing to talk to me so that I have I can look up to him for what he gave us and for what he's come from and what he's created, which was literally from nothing into this beautiful life that he gave me. And so that that I think really opened up some doors too.
Sharmane Fury 48:41
That's good. Yeah, you don't really think about it's so hard because with your parents, you never know them as "people" like you know, like you just know them as your parents so yeah, I think a lot of them don't want you to see what they're insecure about or anything like that. And so that shame I think that's terribly sad, but I guess I understand where would where it would come from for him but hopefully that's fine now. It's not like a point of shame anymore. But just like this is where we come from and we're now we're at this this thing. I had a another Canadian guests on the show a while back where they described it as a Mixed salad. Yes, I love that. So she's like, you know America you guys say the melting pot but we say Mixed salad and I didn't hear her correct. So I actually released the episode under the term mix solid. But I thought she said but she described it as like if you're a tomato you're still a tomato just because you're thrown in a salad you don't become something else but she was like America you guys like to say you're a melting pot, but everybody's still stays pretty separate. But here like we just say like yeah, I'm a tomato that person's lettuce or whatever. I thought that was a funny way of looking at it because I actually I like to be able to distinguish the cultures that I'm mixed with I like being able to hybrid them when I want to when it's really convenient like with food I love Japanese fried chicken with collard greens on macaroni and cheese, you know, like, I like to make a way for all of my foods to work together and stuff like that. So
Jennifer Siripong 50:10
Maybe that's why, in Canada, my partner and I were able to create Root and Seed and feel confident about it. Because we do live in an environment where individual ethnicities are allowed to flourish and celebrate, though, when we started down this path of cultural discovery, we did tons of research, and I think you said it before, like, we spoke to people who are two Chinese people, the wife from northern China, the husband from southern China, and they realized that when they celebrate festivals, the way that they culturally celebrated them are so different that they might as well be from opposite sides of the earth. But we realize that culture doesn't need to be like, racially motivated, it doesn't always need to come from a place of difference or harm, it can come from the perspective of cultural joy. So those histories of harm definitely exist. And they need to people need to be aware of them. But that doesn't mean that the histories of beauty should be suppressed. And that you that you can have a space for the celebration of culture, and you're allowed to want to understand yours and preserve it for the future.
Sharmane Fury 51:30
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's, that's so great to be able to even give ourselves space for that. And like you said, even the tough things, I'd rather know what my ancestors went through to get me to exist, then. Then just think of it as like a an accident that I ended up here like, as American born or Western born, say, Asians, the way we move through life is a lot different than we would have back in our home countries and stuff like that, like the being a woman or a femme. The position in society that we have is different than necessarily the position in society, we would have held back home, and things like that. And I think we should be able to, like honor the women that came ahead of us or whatever, even if they had it a little bit tougher, or more tough than than we had. So I think that's an important part of it. And I think it makes us fuller people and getting those opportunities to share that I didn't I never really thought about until you said earlier that thing about how you don't necessarily get your culture directly from your parents and that you tend to do it from the grandparents because that is true. Like I followed my grandmother, I loved listening to my grandmother, I love watching her cook even though she wouldn't let me in the kitchen, I would lay on the floor and look at her, like wash her up and stuff like that, like, and then she would tell me stories about how close she was to her grandmother because she didn't seem very close to her parents like she would. She'd be the attentive daughter and things like that. And because I was lucky enough to grow up around my great grandparents too. But I couldn't. I couldn't speak to them because they spoke Japanese and but it's just me and my great grandfather would like hold hands and eat bananas and drink Coca Cola together. So like that's, that's what I had with him. Yeah. But like she she would talk about her grandmother. And I wish like that, that skit. You know, like, I know some things about my great grandma, my great great grandmother, because my grandmother was close to her. And it's just nice to know that you would have these opportunities. And it's just all that missed history. Like there's so much I want to know about why my great grandmother was a, essentially a doctor in her community because she was a woman. And that seems crazy. And I don't have that answer. I just have this one sentence that I remember my grandma saying one time and I was like, oh shit, my grandma was my great grandmother was a doctor and a time when women were doctors. That's it. That's all I got, you know, like, I don't have anything more than that. But it would be nice to be able to have these opportunities to
Jennifer Siripong 53:44
get Yeah, but I mean, think think about that legacy that she left, where she was a change maker she was afraid to, you know, break the mold and hear you are you are out in the world and creating one of the first and most successful Mixed podcasts. Like if there's probably some legacy in there,
Sharmane Fury 54:06
hopefully, yeah, so this is great. I'm so excited to know that this product exists and that you're out there doing this work and and that is enriched your life too, because it could have just been a job. You know, like you could have just taken the paycheck and been like alright, let's make this happen and not actually engaged and the fact that you've allowed yourself to engage I think is amazing.
Jennifer Siripong 54:29
Also, I think because my partner and I have learned and benefited so much from this like it's a free tool like that you don't have to pay for it. And it's because we will figure out how to monetize is another thing later but in in the short term like what we've created we're we can't put a paywall on this like it's important for to be out in
Sharmane Fury 54:51
the world. Yeah, I understand that sensation to like you still gotta eat but at the same time, making it making something that's good like this exist. I I definitely so getting back a little bit to you before we start wrapping up, you went to Canada for college. What made you stay there?
Jennifer Siripong 55:11
honest answer. And I don't know if you remember the South Park movie, but I literally moved to Canada like the year after that came out and everybody was hating on Canada and I was like, What are you doing? This is ridiculous. But while I was there 911 happened like president's got reelected. I was like, What's Kubrick on with the world? Like, I thought that was the worst of the worst. And I was like, I'm staying in Canada.
Sharmane Fury 55:37
Yeah, no
Jennifer Siripong 55:38
good find myself. I also thought I was the black sheep of the family. Like I was always the one who was kind of breaking with convention and asking too many questions. And like, you know, being the rebel, or so my family accused me of in reality, I was like, the most gentle, mild mannered person you could imagine. But I moved to Canada and my family thought of me as a black sheep. And I feel like I have a closer relationship with my family when I see them in bits and spurts. And when I see them, like we have, like, we have an amazing connection. It'll be like a week or be a long weekend or, you know, over the lockdowns, we went there for two months, and they are incredible stays, whereas my husband's family is here and we see them for like Friday night dinners where my kids barely know them because they see them for three hours once a week. And maybe in those three hours. They talk for five minutes, and then they're all like, though my relationship with my family is a lot tighter now that I live physically further away. But I don't think I would ever really want to change that. Yeah, but also asking these questions to my family and realizing that it goes generations back where people leave the country and find a spouse who is of a different religion and language and ethnicity like it made me realize that I am not the black sheep I am I'm the old
Sharmane Fury 57:03
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, you're you're on your ancestors path. I really like that the I do think it was a good choice I'm actually trying to do my exit right now to um, I'm leaving for Mexico in four months. You just see what happens i Boris that's it ocean with ocean of course. That's what I want. So bad. Yeah. So I'm going to test out Mexico, but you never know I might end up in I might end up Canada went to I did love it. I thought I thought Toronto is a city does something slightly different than what New York does is like New York allows you to have all the different cultures and back to back neighborhoods. And there's some cross culture stuff going on. But people still get to kind of be who they are a little bit. But then everybody becomes a New Yorker. And in Toronto, like you've got your age different parts of your Asian section of Toronto, you got your different white people. Your different you got your French ones yet, you know that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah, you still got to be I guess that's that Mixed salad idea. You still get to be I really liked Toronto for that. What do you see as a future for something like route and see if it's not necessarily a is it a open source? Like his oral history? Like what what is, uh, what's the path?
Jennifer Siripong 58:17
Yeah, for right now. Root and Seed is private. So you, you save your audio, you can add text, you can add images, but it's private. So it's not like a social network where if you record something on the tool, it's going out to the entire community, like, okay, family stories are private. And we wanted to make sure that they felt private and secure. So they can be shared on a private link to your family, not on social media, okay, the recordings can be downloaded and turned into almost something like a personal family podcast. But the future is one of the beauties that we found, like you have ancestry and 23andme, who've helped fill the facts, like the data component of your genealogy or your genetics. But there are other companies out there who are helping to add the color to your history. And so one day in the future, I think it would be amazing if we had enough repository of stories and people chose to make some of it public that let's say, I know that village where my father's parents lived. But I don't have too much more information that that maybe somebody else has information about what life would like from that village and they can add the color to my story peripherally. And honestly, we just want more people to ask questions to their families, one, because the more you ask, the more you learn and to when you're having meaningful conversations with your family, you're creating a memory and that's important unto itself like heritage and culture can be lost in an instant, if you don't take the time to capture it. And that's, that's what our mission is, is to really just motivate people to realize that their story matters.
Sharmane Fury 1:00:11
Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad that this exists, I'm going to very much encourage those that are listening. And Militantly Mixed to check it out. It is still like he said, a free service. So get on there and share like, you really have nothing to lose except for a, you know, potentially a family member telling you shut up and go away which is family, so it's fine, it's totally fine.
Jennifer Siripong 1:00:37
And so on our Delete message, because if you want to delete a recording, we have to let people delete things if they don't like it. And it was a complete accident that our error message showed up this way. But we're like, today's accidents are tomorrow's treasures.
Are you sure you want to delete this?
Sharmane Fury 1:00:53
Oh cute (laughs)
Jennifer Siripong 1:00:55
You never know, you might you might want that story or that?
Sharmane Fury 1:00:59
Yeah, no, that's amazing. So with all your more recent journey into kind of discovering yourself as a Mixed person, what have you come to feel like you love most about being Mixed?
Jennifer Siripong 1:01:10
I've always known that I was Mixed. And it made me special, it made me feel really special. Because I think I identified as white and like this is this is me talking
Sharmane Fury 1:01:27
Also that blows my mind. Looking at your face, while you say those words, I just want you to know that.
Jennifer Siripong 1:01:32
It is such a privilege on my part. And I recognize that. And I'm and maybe it's because I moved to Canada when I was 17. And it did give me the confidence to just be like, I'm different. And I'm you know, especially because of that. I think it's opened doors for me that a lot of other, you know, Mixed people or marginalized groups have not been able to, to appreciate and I do hope the world is changing enough so that people of every ethnicity, every heritage, every form of Mixed pneus can start to walk around and be like, I am special because like, because I'm special because I'm a human because I come from this incredible Mixed background of stories. And yeah, like I guess, now I am trying to help my children understand how special they are. Because it is it's still a hard world for children to grow up in, no matter what their gender or what they look like, or what their ethnicity is, or their ability is. And I want them to take with them as well that they are special because they're Mixed. I don't think I recognized the true depth of the value of my mixes I just thought is like I have a unique face that people you know, are curious to have around. And that was the that really was the crux of it at the beginning. But now I see it as so much more and I'm hoping to help other people see that.
Sharmane Fury 1:03:12
Nice. Why don't you let everybody know how to find you if you want and at least a Root and Seed so that they can check it out for themselves?
Jennifer Siripong 1:03:19
Definitely. Again, my name is Jennifer Siripong and Root and Seed can be found at www.RootAndSeed.com that online tool is available on any mobile web enabled device for free at capture.rootandseed.com and our social handles are @RootAndSeedCo come join our community.
Sharmane Fury 1:03:40
Nice thank you so much for sharing your story with me I know that you would put in like months and months back and I finally was able to catch up with you. So thank you for coming on.
Jennifer Siripong 1:03:49
Thank you for having me. This has been an absolute pleasure and honestly like I've even learned more for myself just talking to you.
Sharmane Fury 1:03:56
That's what I hope that this does. Just the more we share our stories, the more we might accidentally uncover something the more we might plug into an earlier memory I think every everything like that is just a brick in the building towards us becoming more confident in our mixes and allowing us to be our mixed ass selves.
Jennifer Siripong 1:04:13
Definitely.
Sharmane Fury 1:04:14
Thank you.
Jennifer Siripong 1:04:15
Thank you
Sharmane Fury 1:04:22
Militantly Mixed is a ManeHustle Media podcast produced and hosted by me Sharmane Fury. Music is by David Bogan, the One. You can follow us on social media on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @Militantly Mixed if you'd like to become a sponsor of Militantly Mixed please go to patreon.com/MilitantlyMixed for monthly sponsorship or paypal.me/MilitantlyMixed for a one time only donation. And if you like what you hear on Militantly Mixed, please subscribe rate and review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to be Mixed Your Mixed Ass Self.
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