Episode 197 - Doubleness NOT Half and Half
ManeHustle Media 0:08
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 and 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
Konnichi-wassup cousins. Welcome to Militantly Mixed the podcast about race and identity from the Mixed race perspective. I am your Sir Auntie Sharmane Fury, aka daBlasian Blerd and this is episode 197. My guest today is Maïko she is the new Caucus Coordinator for (CMRS) Critical Mixed Race Studies organization that I've been talking about the last few episodes of the show. I met Maïko back in December after I had joined as a member of the Mixed Asian Caucus, which is being co-led by my friend Lee Painter-Kim and Lee had mentioned that there was a Queer Caucus. And if I had any questions, I could reach out to the coordinator to find out more. So I reached out to Maïko. And we ended up having scheduling a meeting a Zoom meeting. And during the course of that conversation, getting to know Maïko a little bit I also ended up taking on the leadership of the Mixed Queer Caucus, of which I've asked my friend Jen Lee from AuthEthnic Podcast to join me in Co-leadership. But in that conversation where I met Maïko I knew I needed to get her on the show, like as soon as possible. And good thing too, we were able to get together to record because from the time this episode airs, she will be days or a week or two away from having a baby. So I was able to, to get her before her life changes dramatically. And I'm so glad to because I know I say this every week, but it's always true. Every week, I had such a wonderful conversation with Maïko I learned so much about Mixedness from a different perspective from my own. And it just reminds me how fucking awesome it is to be the host of Militantly Mixed to have started a podcast where I get to talk to Mixed people who come from all over the world and get different perspectives of Mixedness. See Mixedness is from a different lens than I naturally see from my myself and from my own experiences. I learned so much I've grown so much as a person I believe. And this conversation that I had with Maïko really kind of triggers me thinking about stuff like that too, of just like how being a regular Mixed person before I started being a Mixed podcaster, how I identified myself how I identified Mixedness and others is just so drastically different now that I've gotten a chance to have all these conversations with people from all over the world. The the empathy and the openness to hearing about other people's experiences, but also like, like a willingness to try to actually, like change myself and see Mixedness through the lens of these other people that I get to talk to on the show. It's a fucking great job. Even though it's not a paid job, but I invented a job for myself that is like, the coolest thing in the world for me to do. So I just I say that to say that I would like to thank Maïko for taking the time especially right before about to have a baby to to chat with me and, and express her experiences as a Mixed person who has lived in multiple countries who speaks multiple languages, who's married to a partner who has a different language as well, and is about to raise a child with all of that combined in them as well. I'm just so grateful that people take the time to share their Mixedness and their stories with me for this show. It's just awesome. It's I'm... it's I never not want to do this.
Before we get into today's episode, few just updates and announcements that I want to share with you all as usual. As y'all know, I announced a couple of weeks ago the Be Your Mixed Ass Self Anthology is now open for submissions. And it's been out for a couple of weeks, we've started to receive submissions, they're rol... rolling in still, which I'm so excited about. So if you want to learn more about that, please head on over to www.MilitantlyMixed.com. Click on the "Be Your Mixed Ass Self" Anthology tab right at the top of the page. And read through all those guidelines, make sure that whatever you write, or have written fits within those categories of approval, as long as it fits, go ahead and click that Submit Payment button at the bottom of the page. And then you can email your submission to me, please make sure you read through all of those guidelines before you submit. Because we will not be able to let you know if you qualified or not qualified until after the submission period closes. Because we need to keep those submissions coming in before we start our reading through process. So you won't be able to have time to replace it. If you don't submit it correctly, the first time out the gate. So head on over to www.MilitantlyMixed.com, click on the "Be Your Mixed Ass Self" Anthology tab read through all those guidelines. If there's still something you have questions about after reading through those guidelines, feel free to send those through. One of the questions that I'm not going to be able to really answer is, "here's the thing I'm thinking of submitting is it eligible." The way you determine that is reading through the guidelines, as long as what you've written some fits within that submission guidelines, then go ahead and feel free to submit it, we're not going to be able to read things in advance to just tell you if it's submittable. So please make sure you read through those guidelines before you send those over. And a lot of your questions are answered there. If there ends up being more questions that aren't addressed on that page that I start to see coming through, I will update the page to include those frequently asked questions. But for now, so far, all of the questions that have been asked are already answered on that guideline submission page within reason. I mean, there's been a couple that are like, can you read this and tell me if it's submittable? But other than that? Yes, they're answered. I'm really excited about it, though, we've gotten a lot of responses related to it and started to see new people get introduced to Militantly Mixed because of the anthology. So based off of the folks that have been sharing the post and letting other people know it exists, there's a bunch of new people who are finding the show and they didn't know we existed before, that they're excited to have a community that they can connect to within Mixedness and also submit something to the anthology. So for all of y'all that have just discovered the show because of the anthology posts. Hello, welcome cousins. Thank you for joining us, I recommend just digging into the crates go back into the catalog you can enter at any point it's not a time necessarily oriented. It's just me having a conversation with another Mixed person. The biggest change you'll see is that over the years as I learn and speak to more people and get more education about Mixedness and Mixed identity and intersectionality. I grow and change throughout the that time. But yeah, you can kind of dig in with wherever and let people know if you if you've heard an episode that really speaks to you or connects with you send me a message/ DM something like that. And I will share that with the guests that was on that show too. Many a time, I've been able to reach out to a guest and let them know that someone emailed me about their episode. And it's always exciting for the person who's been a guest on the show, to learn that their story impacted somebody else. So if you enjoy what you hear, please feel free to engage with the show and let me know so that I can let them know. Because that's how we build community here at Militantly Mixed.
In addition to that, I told you all last week that I switched over to Anchor for my podcast host site. And a couple of things are happening. As I get more access as I as I'm getting more established, it takes a couple of weeks for everything to sort of flesh itself out. But we have already achieved the necessary requirements to be able to connect to advertisers. So sometime over the course of the next couple weeks, couple months, I will start to get introduced to other advertisers that I can, you know, decide if I want to use for the show, which will be a way for me to generate income for the show that is separate from me, begging y'all to submit to Patreon or actually Anchor also has a listener support thing that will become available over the course of next month as well. But I'm looking forward to that opportunity to to start gaining a little bit of income with the show to help keep us going. But if you would like to sponsor the show financially, you are more than welcome to do that. In fact, you are the bread and butter of the show. If that happens, there are multiple ways to do that. You can go to Patreon.com/MilitantlyMixed. This is the OG way, you can sponsor the show as low as $1 a month to as high as anything you wish. And there are different reward levels depending on what you choose. And before I moved to Mexico, and a couple months, I do have some updated little rewards that I will send to people that are still currently active sponsors new stickers and things like that, that I'll get out to you, as a thank you for your continued support. And I do also want to give out a shout out to one of our latest patrons shout out to Echo for joining at the $20 a month level. Thank you so much for supporting the show. As we get further along, you'll start to receive things from me in in either the mail or email. And I really just appreciate y'alls support. The second way that you can sponsor the show is to drop some coins in the tip jar, as I like to say, and that's by going to Paypal.me/MilitantlyMixed. If you don't want to participate in a long term membership or sponsorship, you can just drop some coins in that tip jar whenever you feel inclined. So shout out to Nina, I see that you dropped another bit o' coin in the tip jar again. So thank you so much for that. And what's coming soon, in the next couple of weeks to a month will be the Anchor way of doing things where you can actually go on to Anchor.fm/MilitantlyMixed and do listener support. That way, there is a sponsorship way, which is not available yet, but will become in the next couple weeks. And there's also just a coins in a tip jar kind of way as well. Again, that'll be available by the end of the month, or I think I have to be on it for a month until it kicks in. But in addition to that there's the kind of engagement and support of the show that I also think is extremely necessary in terms of helping us grow. And that is to interact. That is by sharing a voicemail on the Anchor page so that I can interact with that for the show, sending emails and DMS and letting me know about different parts of the show that you've connected with sharing an episode. In fact, a personal share of an episode to somebody is one of the quickest ways of growing the show. If there's an episode you've heard, that really connects you, like makes you think about someone in particular, and you send that link to them and say, "Hey, I listened to this podcast, this episode reminded me of you. Why don't you go ahead and check it out." That's a big way in which Militantly Mixed has been able to grow and expand over the years where I've actually gotten emails from people that said, my friend shared this episode with me, because you know, the guest has my same mix, and oh my gosh, this is what this is how this episode affected me. So that is a great way to help grow listenership of the show, you can always also follow or subscribe on whichever podcast or podcatcher you listen to the show on. And make sure whatever podcatcher you listen to the show on you also leave a review. Now reviews, some people will have mixed feelings about this. But with reviews, certain podcast apps will promote your show based off of how many reviews you get. And in the beginning, I used to get a lot more than kind of now. But that's because I don't actively ask for it. So I'm actively asking today, if you listen to the show pretty regularly, you love it. And there's stuff about it that you would like other people to know about, please feel free to head on over to Apple or Google or Spotify or whichever podcatcher you listen on the big ones or the little ones, if they have a review function, just write a quick little review, it doesn't have to be too crazy. But the more of those that we start to get, the more that app will push the show into the eyes of people who are kind of interested in similar things. And that will help grow the show exponentially. It is the word of the year for me is "growth" where it comes to Militantly Mixed both in terms of growing a larger audience growing to be able to eventually support myself with doing the show and to grow the community interactions a little bit beyond what we currently have, which is mostly people emailing me directly. But I would like to actually have more community involvement and community engagement even if I have to take it off of the Facebook group and maybe put it onto a separate more welcoming app space or something like that. I'm looking to a couple of options. But that's pretty much all I got for y'all today.
Let's get into today's episode. Again, my guest is Maïko she is the Caucus Coordinator at CMRS and we had just it's such a great conversation that we have that I really feel like there's things that I've been able to kind of sit on and think about quite a lot since we spoke stuff that I've kind of jotted down that I've kind of liked to engage with her again, not anytime soon, since she's about to have a baby. But as, as I get to know her a little bit more through this caucus involvement that I'll be doing over the next couple of years. I do hope to reengage her on some of the topics that started on this episode that I hope to continue talking to her about as time goes on. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming our latest cousin to the Militantly Mixed family, Maïko.
And today I am joined by Maïko Le Lay, we have recently got involved talking because I have joined a couple of the caucuses related to CMRS the Critical Mixed Race Studies. Maïko, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience and let's get into it.
Maïko Le Lay 16:09
Yeah, so hi, everyone. My name is Maïko, she/hers. And I identify as French and Japanese. I actually migrated in the U.S. about eight years ago from Belgium and France. And yeah, I've never really lived in Japan long term. But I have been visiting Japan my entire life and my mom currently lives there. So yeah, that's pretty much about me. I currently I'm on a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, but have been working from Los Angeles, California, where I will be raising my newborn baby soon who is about to pop. Yeah.
Sharmane Fury 17:01
That's a so I was really excited. Well, okay, full disclosure, every time I find a Japanese Mixed person, I always get excited because of all the things I've Mixed with Japanese was always the hardest to express Mixedness this with. So in that case, I got really excited when we first met. But you're also having a baby soon. So you're gonna have a multigenerational Mixed kid. What? What's your, what's your child's mix gonna be?
Maïko Le Lay 17:25
Oh, my goodness. So. So he is a boy, he's gonna be I guess, half quote unquote, half Indian.
Sharmane Fury 17:34
Okay,
Maïko Le Lay 17:35
A quarter French and a quarter Japanese.
Sharmane Fury 17:38
And are you planning on speaking languages, all the languages to your child?
Maïko Le Lay 17:45
I mean, listen, that's the plan. What's actually gonna happen is a different story. Well, you know, that's a very big, you know, question mark, because my husband and I speak English together. And so hopefully, he'll speak in Hindi to our future child. But for me, I'm like, do I speak French? I speak Japanese. What you both like, Is my child going to be super confused? Or like a master? You know, multilingual person? I don't know. Like, you know, I think, well, it's not just about language. It's like culture. Like, you know, it's, we live in America, there's so much mainstream culture here. So how do you implement our own, you know, ethnic and cultural values into that? So yeah, those are big question marks. Yeah, we have no answers to
Sharmane Fury 18:47
I've been following a lot of polyglot Tiktok. Because I'm fascinated by people who can just pick up languages. In my Japanese side of the family. My when my grandmother came to the United States, she was a military bride, and they told her not to teach your children Japanese because you're gonna use their brains. This is the 5 0s. So she stuck to that so hard that even by the time I came around, after she's been divorced, my grandfather is gone. My mother is almost an adult because she was a teen mother. She still didn't speak Japanese to us, much like there was some words we always knew, mostly. So we could talk about people if we were in public. So we knew like the races of people, we knew how to talk about money, and we knew to talk about food or bathroom and stuff like that. Like that's pretty much all we ever did when I was younger. And from that, what I know is that I have all the Japanese vowel sounds, but I just didn't pick up enough language which was always a point of frustration for me as a child, but not from my mom's not very Japanese in her behavior, or in her culture or anything like that where I am. So I definitely would like get the culture from my grandma when I was there when I when I spent time with her and stuff like that. But then when the rest of the time I was Black, or British because I have a British grandmother to live on my Black side of the family. And I just like I have an ear for accents. That's what I do better. I can't really do the language and I'm so I've been following the polyglot because I'm like, What? What do you need to get your brain to be able to do this and not confused, like children of multilingual households. So, right, it's like a point of fascination, which is the only reason why that because this episode is about you, not necessarily your unborn child.
Maïko Le Lay 20:24
Good point though, maybe I should be looking into, like, you know, what others are doing and have been more. But you know, I feel like with parenting at the end of the day, it's like what you can do in the moment and
Sharmane Fury 20:38
Keep him alive.
Maïko Le Lay 20:42
And, yeah, you can have a plan all you want, but you know, yeah, what life is gonna happen.
Sharmane Fury 20:48
So how many countries have you actually lived in? Because you're in the states now? But you said you grew up in Belgium and France?
Maïko Le Lay 20:55
Yeah, I guess those are the countries I've really lived in like, long term, like, I've traveled for a few months in other places. But I would say, Yeah, France and Belgium is where I did most of my schooling. And then I came here, first for an internship in L.A., and then I stayed for grad school. And that's where I met my husband a few years ago.
Sharmane Fury 21:24
So you're with your mother's Japanese and your father is from Belgium. Belgian?
Maïko Le Lay 21:28
He's French.
He's French. Okay. You just lived there?
Yeah, yeah, they separated. And so my mom found a job in Belgium. I guess there was, there was a big Japanese company that was there, in Belgium, which recruited at that moment, and so she and I moved there. Yeah. So, you know, what, when you talk about how, you know, the military experience that you had, or, or, you know, Asian Americans of Japanese Americans in the US kind of like having to suppress the Japanese nests for many reasons. That's definitely not what happens with Japanese in Europe. Yeah,
Sharmane Fury 22:15
I'm learning only recently in my ...
Maïko Le Lay 22:17
Yes I mean, at least, you know, in the western side of Europe, because most of the Japanese that order there are "choosing immigrants," and not forced, you know, immigrants. And there's just no history of violence, per se,
Sharmane Fury 22:37
R ight.
Maïko Le Lay 22:37
I mean, maybe more recently, with the whole COVID, anti Asian hate, even, that's, that's still a very sort of American, like, what's happening is really, I think, siloed in the US, this the way that's happening, and the way we talk about race, and you know, Japaneseness. So it's extremely different. So I think, you know, the, the European experience for Japanese people, and is so different than what's happening in the US. And so, definitely, even for me, even if I lived in the Western world, in Europe, coming here was a huge cultural shock.
Sharmane Fury 23:17
I imagine. Yeah, because every time we've been to some place in Europe, we've used my grandmother's Japanese, almost as much as we've used English or French, so to speak a little bit of French from school. And back, when we went to France, I spoke more than I can now. And she would pop up with like, we'd let her disappear. She'd go to like a Japanese tour group, because there's Japanese tour groups all over the place. And then she'd come back and be like, Oh, the restaurant that we're talking about is over there. Or, you know, like, she would find out that way. So yeah, actually, she got to use Japanese quite a bit in France, at restaurants and hotels, like all over the place. It was it was kind of interesting that we weren't paid attention to as foreigners necessarily, you know.
Maïko Le Lay 24:03
Well, I guess there is more of this, like, tourist identity if you are a Japanese person in Europe, like you were labeled as a tourists. Here, you know, I learned that coming here is that old being Japanese is being a minority. It's being you know, because of the history of like, Japanese and American. Like the whole ...
Sharmane Fury 24:33
The internment.
Maïko Le Lay 24:34
Yeah, exactly. And which I was not aware of at all. Like they were camps in the US. Like, I didn't know that.
Sharmane Fury 24:41
Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense that he would never have heard that in school.
Maïko Le Lay 24:46
Yeah. And, you know, in Europe I was. I mean, I guess I was minority because there was nobody Mixed around me. But I never I guess. I mean, I struggled a lot with my Mixedness. But I never considered myself a minority. Like, like my colleagues from the African continent, for example, or the South American continent. I never saw myself that way. And then I came into the US and somebody was involved in like advocacy and lobbying. And then somebody called me a "Woman of Color." And I need a term "Woman of Color" and the connotation that goes with it, like a "Person of Color" it again, as this whole, like Minority concept around it. And I was like, "Me? Like, I'm a minority, I'm a Person of Color?" in that sense. And I've never seen myself that way. I always see myself as just, oh, I'm different. Or, you know, when I speak Japanese, or I am a Buddhist, or Shinto. But I never seen myself like, you know, sort of a different social and racial ethnic hierarchy until I came to the US. And, and then I realized that, that that portrayal of me by others saying, "Oh, this is a Woman of Color," to me was not really accurate. Because I didn't grow up in the US as a "Woman of Color."
Sharmane Fury 26:36
Right.
Maïko Le Lay 26:37
I didn't have the experience of what "Women of Color" in the U.S. go through. I came in as a 25 year old "choosing immigrant," got to go to grad school.
Sharmane Fury 26:51
Yeah.
Maïko Le Lay 26:52
And yes, in this setting now, because of my ethnic heritage, and my cultural knowledge, I am minoritized.
Sharmane Fury 27:02
Do you feel like you're more say obviously a minority? For like, do people treat you like a more "obvious minority" here versus back home? Were you ever approached us with the question of like, "what are you?"
Maïko Le Lay 27:19
Well, I think what's really complicated today is that I'm hyper aware of my privileged.
Sharmane Fury 27:25
Sure.
Maïko Le Lay 27:26
Because of my education, like I have a Ph.D.
Sharmane Fury 27:29
Right.
Maïko Le Lay 27:30
Um, and that sort of almost, it doesn't trump, but it it, it really does something in terms of
Sharmane Fury 27:41
It does "help" in quotations, you know.
Maïko Le Lay 27:43
Yeah. I mean, you know, I do have an accent. So people realize that I'm not from here. But what I meant to say is that I, I don't really identify as a Woman of Color in the U.S. sense of the term. I identify as a international immigrant Woman of Color. Sorry, an international woman immigrant. If that makes sense.
Sharmane Fury 28:13
No. Yeah, that does. Yeah.
Maïko Le Lay 28:16
And that comes with its whole set of issues being even if you're "choosing immigrant," the fact that you're just not American period comes with so many. So many, you know, complications and and, you know, I was talking to my husband recently and I realized something also I've been, you know, in the U.S. for eight years. I've dated people before my husband but one thing I realized is that I probably stick with him and and felt the most comfortable with him because he was also an international immigrant. And so I think that's kind of the the part of my identity that in the US here at this moment it is really what sticks with me it's really what's important to me as opposed to feeling oh I'm Japanese so I'm a minority or I'm French so I'm like this cool little you know, Emily in Paris chick you know, like I don't see myself as that I really see myself as this someone who decided to immigrate and with all the complication that goes with it and you know, there's visas there. A lot of things we are not allowed to do and and and just people have to other you period like their exotic size you.
Sharmane Fury 29:50
You find that that happens far more here in the States than it ever did back in Europe.
Maïko Le Lay 29:56
Yes.
Sharmane Fury 29:57
Or depending where in Europe you were ever at maybe?
Maïko Le Lay 29:59
Yeah, and I mean, I guess the exoticzation has always happened. But, you know, in Belgium or France, French has always been my native tongue. So I didn't have an accent.
Sharmane Fury 30:13
Right.
Maïko Le Lay 30:14
So, yeah, I look different, but people will not question my Frenchness. Here, of course, I have an accent so people can automatically know that I'm not from the U.S. Um, and, you know, again, questions of race and ethnicity is so prevalent here. Yeah, in ways that or kind of not there, at least for people who appear whiter like I do.
Sharmane Fury 30:46
Right. Do you get seen as Asian very often in spaces, do people automatically come up to you and kind of talk to you like they like they know that you're Asian?
Maïko Le Lay 30:56
Nowhere in the world.
Sharmane Fury 31:01
Nowhere in the world?
Maïko Le Lay 31:02
Like, you know, when I was in Europe, people were like, Oh, are you from Morocco? Are you from Turkey? Are you from Tahiti? I can here people like, are you Mexican, or Hawaiian? And that's fine. You know, like, I, like, I don't mind appearing, what whatever people like it's their imagination. And guesses. I don't mind that at all. But it's more like, you cannot know my story. When I'm here, it's hard for people to understand my story because people have not, emigrate, have not chosen to leave their home to live somewhere else. And I'm proud of my choice. It's just, it's, it's complicated to emigrate. And you live that soon when you're go to Mexico.
Sharmane Fury 31:57
Well what's interesting with Americans, U.S. Americans is that the idea of immigrant here means first "illegal" in a lot of the mainstream mind, which is unfortunate, because most of the people who come here aren't coming here illegally. But the way our system is set up, some people get kind of forced into undocumented status and things like that. But if you're an immigrant from a place, especially a European immigrant, that's, that comes with class that comes with status that comes with upper echelon belief, and, and so your your treatment even, even as being an immigrant, your treatment might be slightly better than, you know, a person, a darker skinned person anyways, or more overtly, especially from the southern border is where people are treated the worst here, I think, in terms of immigrant status, it's also choosing to, to acknowledge your immigrant status here is also something that's kind of surprising, because if you're not, say, Mexican, or South American, it's like, Wait, why would you tell people that, you know, like, it's kind of a jarring thing, I think for like the way the U.S. Americans think about that kind of stuff. And so for us, like, for me, I'm a second generation American on both of my grandmother's sides, but you know, multiple generation American from the United States, or from my grandfather's sides, I'm, I get their immigrant status by association, because I'm not an obvious white person. So it'll be like, Oh, where, you know, where are you from? You always could come from somewhere else. And with you, like, yeah, your lighter skin, like to me, your, your, I don't know, like, I wouldn't necessarily know what you were, but I would say that person is either a Mixed person or I can kind of see how somebody would, you know, try to map out and try to find like, are they really are they, whereas, like, here is the same thing. It depends on what type of coast you are. East Coast, I'm Dominican, or Puerto Rican on the West Coast, I'm Filipino or Mexican. Because that's what people that they see more of,
Maïko Le Lay 34:04
Right, right, right.
Sharmane Fury 34:05
You kind of they're just kind of trying to pinpoint you in some way, shape or form. So it's, I think it's a combination, what you deal with is like a combination of that you acknowledge your immigrant status, even though you are a grad student, PhD, you know, all that kind of sounds like it's, they're not expecting to hear someone say it.
Maïko Le Lay 34:25
Yeah, I think, you know, every immigrant whether, you know, your big quote and quotes, please, really think of this quote unquote, "low, low skill" versus "high skill." I really hate those terms, but that's how it's called in social science books. Unfortunately, every immigrant will have a tough time and in terms of what they go through, personally. Of course, the lowers quote unquote "lower skilled" you are, you're gonna experience even more discrimination and whatnot, but there is a big personal work you need to do internal work you need to do when you move away to a different country that speaks a different language that sees race and ethnicity in a very different manner and has a different history and relationship to your ethnic background and cultural background. And, and I realized, for example, when I was in grad school, you know, they were really quick to sort of say, like, I guess, use me as their as their diversity quota, in the sense that, oh, this is, you know, the Japanese and French.
Sharmane Fury 35:58
Like, they get more than one. So it's a "better,"
Maïko Le Lay 36:01
Yeah, I mean..
Sharmane Fury 36:02
I've had that exact thing said to me in places before too.
Maïko Le Lay 36:05
And, it's like, oh, like this international scholar, and this and that, blah, blah, blah. But then in reality, so you, you, I thought I would receive support. And, and there was like, they are resources in place for international scholar, and I'm not saying I didn't, but people are quick to hire into international applicants, because it looks good. Maybe bring money, I don't know. But at the end of the day, they have no idea what these folks go through, and there's not the kind of support that they really need. Right. So you know, even the concept of money, like, we, we don't budget differently, like, it's not just going through a cultural shock, it's about you know, we have families back home, we have, we had to save a lot of money to come here. And, and you're about to lose it in two weeks, because everything is so much overpriced here, like so. You know, I think, yeah, they're quick to feel like, "Oh, this is a cool thing," without really knowing what goes through and, and, and all the hurdles that we have to go through. And so once you're in, you're in, but then it's hard to stay. And I guess a lot of international scholars in grad school is hard in general, but a lot of international scholars do have mental health issues, because of these problems that are not talked about and are, you know, are not followed through as they should.
Sharmane Fury 37:59
I feel like even there, because I used to work in HR in the tech field, and we would hire a lot of engineers from Asia and South Asia. And it's just this expectation that you know, all of our stuff, because we're the U.S., we're America, right? So you get our TV, you get our movies, you get our culture, so you should also understand our money system, you should also understand our the way socio economic status is, you know, like, you should just understand this. So there's no no support in that area. And I didn't realize until I kind of moved up in HR, that people that would come to ask me questions, they usually were very basic things like, you know, was $93,000 a year a reasonable amount of money to live in LA? You know, or maybe they didn't know, but they're like, Okay, I thought this was going to be enough money. But, you know, since the office moved to this area, now, all the houses are, you know, way more like, how do you how do you balance your, what you're making with where you're forced to live and stuff like that, and we don't have anything for that. And it's just like, that's your problem. You know, and so I found it very difficult to keep working in that industry, because I couldn't be a support in the way.. well, I didn't have the support to lend the support, you know, I could only do what I could do based off the fact that I knew what it was like to have grandmothers from other countries who I lived with, who lived in we lived in the same house. And so like, I would see what they would, you know, experience but I'm also a kid that that grew up here. And it's interesting how quickly the it's like, yes, there's some cachet and being able to get, you know, this coveted person in engineering from India or something like that. But when they get here, there's no, there's no support. Like, you're kind of given a big package at the beginning. And then after that, it's like, go out on the world and figure it out.
Maïko Le Lay 39:55
Yeah, you're like, Okay, come it's gonna be wonderful and you're kind of left on your own. And then. And that's why, you know, I know personally I tend to, like my friend community tend to be international folks, just because we understand each other whether I don't have necessarily Mixed Asian friends much. Or at all, I don't know any of them, except through work. Through the research I do, but it's, it's a thing, you know, it's, it's different. And, and I'm not saying, Oh, I don't identify, or I cannot get along with, let's say, Asian Americans or Americans from different ethnic or racial background, it's just the deeper level of understanding will never be the same, right? Because, and again, I'm sure once for example, you're gonna emigrate to Mexico, we will maybe have way more in common than even if it's different countries, different languages and stuff, but just crossing a border and having to go through a shit ton of things. And again, another thing is there something about immigrating when you're a kid, where you are with your parents, that's a whole set of another, you know, I can't imagine immigrating during middle school or high school and your teenager must be terrifying. But kids tend to pick up things really quickly. They're smart, and but unfortunately, it can also cause trauma. Then you have the more, let's say, mature adults who emigrated in their 30s or 40s, who do their research, you know, who, who maybe have, you know, a company or something, a system that supports them. And then you have people like me who were in their mid 20s. And you like, had the American dream and came from an internship that was unpaid. And just came with one suitcase, with just tons of dream in their head, and nothing more. And, you know, kind of have to learn on the spot. But again, I think everything changed the day I met my husband. Before that, it was just a struggle every day, like I was like, I know, I need to stay here, like the back of my mind was something that pulled me here in the U.S. I want to understand, I want to do racial equity work I want to do I want to work in arts and culture. Here. I knew that. But in the same time, I felt out of place. I hated it. Yeah. And so I was able to find sort of a partner. That was like, let's do this together. Like, it's, it's not easy. So let's do this together. And let's figure things out together. And once I found sort of that strong pillar in my life, things got much easier.
Sharmane Fury 43:09
Yeah. I think at the heart of almost everything, and it's a big part of why I even started this show, in particular, and all the other shows that I do as well, is that need for community that we have as people. I grew up predominantly in Black spaces. And even though I'm very pale, Black people can tell I'm Black. And so I get welcomed in very quickly. So I always felt like I had Black community. I felt like I understood myself in Blackness, where I didn't feel I understood myself as in Japaneseness, this because my my main resources, my Japanese grandmother, who chose to leave Japan, because she was obsessed with American movies. So she actively sought out American spouses during the Korean war is when my grandfather was stationed there. And you know, she dated a couple people. And then she found the guy, she ended up marrying. And she came here. And then coming here, she was shedding her Japanese citizenship, and therefore her, her Japaneseness was gone as far as she was concerned. And I didn't understand that I had to become an adult, I had to have these conversations with a whole bunch of Mixed people to really understand that, like, your Japanese nationality is a bigger part of your Japanese identity than your culture or your heritage, necessarily. Your ethnicity is not as prevalent, or at least for her it wasn't. So she thought of her kids, not as Japanese and white, she thought of them as Americans,
Maïko Le Lay 44:30
Right.
Sharmane Fury 44:31
And she was becoming an American. And so my craving for like Japaneseness and this she always would be like you're not Japanese, I don't understand why you care. And that would be very hurtful to me, because I didn't understand what she was saying. Which is that I'm no longer Japanese citizens. So why we're not Japanese anymore. And I think what I'm assuming from an immigrant status, which I'm going to be having soon, is the the period of time it takes you to transition from I'm, in her case being Japanese to being American. In my case, I don't feel American in America, I'm a second class citizen in America because I'm a Person of Color. Because I come from an immigrant family and stuff like that I have I, you know, I go lower, lower down the tier, I don't get American status granted to me until I leave the country. When I leave the country, I get American status. And I can see instantly the privilege that that it comes with, right, my blue passport, I know, I'm going to experience that privilege where I'm going.
Maïko Le Lay 45:33
Yeah, this shift is really interesting is like, how are you...
Sharmane Fury 45:37
Is it jarring? Like, are you just ahhhh.
Maïko Le Lay 45:39
I mean, yeah, it's really confusing. How, you know, one day you can be at the top of the social hierarchy and racial hierarchy and the next you're not. And, and that, but I think that's one of our strengths as MCs, people, you know, I think we should use that as our power to be able to navigate. Not everyone can navigate that. And, and I'm not saying it's not hard, but we do have that ability.
Sharmane Fury 46:09
Yeah, it's like a little bit of a superpower in being able to jump from community to community and even though you're not like the perfect fit, you blend.
Maïko Le Lay 46:19
You're like a chameleon. One of my interviewees said. "I'm like a chameleon," and I really feel like that was an accurate, accurate portrayal of what you go through. Yeah, no, absolutely. And the more you know, I stay in the U.S. It's been eight years now. I don't feel American. I'm never gonna be American. But there's a lot of Americaness in me in my life now. Because, like, why wouldn't it be I mean, I'm 24/7 here and
Sharmane Fury 46:58
Are you feeling that your Frenchness or your, do you identify as Belgian in any way? Just because you live there or more?
Maïko Le Lay 47:05
I do identify as Belgian in terms of like, citizenship. But Belgium is a huge part of my of my life, like
Sharmane Fury 47:18
Cultural identity, to a degree.
Maïko Le Lay 47:18
I do Belgian beers as a Belgian chocolate as a Belgian waffles. In Belgium, you know, my my bestee s are in Belgium. Yeah. So it? It's one of my homes, definitely.
Sharmane Fury 47:31
Do you feel that? You're? Like your? How am I? I'm trying to dig it out? I'm asking because I've kind of asking a citizenship question. But it's also an identity question of like, do you feel draining your citizenship or your identity with France and Belgium? Do you do you feel like it getting smaller so that when you go back maybe to visit that you don't feel quite natural, they're as natural anymore. They're, now that it's influenced by your American life? I
Maïko Le Lay 48:03
mean, when I'm when I go visit there, I definitely feel American like
Sharmane Fury 48:10
You do!?
Maïko Le Lay 48:10
I think in the American way. I act very American. And when I'm here, people are like, Oh, you're so French, you know. And then through my work now, especially recently, I've been through my work and this whole advocacy thing of just question of Japaneseness. And Mixedness has really come to the forefront of my life and my identity and how I think too, so. But before as a 25 year old, you just go through life, your party, like I didn't really think deeply about those things. It's really recently, you know, getting in my closer to my 30s and now in my 30s and about to have a child that those things are becoming so present and so heavy. And I have no answer. I don't I'm just trying to navigate. And so I my shedding my Frenchness? Um it's just that I don't get to perform Frenchness.
Sharmane Fury 49:22
Frenchness yeah.
Maïko Le Lay 49:22
Like, I don't have a situation where I get to be French, or I get to be Japanese. Like, the only situations I have is my once a week Skype call with my mom where I speak in Japanese. That's literally the most Japanese thing I will do. And French is the same like it's a couple quick phone calls I'll get from my dad. Maybe my cooking is really French. Yeah.
Sharmane Fury 49:52
Yeah. Well, again, that goes back to the thing about that craving community is that even if like it makes sense that you would attach to a general immigrant community of people, international immigrant community, versus specifically looking for Japanese-French people, because that's gonna be a lot harder. It's a you know, at least you have this crossover. And in Mixedness, that that's what we do, right? We're like, we see other Mixed people were like, Okay, you get this weird chameleon moment that I have to have. And I don't have to explain it to you because you get it. And we can just kind of sit in it. That craving of some form of community where you're just not the only one, when so much of your life is you being the only one. I mean, that makes that makes complete sense to me. But I'm, I feel like it's separate from what we're doing here for Militantly Mixed just, I have so many questions about what it feels like as you start to feel your, if you even are aware of it, which I probably probably aren't until you go back to France, like, does this like what is the shedding process? Like, do you just like, you're just sitting there interacting and you're American culture are so much that by the time you go home, you're like, Oh, I do this thing now that I didn't used to do, because this is something that they do in the States.
Maïko Le Lay 51:04
Yeah, like, for example, you know, consumerism is such a huge part of American culture. Like,
Sharmane Fury 51:14
It's pretty much everything here in the U.S.
Maïko Le Lay 51:17
Yeah, and so you know, I don't abide by it. But when I go back home, I'm like, Oh, I'm definitely different from all members of my family. And my friends are how they think about money, how they think about spin expenditure. Yeah, I mean, so those are very hard. And, you know, for me, I'm like, okay, like, how I accepted the fact that are likely going to stay in the US most of my life, and that I'm going to just keep navigating that, but I'm comfortable with that situation now, because I have a partner in crime, my husband, who is going through the same thing, same thing. But now when it goes to parenting, you know, I'm like, what do you do with your kid who is gonna be American, like, by birth, he's gonna get the American citizenship. So get super different than what I'm going to experience.
Sharmane Fury 52:20
And on a multi-generational level, your child's grandparents are from two different countries,
Maïko Le Lay 52:26
Three different countries!
Sharmane Fury 52:26
Three countries, your parents, you there, your child's parents are also from different countries.
Maïko Le Lay 52:33
And they everyone wants to have theirs. You know, like, the Indian grandparents were like, oh, no, my grandkid is young, you have to teach everything Indian. And I'm like, well, you know what, like they are they'll go to school in the U.S. But then what do you do to put them in bilingual school to teach them? What kind of values you teach them? Because the thing is what I experienced, I was raised with a single mother, who only spoke to me in Japanese, in the Western world, where I went to a Belgian and French school. And I don't want to sort of replicate that experience for my kid in the sense that I was really two different people. Yeah, into in those at home, I was Maïko, the Japanese. And at school I was trying to fit in because that was I was a weirdo.
Sharmane Fury 53:32
Right, right.
Maïko Le Lay 53:33
And I don't want that to happen for my kid. Like, yes, they're gonna have,
Sharmane Fury 53:39
They're gonna have some.
Maïko Le Lay 53:41
For sure. Because, again, coming from different culture, but how to enact that's why I before when I came to the US, I was really judgmental about assimilation. Or these parents or grandparents who chose not to teach culture and like, I didn't understand I was like, why aren't you so proud, proud of your culture? How can you eliminate that and just forget about your past and, and not you know, give that chance to your, to your to the next generation. But now, I really understand because it's, it is difficult to be different. And you don't want like, you don't even want your puppy to feel right. Could it from the I'd like that's so when you when you have that sort of protective instinct. I definitely understand why somebody would like no, you have to assimilate like be be what the majority is.
Sharmane Fury 54:46
Oh you've hit on something that I like, I've only been half thinking about of I've always wondered like, Why did my grandmother's give up? What I'm assuming is a big part of their identity, which is felt like so easy for them to shed it to be here. And to think that like, I don't even realize how American I am and how even though I am different as a Mixed person, I can at least maneuver any place in the United States for the most part, and not have too many challenges. And I've only become aware of that when I leave the country. And,
Maïko Le Lay 55:23
And it may not have been for her it may have been for her kids, you know? Well.
Sharmane Fury 55:27
Yeah, yeah but you don't think about that kind of, because you don't know your parents and you don't know your grandparents as "people." I say this all the time, like you know them as your grandparents, your parents, you know, they're not, you don't know them as fully formed people. So even trying to figure out how to meet them like that, how to understand the decisions that they made, and how they impacted your upbringing, and the kind of decisions you're making that are going to impact your child like, Yeah, I think, but that's touched on something because I've been saying things like, I'm gonna go to Mexico, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get in there, you know, I'm gonna learn to culture, I'm going to try to adapt as much as possible. And I'm using different words, I'm using adapt, not assimilate, I'm using participate, you know, not "get rid of" like, you know, I'm using words that make it seem like, I'm not going to be doing exactly the same thing that probably both my grandmother's did, and probably the same in the case of your mom, because she was an immigrant to where you grew up.
Maïko Le Lay 56:22
I mean, it's hard. And, you know, I think what happened to me is, my Japanese mom did not try to adapt, like, she really much say, Japanese, she worked for Japanese companies. So she would do job, come back home be Japanese. So for me, I was educated as a Japanese person, at home. And then in the school system, I was very much educated by the school system in a European way. But I had to do that job as a kid of disassociating home versus, like, informal, home culture versus formal school culture, and friend's culture, and there was such a clash, because, you know, you're not supposed to talk about boys in Japanese culture.
Sharmane Fury 57:19
Right ...
Maïko Le Lay 57:20
You're not supposed to be loud, you're not supposed to have opinions, and this and that, and nobody really taught me how to navigate that. And, and, and so part of me is like, if, yeah, I'm very proud of my culture. And tomorrow, if my kid is born, I'm gonna be, oh, you have to learn about French culture, Japanese culture, Indian culture. But then that's so much pressure to put on them, because,
Sharmane Fury 57:46
and then they gotta go to school and be American.
Maïko Le Lay 57:50
Exactly! It's, I'm not saying it's violent, but it's..
Sharmane Fury 57:53
it's jarring. It's physical.
Maïko Le Lay 57:57
It's physical, it's mental. It's like, you're putting a lot of pressure on saying, Hey, you, you have to know all these things. You have to know how to behave in all these ways, you have to know all these customs. But you need to put a face and go to the world, the American.
Sharmane Fury 58:15
But I think what is going to be different for your child is the fact that you can have the conversation you and I are having right now that I can only assume our parents did not have. Right. Like even though both of my parents are biracial, they weren't talking to me to prepare me for how my Mixedness was going to carry out in the world. We in silos talked about the Black stuff, the Japanese stuff, you know, like we did that in silos, we didn't cross it over, you may have had something similar to that. Or, you know, like you said, you don't, no one told you be Japanese at home, be French outside, you just pick that up from osmosis, you just experienced it and you got the social cues that we just kind of naturally pick up in places, but you're having these conversations, and you're studying stuff like this, too. So you're gonna have the tools to be able to probably really early on be talking to your kid or just like you're experiencing something that probably your friends aren't. But it's okay, because we're going to talk about it when you're confused. We'll talk about it. I'm confused, too. You know, like, I think that's a different thing that's happening now that we're having conversations about being Mixed more openly than my even my parents generation did. It'll be a lot easier for people in that second generation tier to be able to talk that you know, that's happening now to be able to talk to their children about it and and just like...
Maïko Le Lay 59:42
You're so, right.
Sharmane Fury 59:43
You're not going to be perfect, you know that you're not going to be perfect, but you're going to get further I think your kid is going to be far more prepared because you have so much awareness to it. The other thing is you live in a really great city for experiencing. There's Japanese school, there's the Buddhist temple where I used to live in West LA is the temple right there.
Maïko Le Lay 1:00:03
A lot of Mixed people in general.
Sharmane Fury 1:00:05
Yeah, the Japanese school, the grocery stores are there. There's also the Little Tokyo side of town as well. There's the French school, there's two or three French schools. So you could technically you know, and I assume there's probably Hindi classes somewhere as well for for kids. Like, I think there's ways that you'll be able to expose them, at least in the language side of things. But it does mean more work for your child and other children that they're going to be around will experience. And they're going to resist it too, because you don't want to be different. So you do resist learning language here in the States, that's usually really common, resisting learning the family language, because you don't want to be weird at school. And then you get to be an adult, and you're like, Shit, I wish I spoke my family's languages. Yeah, so I think you'll be more prepared, and you're just going to have so much more awareness that your child is going to be able to have a little bit more awareness than your generation.
Maïko Le Lay 1:00:59
No, I think your point is absolutely correct is there's a shift in parenting period, like parents now. Like active parenting means talking, communicating, and even about insecurities. Which was not a thing. I think, in the past, you just worked, worked, worked, and just try to provide for your family. And that was, what was put on a pedestal as being a good parent. Today is different, like, actively educating, discussing about these difficult, you know, issues.
Sharmane Fury 1:01:37
An mental health, we talk about mental health now, which we didn't use.
Maïko Le Lay 1:01:40
Yeah so no, you're absolutely right. So maybe I shouldn't overthink this whole thing too much. But
Sharmane Fury 1:01:47
You're gonna right? I mean, you're about to part like you've made a person is it's gonna be a weird, I like I'm 45. And I'm not planning on having children. But it always, it's always so wild to me that we make people like, I don't understand it. I get it. It but it seems wild that we do this, and then we gotta make them then we gotta like, teach them to be a person.
Maïko Le Lay 1:02:11
Yeah, it's only so much you can do to and because life society is going to happen to them.
Sharmane Fury 1:02:17
Yeah. And you're not gonna be there for every step. But this, like, I feel like I could have Well, I'm glad that you and I have a reason to be connected more, because I, you've triggered so many thoughts that I haven't really been able to actively, you know, work through. But I would love to talk to you more about stuff like this. I guess one thing before I ask the final question that I normally ask everybody try to pinpoint a little bit of something. You had mentioned a comment earlier, where you said something to the effect, like you weren't really like actively not that you didn't have an awareness of your mixedness, but you weren't, like actively being able to participate, like Mixed, you know, before? Was it your transition to the states? Or when do you feel like you started to go from just like, you knew you were French at school and Japanese at home to being like, a Mixed person?
Maïko Le Lay 1:03:10
I think it's extremely recent.
Sharmane Fury 1:03:12
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
Maïko Le Lay 1:03:13
Like I'm talking like maybe a few months ago. And you with so maybe this is a good time to talk about briefly my research and CMRS. Yeah, they have been. So my current research is on the identities and embodied and digital practices of people who identify as Black and Japanese, like, like you, for example. And what prompted me to start researching about this particular population is the documentary on Netflix about Naomi Osaka. Yeah. Who is? Yeah, who was Haitian and Japanese. And, you know, the documentary was about a bunch of different things, but also her identity struggle. And not I'm not Black and Japanese. But there's a lot of things that resonated with me. And I think that day, like upon watching that show, I realized, I am Mixed, and I am I am not French or Japanese, I'm French and Japanese and international and immigrant. And all this intersectionality.
Sharmane Fury 1:04:32
Yeah.
Maïko Le Lay 1:04:32
Makes me very complex. And, and, and so that documentary really prompted me to do this research and eventually I want to research about hafu of the population. But I wanted to focus on you know, Black and Japanese first in terms of like doing more racial equity work, and I feel like it was probably the most pressing population to look at first, but so I think it's really recent, that documentary came out in 2021, I think, yeah. Then I started and then recently, I joined the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association. And realize that oh, there is a community there, there are people looking into this, there are people studying this. It's not. It's not uncommon. But, okay, I'm 31. I think back in the days at school, there were pretty much nobody in Belgium, like, it might be, I think, here in the U.S., but it's not as much.
Sharmane Fury 1:05:35
Us We had very few like the old, the oldest person that I'm like, I can think of awareness, like in the early 90s was Naomi's or like nine days was Naomi Zach was like the only person I knew that was like doing something where Mixedness was a part of what they were talking about in academia. So the or more now, and I have tons of people I can or not tons, I have a few people I can connect you to if you want. But yeah, it's it's it's a whole other world.
Maïko Le Lay 1:06:04
There are people like YOU now who, you know, like there's social media, there is more representation through the media and popular media, thanks to folks like you. But you know, I don't think Mixedness was an identity stamp or an identity marker for me, until I found these two big things in my life, which is this documentary and CMRS. And I'm not sure if tomorrow, let's say I go back to France, or I go back to Japan, that would still be a thing, because it's still very much in this American realm, right. But I see Mixedness. And I understand it, and I discuss it in in a very American way of understanding it, even though I come with this lens of being an immigrant. So there is layers to that. I did create a performance a choreography during grad school, which did not have an actual word title. The title was just question mark, exclamation point, question mark, exclamation point, that was the title, because I couldn't put words into sort of my my fucked up mind. And all that was going through and it was multilingual. It was English, French and Japanese. And so I guess it's kind of started even during grad school because of the markers that people would put on me. Or because, you know, I would, there was one scene for example, I just, I just go to the Starbucks and I say my name is Maïko, but people was like Michael, Manko, Manko in Japanese, vagina, and I'm like, what's going on? Like, why? You know why you might just be me? Or say, Oh, can I have a pain au chocolat, which is like the quintessential French breakfast and people like chocolate croissant. And like, I was like, What is this world? Where am I like, I felt like a total alien. And these are small, stupid things, but on a daily basis.
Sharmane Fury 1:08:13
But they're not, yeah, they stack!
Maïko Le Lay 1:08:15
And so I guess it may have started in grad school gradually, very gradually. But the Naomi Osaka documentary definitely was sort of the starting point of like, "Hey, I Mixed" and I need to do something about it. And I need to talk about it. And I need to find people to talk to about it, because it's not easy.
Sharmane Fury 1:08:38
Yeah. Okay. So awareness wise, we'll say that it's more recent, existence wise, it's just been there. But whether or not it's like screamed loud in your face or not, it was just kind of happening. But now that you have more of an awareness of it. One thing that I do like to ask everybody that comes on the show, because sometimes we talk a lot about trauma or isolation or whatever. I like to see what do people love most about being Mixed, which will be really interesting given that you have such a recent like marker as to when it's become a part of your actual identity.
Maïko Le Lay 1:09:15
What I liked the most. I think is my empathy, towards difference or towards people who feel different. And so I have maybe more patience towards that, like, I don't know if somebody who has not experienced multiple culture hadn't had to navigate as much like code switch as much as we do. How have that same kind of understanding and patience and compassion towards sort of the visceral and embodied difficulties or navigation that goes into it? And I think again, that's power like I see as Doubleness, in instead of seeing it as, oh, half beign half something or have other good.
Sharmane Fury 1:10:25
Oh my gosh. How are you and I not best friends already. The amount of times I tell people, it's more, not less. It's not half, it's like literally more than one thing. So why do we view it as this like? Smaller vers? Like we're smaller, somehow? Double? I like using it double makes sense? That's a good one, too. Yeah okay.
Maïko Le Lay 1:10:44
Maybe I think it multiplies like it. It's not like a mathematical logical equation. And it's, it is just, it's sort of multiplies, like your empathy multiplies. Your awareness multiplies. Your, your way of behaving can multiply. And so your identity is so polycultural, in many ways.
Sharmane Fury 1:11:11
I truly believe that being Mixed and having to act, especially if you're actively having to jump from culture to culture, like at family gatherings, or out in the world, or whatever it is, I do fully believe that that amps up your empathy, because you're, you're forced to have to see people in different places, it's dealing with different things and having to adapt to all those spaces. Yeah, that's one of the things I also agree that empathy is such a, it's, I think it's so much more amplified when we have to when we HAVE to HAVE interactions with other cultures.
Maïko Le Lay 1:11:50
Yeah, like, I think we have the ability to, even if we don't agree with someone's perspective or way of behaving, we have the capacity to understand where we're coming from, and why do they think this way do things a certain way, which, because, again, you know, Japanese household really Japanese, and it clashes with Western ideology, ideologies.
Sharmane Fury 1:12:22
Yeah.
Maïko Le Lay 1:12:27
And, in my, in my whole life, I've my academic life, at least, I always lean and study towards African diasporic cultures, because I always felt like you know, I'm stuck with this Asian, Eastern Asian that's stuck with your European aesthetics. And I'm like, I need to go out of that I wanted to know something different. And so I've learned a lot about African diasporic cultures and heritages and so I think it's that capacity of understanding others perspective, other cultural, mental, whatever other prospective ways of moving and behaving and being in the world. And being empathic about because we're also different, and it's easy, when you've been raised in a certain way with one monoculture to just sort of follow that trend, or be against that, but instead, I think we're a little bit more fluid and a little bit more. All over the place, like a little bit more.
Sharmane Fury 1:13:48
I agree. Yeah.
Maïko Le Lay 1:13:49
We're multidimensional.
Sharmane Fury 1:13:51
No, absolutely agree. Thank you so much for joining me on this, I'm looking forward to what we're going to be, you know, working kind of together on in the future. But I'm, I'm excited also to see what happens with your research, you know, on a purely selfish way, you know, the more Black Japanese mixes that get talked about, I think it's such a, such a hard part of my mix, in and we can talk about that, too. It's such a hard part of my mix and maneuverings, especially on the Japanese side as a Mixed Black person. So I would love to hear and more than just my experience of what happens. The Osaka documentary, Hachimura situation like all of that is very, I'm paying so much attention to it. So I'm looking forward to that. Why don't you tell people if you'd like to how they can find you or if there's something connected to your research that you're looking for?
Maïko Le Lay 1:14:45
Yeah, absolutely. I think I tried to update my website, MaïkoLeLay.com come as often as possible with the project I'm currently involved in. So that's a good way to learn what I'm doing. If you are a scholar and academic academia.edu You can find me as well. I try to keep my social media as private as possible. But yeah so but stay in touch. You know CMRS is a great resource I think we'll both going to be involved in it for the next few years. So CMRS.org Please go and check it out and be involved as much as possible and and try to find you know, other resources like this podcast or other organizations and groups in your area our or virtually that you feel you can affiliate with and that's been a huge, huge support to me.
Sharmane Fury 1:15:50
Militantly Mixed as 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 @MilitantlyMixed. 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 your Mixed so. ManeHustle Media, turn your side hustle into your main hustle.