MIXED ROOTS FESTIVAL TO PRESENT LOVING DAY PRIZE TO PLAYWRIGHT HOUSTON, SCHOLAR SPICKARD JUNE 11

The 4th Annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, a free public event targeting the growing population of multi-racial, multicultural individuals and families, is set for June 11 and 12 at the Japanese American National Museum with a full schedule of film screenings, workshops, readings and live performances, highlighted by the largest West Coast party marking Loving Day, the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that struck the ban against interracial marriages in certain states. The event, supported by the National Museum, Target, Zerflin.com and the Puffin Foundation, is free and open to the public.

Co-produced by Fanshen Cox and Heidi Durrow, creators of the award-winning podcast Mixed Chicks Chat, the Festival is a fiscally sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts. The Loving Day Celebration, set for Saturday, June 11, at 6 p.m., features the presentation of the 2011 Loving Prize to scholar Paul Spickard and playwright Velina Hasu Houston. Spickard, a professor at UC Santa Barbara, is author of books such as Mixed Blood: Intermarriage & Ethnic: Intermarriage And Ethnic Identity In Twentieth Century America. Houston, a professor of theater at the USC, is known for works such as Tea, a play about Japanese war brides living in America.

Following the Loving Prize presentation will be live performances, hosted by Victoria Platt Tilford and Terrell Tilford. Among those scheduled to perform are Amy Hill, CP Chang, Emmanuel Matt Egwu, Zhang Xiao Xiu, Jason Luckett, Linda Ravenswood, Kimberlee Soo, Jessica Young and 2nd Story.

Film screenings include "Yelling at the Sky" by Victoria Mahoney on Saturday, at 2:30 p.m.; "One Big Hapa Family" by Jeff Chiba Stearns on Sunday at 3 p.m.; "Uncovering Color" by Marcelitte Failla and "Cedar & Bamboo" by Kamala Todd and Diana Leung on Sunday, beginning at 11 a.m. Readings set for 1:30 p.m. on Saturday will feature Nina Revoyr, author of the award-winning book Southland; Susan Straight, author of seven novels and winner of the Lannan Prize; and Danzy Senna, a black poet of Mexican heritage whose first novel Caucasia won several awards.

Workshops are scheduled all day on Saturday, beginning at 10 a.m. with "Mixed Messages: Mixed Race/Interracial Representation in TV & Film & Media", followed by "Out of Sorrow, Out of Joy: Writing Poetry from Deep Experience"; "What’s All the Hype? Making Sense of Mixed Stereotypes in the Media"; and concluding with "Don’t Pass on Context: The Importance of Academic Discourses in Contemporary Discussion on the Multiracial Experience". The Sunday workshop, beginning at 11:30 a.m., will be "Storytelling".

For more information, go to www.mxroots.org.