What Mixed Race Meditation Has Meant to Us
Dear Mixed Race Meditation Family,
As 2021 comes to a close, we have so much to celebrate as a community. This December marks a total of 18 months gathering and healing our identities as multiracial individuals. As we prepare for our first Winter 2021 Day-Long Retreat together on Sunday, December 5th 10:00-5:00pm ET, we wanted to personally share with all of you what this community has meant to us individually.
With love,
Your Winter 2021 Day-Long Retreat Facilitators
Adriana, Kane, and Pollyanna
Adriana DiFazio
“In June 2020, I sought out a space to critically explore my racial identity with other mixed people. BIPOC spaces had been deeply affirmative for me in the past but I was looking for a group where I could bring all parts of myself, honestly and completely.
Since our first gathering, the Mixed Race Meditation Group has filled that need for me—a community to have nuanced, difficult, and healing conversations about the complexities of racial and ethnic belonging. It’s provided me with a group of people that have helped me see and reaffirm my inherent wholeness and humanity. It’s also shown me the simple yet incredible power of practicing meditation with other mixed people.”
Kane Barr
“In January 2020, I found my father and his family on 23andMe. I learned that he, his father, and his other children are mixed race, too. In fact, my mom, her mom, and her mom's father are mixed race as well. By the time of the Black Lives Matter resurgence in June 2020, I was already thinking deeply about my own racial identity and how I fit into the cultural current events. That's when I stumbled upon the Mixed Race Meditation Group and joined the second meeting.
Being able to meet others who know what it's like to experience life between multiple races and hearing similar stories has been so transformative. Each time we meet, we also discuss various concepts and contemplations surrounding our racial identities, such as anger, shame, and building community. We support each other as we dig deep to discover what it means to be mixed race in this current society. Ultimately, we ask ourselves, and each other, who we are.
The Mixed Race Meditation Group has been an integral part of my personal healing journey and I hope it can be the same for you!”
Pollyanna Macchiano
“I joined the Mixed Race Meditation Group in December 2020, when the pandemic was raging and many of us were unvaccinated and unsure of what the future would hold for 2021. Not much has changed—I’m still on this wild ride with all of you and also finding ways to navigate and be with it. Joining the MRMG that fateful month was a turning point for me. It was the catalyst for my deepening meditation practice and the start of a reconciliation of my mixed identity, things I didn’t realize I needed until that moment.
I am of Filipinx and Sicilian-American heritage, with a close connection to the immigration stories of both my parents’ families. One of the most powerful parts of joining the MRMG is that I got to be in a space with so many others like me. People who have also struggled with their different identities, who have endured society’s awkwardness around folks like us who often had to check the “Other” box. Since becoming a part of this beautiful sangha, I’ve been able to articulate and hear others’ unique and similar experiences in an effort to strengthen our collective healing. I am grateful to be here with all of you, and proud to be a mixed person in this mixed up world. The future is as bright as we choose to make it."