Name: Andre Nandi Mix: Bulgarian & Bengali Major & Year: Computer Science; Sophomore
Q: How has being mixed affected your campus experience?
A: It has put me in a unique position to look at situations from two very different perspectives. While it’s hard to find people exactly like me, I’m able to find some commonalities with a large spectrum of identities
Q: What do you wish more people knew about the mixed experience?
A: Being mixed means you are in a very interesting middle ground between identities. Every mixed person has a very special relationship with the cultures that make them who they are. While some embrace one and look like the other, others may embrace both and look like outsiders in both. Everyone navigates these complexities and finds a home in very different but beautiful ways.
Q: Who is the most influential person in your life?
A: My parents are the most influential people in my life. Whether it’s coming from poverty to living through the end of communism in their country, they took massive risks to come to the US and make a life for themselves. They constantly teach me very vastly different perspectives, and while I don’t always agree with them, these two sides make me who I am.
Name: Alanna Grace-Marie Mix: Black, biracial (German & Nigerian) Major & Year: Sociology – Afro-American Studies; Junior Transfer Student
I am a visual sociologist and multimedia artist. I use my art to tell my unique story as well as share Black history and culture to uplift my community with positive representation. My business instagram is @equitable.arts
Q: How has being mixed affected your campus experience?
A: Being a Black presenting biracial woman at a predominantly white institution, representation is hard to find. So I create my own! And I collaborate with others who have intersectional identities to share their stories too.
Q: What do you wish more people knew about the mixed experience?
A: The mixed experience is unique for every individual and it can be complicated in unique ways too! This isn’t always a negative experience, we can use our unique perspectives to brighten this world. So please, refrain from placing us in stereotypical boxes.
+1: I will write an autobiography one day soon to show the world how being both Black and biracial has informed me and shaped my experiences in this world. I was raised to act a certain way and certainly, society put more pressure on me to conform. But now, I reject this! I am all of my ethnicities and identities, uniquely me! No need to pick a side.
+2: Blair Imani is an educational inspiration of mine. She also rejects stereotypes of her identities and lives an authentic life to uplift all marginalized individuals.
Name: Indira Sankaran Mix: Indian, White-American Major & Year: PitE and EEB; Junior
Q: How has being mixed affected your campus experience?
A: It has definitely been an experience! I have always had difficulty understanding where I fit into society and coming into a new environment, without any strong cultural foundation, is hard. Especially with so many ethnic and cultural organizations, I always have a difficult time joining them because I did not have a similar upbringing or experience from others. However, being a junior and meeting so many new people from many backgrounds, I have cultivated a community where I feel safe to express myself.
Q: What do you wish more people knew about the mixed experience?
A: That my mixed experience is soo different from others who identify as mixed or multiracial. We should not be defined into a category and everyone expresses or represents in so many different ways!!
Q: What is your proudest moment?
A: My proudest moment was recently when I realized that my school or academic success doesn’t define me or my future.
Q: What are you most anxious about right now?
A: Presently I’m nervous about internships! But overall, I’m anxious about leaving college and my safe community in a year.
Q: What kind of person do you aspire to be?
A: That is a hard question but i aspire to be a kind and grounding person. I want to be the person that is independent and kind to herself and others 😌
Q: Who is the most influential person in your life?
A: Would it be narcissistic to say myself haha. I’m proud of myself and how much i have grown these past two years! I aspire myself to work on myself and I think that is the most influential thing a person can do.
Hi, my name is Alice Conner! The first post of this series is a self-portrait. I’m a 2nd-year undergraduate student majoring in Industrial & Operations Engineering. I racially identify as mixed (Japanese and White-American) and drawing is one of my hobbies! This series is called Mixed on Campus and was inspired by the Humans of New York project. The purpose of Mixed on Campus is to give a voice to this university’s mixed community and shed light on its members. Being mixed means to be multiracial, multiethnic, and/or a transnational adoptee. Through Mixed on Campus, mixed students have the opportunity to have their portrait drawn and share their experiences!
Being mixed has been a defining part of my life, even when I didn’t fully understand it myself. Growing up, I struggled to find a community that would accept my whole identity as it is without judgement or discrimination. Since coming to this university, I’ve been able to find a place within a supportive and inclusive community that has helped me understand my identity and uplift myself. I’m very grateful to the student organization Mixed@Michigan, whose purpose is to foster a community of mixed, multiracial, multiethnic, and transnational adoptee students at the university. I joined in the fall of 2022 and now serve as a board member for the org. This project would not be possible without Mixed@Michigan!
Welcome back to her kind; I hope you all had a lovely holiday break (and can manage to hang on for just a couple more weeks before the semester ends)!
This week, I want to dive into another composer I love—one who is still making waves throughout the contemporary scene today: Sky Macklay. Macklay is currently teaching at Peabody, and as a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, she’s working to release a chamber music album that synthesizes her work as a composer as well as her “raucous, multiphonic-rich oboe practice.”
Macklay’s music is filled with unexpected and conventional textures—one can hear this in her piece ‘White/Waves’ and ‘Chopped,’ as well as her iconic string quartet, ‘Many Many Cadences.’
‘Many Many Cadences’ is one of my favorite string quartets, and one of the first string quartets I discovered by a living composer. The piece re-contextualizes traditional harmonies—repeating a series of cadences in quick succession to form phrases and motives. The colors and textures Macklay extracts from the strings through developing the material provides an effective contrast to the bright, piercing nature of the initial motive. It’s wonderfully playful, which is something I strive for in my own writing, as well. At the end of the piece, when the initial motive returns, it’s transformed through the most delightful onslaught of slides—the motive is almost indistinguishable, but ultimately it’s just present enough for the ear to catch on.
One of Macklay’s scores, Inner Life of Song, from 2015
Another stunning piece by Macklay is her violin and piano duo, FastLowHighSlow. Immediately, one can hear her playing with textures and registers—which is implied by the title. The piece particularly direct in concept, but it kept my interest the whole way through listening because of Macklay’s unique use of textural combinations.
Aside from her music, Macklay’s outlook on music also resonates with me:
“I love weird contemporary music and sharing it with the next generation,” she explained. “I think a lot of it is sharing my own personal perspective on it—just show how much a particular sound excites me and how beautiful I think it is. I think that’s sort of contagious, or at least let’s people perceive it as a beautiful thing, or something that some person thinks is a beautiful thing. I also think that exposure, experience, experiential education, and experiential pieces are really a great way to do outreach. … That’s something I think more composers should do: write music that has a participatory role for amateur musicians, or for just audience members.”
Finding ways to connect over the beauty of something—sounds, colors, experiences—is the primary reason I pursue art. If you want to connect over the beauty of Macklay’s music, you can listen here on the her kind playlist, or check out her scores on YouTube!
semester ends)!
