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In this episode, Dr. Kim Middleton joins Dr. Shawna Gann to talk about growing up Korean American and White in Las Vegas, being misread in both White and Korean spaces, and the rare, life-changing moments when someone sees you exactly as you see yourself.

In this episode:

• Kim’s undergraduate years at the Johnston Center for Integrative Learning at the University of Redlands, a program with no majors and no grades
• Her family’s history, from Korean immigration to Hawaii’s sugar plantations to a mixed marriage in California
• The babysitting story that showed Kim she hadn’t yet seen herself as mixed
• Getting “the eyebrow” from white colleagues and disappointment in Koreatown
• The campus tour that made her want to move back West
• Why Black folks give each other the nod, and what it means to be seen far from home
• The meaning behind Whole Fishes Consulting and a lesson from her mother
• What’s broken in higher ed and why it needs to start with students
• Mixed Message: feeling closest to a group that doesn’t fully share your experience, and the difference between being accepted and being trusted

About our guest:
Dr. Kim Middleton is a second generation educator and principal at Whole Fishes Consulting, where she guides institutional leaders through organizational strategy, research, and facilitation, and designs programming focused on sustaining joy in challenging times. She hosts and produces the podcast This Book Made Me.

Connect with Kim:
LinkedIn: Kim Middleton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/middletonkim/
This Book Made Me podcast: https://www.thisbookmademe.com/

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

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“We don’t look like we belong together, but we do.”

That’s what Maeve and Shea Lucas’s mom used to say when strangers couldn’t see them as a family. In this episode, Dr. Shawna Gann sits down with the sisters, both adopted as babies from China and raised by White parents in Northville, Michigan. They share a family and an adoption story, but their experiences of identity couldn’t be more different. Maeve found community early, surrounded by Chinese friends and later a network of adoptees and mixed-race peers. Shea spent years feeling “not Asian enough, not white enough,” until she found friends who also lived in the in-between.

Together they unpack the “what are you” question, strangers mistaking Maeve for her father’s wife, the “you’re so lucky” narrative and the savior framing behind it, and the difference between curiosity and someone needing to sort you. They also share how preparing for this episode sparked a conversation about race and identity they had never had with each other.

In this episode:

• Why Shea doesn’t lead with being adopted, and why she wants to tell that part on her own terms
• Being mistaken for a partner rather than a daughter when out with their dad
• How to tell genuine curiosity from the need to categorize, and a better way to ask about someone’s background
• Grace, intent, and educating people who don’t know better
• Two sisters, two very different childhoods: community found versus community waited for
• Fitting in versus belonging, and why Shawna thinks of fitting in like getting a dress tailored
• Advice for stepping outside the boxes others build for you

About the guests:
Maeve Lucas is a University of Michigan graduate and clinical research coordinator at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, preparing for medical school. She is wrapping up a study on Down syndrome adoption, an underrepresented area within adoption research.

Shea Lucas is a senior at Wayne State University in Detroit studying biology with a minor in chemistry, with plans for a career in forensic science. She helped found Wayne State’s first club water polo team.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

How would you answer if someone asked you what it means to "live out loud"?

In this episode of Our True Colors, Dr. Shawna Gann and co-host Marcel De Jonghe welcome Drew Faulkner, a Buffalo, New York native currently completing a Fulbright teaching internship in Klagenfurt, Austria. With a background in linguistics and German, Drew brings a thoughtful perspective on identity, belonging, cultural differences, and what it means to live out loud.

Together, we explore how moving between communities shapes our sense of belonging, how race and nationality influence the way others perceive us, and why the labels we use for people can carry assumptions we don't always recognize.

Drew also shares his perspective on masculinity, growing up with restrictive expectations, and finding the freedom to embrace aspects of himself that don't fit traditional ideas of what a man should be. Along the way, we discuss the differences between being called an expat and an immigrant, navigating identity across cultures, and the importance of finding people who accept and support us as we are.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Growing up between places and learning to find belonging
• Navigating racial ambiguity and identity across cultures
• The differences in how people perceive expats and immigrants
• Living authentically while navigating assumptions and stereotypes
• How traditional masculinity can limit self-expression
• The pressure to perform masculinity for other men
• Creating space for people to embrace their identities without apology

Continue the conversation

Learn more about Shawna's book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work, including the audiobook, which is now available.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram!

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook. The audiobook is coming soon—stay tuned!

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

About This Episode

Dr. Brittany Wiley has been teaching since before she had a classroom, assigning herself summer book reports and turning her siblings into students. Today she teaches ethnic studies at Cuesta College, and in this episode she and Dr. Shawna Gann talk about how identity, history, and teaching intersect.

Dr. Wiley walks through the history that shaped mixed identity in the United States, from the hereditary slavery laws of the 1660s to the literature of racial passing to census data showing mixed race as the fastest growing category. She shares a moment from a high school African American literature class when a teacher told her the world would see her as a Black woman, and how she has moved from identifying as biracial to mixed race after learning more about her Native American ancestry. Shawna reflects on being multi-generationally mixed, leading her first diversity workshop at 17, and the Midwest food culture that proves whiteness is not the absence of culture.

They also discuss how ethnic studies became a discipline through student demand in the late 1960s, what shifts for students who arrive reluctant, and why everyone, regardless of background, has a stake in learning about race.

About Dr. Brittany Wiley

Dr. Brittany Wiley (she/her) is a first-generation college student who studied English at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, then earned a master's in Ethnic Studies and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from San Francisco State University. She has taught ethnic studies at the CSU and community college level for more than fifteen years and currently teaches at Cuesta College. She loves reading, live music, video games, time with family, and being near the ocean.

Mentioned in This Episode

Hair Tales (Hulu), featuring Tracee Ellis Ross and Oprah Winfrey

New from Dr. Shawna Gann: Mixed Signals

Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work draws on research with 513 participants to show what multiracial experiences reveal about belonging in organizations, and why civility is really about membership, not politeness. It's available now in paperback, hardcover, and eBook, with the audiobook coming soon. Learn more at culturecrucible.com/mixed-signals.

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

In this episode of Our True Colors, Shawna and Marcel talk with Mike Brown, a biracial Marine veteran, nonprofit fundraiser, veteran advocate, husband, and father. Mike shares what it has meant to grow up with both Black and white family histories, including a Black Southern father whose family roots run through Mississippi and a white mother whose family came to the United States from Europe.

Mike talks with us in this episode about growing up with questions about what he “was,” navigating racial ambiguity, and the importance of being able to name your own identity rather than having other people decide it for you. He also shares the powerful family stories he hopes to preserve for his children, including his grandmother's decision to leave Mississippi during the civil rights era and his parents' interracial marriage in the early 1970s.

We also talk about the power of oral history and storytelling, what gets lost when family histories aren't recorded, and the responsibility of carrying stories forward when the people who lived them are no longer here.

And, for this episode's Mixed Message, we talk about what it feels like when people treat your identity like a riddle they should be able to solve, and what might change if we simply asked instead of guessed.

About Mike Brown

Mike Brown is a Dover, Delaware native who now lives in the Cleveland, Ohio area with his wife and two children. A Marine veteran, nonprofit fundraising professional, veteran advocate, and community leader, Mike is passionate about service, family history, storytelling, and preserving the experiences of previous generations for the people who come after him.

BOOK NEWS

Shawna's book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work, will be available September 15, 2026, in hardcover, paperback, and eBook. The audiobook will be available a few weeks later.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram!

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook. The audiobook is coming soon—stay tuned!

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

What a joy to spend time with our guest for this episode. Melissa Muganzo is an entertainer, entrepreneur, educator, and media producer based in Sacramento, California. She's a professor at Sacramento State, the founder of Mindy's Kitchen, a professional actress, and an award-winning entrepreneur and social justice documentarian. She was also raised inside a very particular kind of not-enoughness: not West Indian enough, not Afro-Latina enough, not Kenyan enough, and — according to plenty of people around her — not Black enough either.

This conversation goes everywhere. Melissa walks me through a childhood shaped by a Seventh-day Adventist mother, a Kenyan father with an entirely different spiritual inheritance, and the quiet math of a kid figuring out what it takes to be seen as good. They talk about what happens when the answer to every question you ask is "you just have to believe," and what it costs to keep editing your hair, your voice, your major, your whole life to keep the approval coming.

They also talk about the body — Melissa's affirmation that your body has been showing up for you the entire time you've been mean to it, and the therapist's line about what you're really saying when you criticize the features you inherited. I share what I have learned about vertical and horizontal morality and Melissa offers the frame of "the good girl".

If you've ever wondered which parts of yourself you're still editing to make other people comfortable, this episode is for you.

CONNECT WITH MELISSA

Mindy's Kitchen:

• Website: www.mindyskitchen.com
• Instagram: @mindyskitchen_ca
• LinkedIn: Mindy's Kitchen of California

Muganzo Entertainment:

• Website: www.muganzoentertainment.com
• Instagram: @muganzoentertainment
• LinkedIn: Melissa Muganzo

Also Mentioned:
Vertical vs. Horizontal Morality: Why It Matters for the Workplace Today

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram!

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook. The audiobook is coming soon—stay tuned!

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

In this episode, Shawna and Andre get into what he calls anti-mixed violence and how it gets folded into other categories. They talk about conditional acceptance, the pressure to perform blackness, and the difference between being a guest at the cookout and holding the umbrella. Andre describes what race looked like inside a racially segregated prison yard, where he ran raffles with Scrabble tiles and sold cheesecake made from mozzarella and coffee creamer, and where a kid got badly hurt for accepting a slice from someone of another race. They also work through where they disagree, including whether proximity to whiteness is a useful frame or a projection. Andre closes with an argument about resilience and what he calls injustice collecting: the more things you find to be broken by, the more breakable you become.

Content note: this episode includes candid discussion of violence, including childhood bullying and violence inside prison, and includes strong language.

About Andre

Andre grew up in Inglewood, California, where being mixed meant getting jumped on the way home from school. After three years in prison, he came home and began speaking publicly about the mixed race experience, particularly the pressure to choose sides, conform to fixed labels, or suppress parts of yourself to fit what other people expect. What started as a personal defense of his own identity became a broader mission: creating spaces where layered identities can exist without explanation or fractions, and advocating for mixed race people to be unapologetically mixed.

Today he is president of the mixed student union at Cal State Northridge, where he is completing his final semester, and he builds community online while taking a critical look at how current perspectives on race can harm multiracial people. He encourages mixed people to stand on business, refuse to bend the knee to monoracial groups, and push for nuance, self-definition, and belonging at a time when conversations about race are often reactive and binary. Through campus organizing, digital dialogue, and public discussion, he explores what it means to move beyond racial extremes and toward a more integrated understanding of identity. He is also a former professional dancer and is at work on a book about internet addiction and what three years without a phone did to his thinking.

Where to find Andre
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsoktobemixed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsoktobemixed/

Book news
Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work arrives in September. Follow Our True Colors on Instagram for updates and behind the scenes tidbits.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram!

Don't forget to check out Dr. Gann's new book, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook. The audiobook is coming soon—stay tuned!

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

MESSAGE ME HERE!

Dr. Shawna Gann and her co-host, Marcel De Jonghe, sit down with Dr. Natalie Hart — speaker, consultant, and educator — for a warm, funny, and honest talk about growing up between cultures. Identifying as Afro-Latina and Latin Caribbean, Natalie shares how she moved past the pressure to prove she's "enough" for every community and learned to carry her full identity with confidence.
In this episode:

Why mixed-race folks feel they have to "prove" their heritage
The "no sabo kids" label and reclaiming culture across generations
Racial ambiguity as a superpower — and calling out harm in "safe spaces"
Representation vs. diversity, and what leadership reveals about a company's values

Plus Mixed Messages, on what really makes a workplace feel open-minded.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram!

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!