Julia Anderson Mann interview 2008
Flaxen haired, light skinned Twin Cities news anchor Robyne Robinson, who has huge hips and a profoundly pronounced posterior, relates when she was at the Minnesota State Fair for the station where she anchored the news, she had yokels walk up to her and actually ask, “What are you?” while gawking at her like one would look at a curiosity on display at the zoo.
These rubes weren’t trying to be rude: It probably seemed the most appropriate thing in the world to ask. Let’s allow the benefit of the doubt and just say they simply were ignorant White folk who didn’t realize they had poor manners.
Still, whether they meant well or not, racially mixed people are exactly that — people. Not a “what.”
Accordingly, Julia Anderson Mann’s performance work, Mixed Reality: My Multi-Racial World, should shed light on folk of mixed blood. It certainly conveys how Mann feels. For instance, there’s the quip: “The number-one sign you’re living the multicultural experience… You’ve developed a medical condition that causes your eyes to roll when someone asks, ‘What are you?’”
One way to see someone as human is to realize that, just like you, they have a family. Mann draws on hers in Mixed Reality, performing as her grandmother, her granddad and as herself. Looking to a bigger picture, the show also relates to the 1960s case of Mildred and Richard Loving, whose court case led to the U.S. Supreme Court declaring laws against mixed marriages unconstitutional.
There are those who own mixed blood and those who hide behind it. Cameron Diaz blithely confines her roles to films in which she can pretend to be white.
Tiger Woods went so far with his 1/32nd this and 2/18ths that blood count as to indignantly state he should not to be referred to as black. Coupled with his conspicuous affinity for slim blondes, it’s evident he’s in denial about a great deal of self-loathing.
Julia Anderson Mann plays no games with herself. Indeed, she speaks plainly about reflections on, among other aspects of her state in life, how Black she is and isn’t perceived as being.
Mixed Reality: My Multi-Racial World’s Minnesota Fringe Festival debut brings to the Twin Cities a tour that opened in 2008 at Luther College (Decorah, IA), going on to play small town Minnesota in Wycoff, Harmony, Laneboro and more. Since 2009, it has played community venues, among them Washburn High School, Oak Grove Middle School and Central Lutheran Church.
Mann’s acting credentials are in order: Her training includes performing in her youth (she’s 23) at Children’s Theatre Company (Madeline’s Rescue, Beggars’ Strike, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings) and Stepping Stone Theater Youth Performance Company (Buried Treasure at Old Fort Snelling).
She (JAM) spoke with the MSR at a Minneapolis coffee shop.
MSR: Why’d you create this show?
JAM: It was a way to share an affirmative story about identity, the issue of being biracial.
MSR: Tell more about those issues.
JAM: I have a hard time knowing if I’m paired with a race. I struggle with what group or path to take based on where society puts me. I don’t know if it’s a wall I need to break down [to be] in the right place with myself, accepted for who I am.
MSR: I guess it doesn’t help when people look at you like a novelty item.
JAM: Sometimes it’s just people being curious. They’re not trying to be offensive. They just don’t know any better. For me, Mixed Reality is a way to show people where I come from. That [it] is not as complex as they think.
I have a mother and a father. I came from two people. And [I've] lived a really healthy life. There isn’t any mystique.
MSR: You have trouble accepting yourself, sometimes?
JAM: Yes. I don’t think I’m covering all my areas. I have a hard time connecting with my African American side, looking [at] who I’ve been friends with all my life, how I fit in. It’s comments like when people tell me I’m not Black enough. I get shot down, made to feel like I’m not doing something right.
Or my White friends will be like, “Oh, her Black side is coming out.” Stuff like that. I don’t want to be labeled.
MSR: Has that happened professionally?
JAM: In theater, sometimes I struggle. I always get cast in an African American role, fulfilling a need or quota…. I would love to be that lead [role], but usually it’s blonde, blue-eyed. So, in this, my own production, I’m filling my own skin. And not fulfilling a role for somebody else.
MSR: You want something done right, do it yourself.
JAM: Exactly.
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