Get Loud: Spark Nurture in the Future
I AM…
I am the biracial daughter of a Japanese immigrant father and a White American mother. I am an attorney by profession. Currently, I am a speaker, writer and facilitator of issues on racial justice, especially pertaining to kids. I am a sister, wife, and mother to two Black, Japanese and White boys who the world sees as Black.
Red, White and Biracial America
When you grow up biracial in America, race and identity are huge. Everyone tries to put people into a box because that's how you're taught to make sense of things. For me, the boxes that people tried to put me in were White or Asian–or Japanese if people were getting specific. As a biracial person, I often heard, you're not White enough, not Japanese enough–it’s easy to feel as though you don’t fit anywhere. Being told this narrative your entire life, you start to want to create a solid sense of who you are. Knowing your identity and how you move through the world can be a protective mechanism.
For me, the race issue was magnified when I got married to my husband, a Black man from Louisiana, and I had my boys. I had my first son when Trayvon Martin was murdered, and I was holding my second son when Tamir Rice was murdered. While I know what it’s like to be a biracial Japanese and White woman, I don’t know what it’s like to navigate America as a Black man.
There have been many times when I have been able to benefit from White privilege or White adjacent privilege. I can tell you that my husband and my boys have never benefited from that same privilege. As a mother, you have hopes and dreams for your children because they are your heart in the world. One of my biggest fears is that one day my boys will walk out of the house and not come back, solely based on the color of their skin and nothing else.
It’s Time to Get Loud
My best friend, Sara, and I met about twenty-five years ago when we walked out in the middle of a racial identity talk at Harvard where we were completing our undergraduate degrees because we didn’t like the direction of the conversation. We have been disruptors in the racial justice space ever since. We both lived in predominantly White communities, and we didn't hear race-related conversations there. Being biracial in those spaces, you listen to what is being said, notice what is not being said, and hear what is said when people believe that you are White.
That third part is the quiet part that no one wants to say out loud. We realized that we could change and broaden the narratives in those spaces. We also recognized that we have an inherent power that is often devalued when you’re a woman. As women, we hold power in many spheres of our life—work, home, and in the PTA at our kids' schools. We also have tremendous wallet power. Women hold 70% of that buying power, and we thought, what if we could harness all that in having conversations with White women. We knew that group has privilege in this country. Their voices are heard in spaces where other voices are not. That was the start of the Dear White Women Podcast.
We were like—let's get a mic and start talking to people. We knew nothing about podcasting, and that was three years ago in April 2019. It then evolved into the Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Race book, which was published in October 2021. Now we both do more speaking in schools and in companies. We are committed to changing the narrative. If we want to move toward an antiracist society, we all have a role to play. We all need to get really loud and that’s our platform.
Culture and Identity
One of the best things my parents did for me was to instill a sense of pride in who I am. Pride in the fact that I was biracial. I didn’t know a lot of biracial kids growing up who were not related to me. I was different, and in my mind being different was cool. That didn't mean that I wasn't exposed to racial slurs. I think my brother had more slurs directed at him, but thanks to my parents, I was firm in who I was. I was not going to allow anyone to take anything from me. That same sense of self is what I try to instill in my boys.
My boys take Japanese lessons, which they hate, but that is non-negotiable because it’s a part of who they are. We also spend time in Louisiana, where my husband’s family lives so that they can also spend time exposed to the other side of their culture. We do live in a White community. They are the only part Black kids on their little league team and in their class.
I’m trying to create a strong foundation. I want my boys to be strong in who they are and in their identities. However, I am also a realist. My nine-year-old is getting to that point where he is no longer seen as a cute little boy, but rather a Black boy. People automatically start to see them as aggressive. It hurts me as a mother to say, “You can’t be doing the same things as other kids because other kids will get away with stuff that you can’t get away with.” My husband is very good at having those discussions with them.
It's hard. You want your kids to believe that everything is fair and just, but it’s not. I have had White parents say; I can’t talk to my children about race because it's traumatizing for them. That statement itself comes from a privileged viewpoint.
Some people can say that those conversations are optional, but in my house, that same conversation is about survival. That’s a conversation that happens every night, and it should be a conversation that occurs in every household. I believe that we do our children a disservice if we are not having these kinds of discussions.
There is a culture out there, especially in large corporations (that "good 'ole boy" network) that believes that everything will be great if we go back to the past. A belief that everything was great, except it wasn’t. It wasn’t great for anyone unless you were a White man. White families, in my opinion, are not trying to shield their children from the trauma of these discussions, but rather protect themselves from the discomfort of having these conversations.
Using My Voice IS the Work of My Hands
There is a commonality that parents share. We can all agree that we want the best for our children and we want to protect them. I still work as a lawyer, but now I only work on a pro-bono level. I left firm life last May, and I do work around voting rights and elections. I also decided that I wanted to devote serious time to the Dear White Women platform. I'm fortunate enough to make that transition and use my lawyer work and skills in a way that is in alignment with everything else that I believe.
Right now is one of those moments in history—from 2020, with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, to the COVID shutdown. I think this period is what our grandchildren will be asking us about. They are going to ask us, "What did you do?” I want to be able to tell them that I fought for them, and I fought for everyone who is like them. I want to be able to say that I got loud at this moment. It’s easy to say what you would have done in hindsight, but did you do anything?
There are times when you need to use your voice. There are times when you need to stand up—not only for yourself, but for everyone who comes after you. Now is that time.
My Success is Your Success, and Your Success is My Success
Being an Asian woman in law and being a litigator goes against every stereotype that people have about Asian women. We’re not supposed to get loud. I once worked at a law firm where the White male partners regularly interchanged the names of their Asian female associates like it was nothing. There is a very real shadow network. All the people of color knew that these types of things were happening. Everyone knew, but the leadership did nothing to address this behavior.
I got in my head a lot about that.
What was especially difficult was that there was not a concept of let’s pull each other up, especially among the White women of the group. There was, however, a concept that I worked hard to make it on my own in this male-dominated world, so you’re just going to have to figure it out on your own.
I think that’s ridiculous. The system is stacked against women as it is, and if we want to change that system, we have to pull everyone up with us. I spent a lot of my time mentoring and recruiting diverse female candidates for this exact reason. That's what we need to do.
If you get the chance to be heard, do it, and bring everyone else with you. That is what I would tell my kids as well. It's not only about you and your success; it is about everyone else’s success—especially people who look like you.
People want that American success story. People like to hear the stories of others coming from nothing, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and succeeding. The problem is that many people don’t even have bootstraps to pull themselves up with. That is a story that works well for White people in our American society.
As a person of color, you have to navigate the world differently. You come out of school with high expectations, full of hope. Then you enter the work environment, and the reality is very eye-opening. As a person of color, people look at you differently. They react to your actions differently. They expect you to speak differently. You realize very quickly that there is a hierarchy. White women are below White men and if you’re a person of color, you are way down on the list.
Motherhood and Ambition
Do I believe that motherhood and ambition can co-exist? Yes. I do. The message that I received growing up was that I could be anything I wanted to be. Of course, I believe that in that message, there was an implied–you can be anything you want to be, and you are going to be all things. All at the same time. I don’t think that’s possible. I went into motherhood believing that message. I was a full-time attorney with a newborn. When my son was one and I was six week pregnant with my second son, I remember going back to work and being part of the all-male trial team. I was a hot mess. I was trying to fight back nausea from all the smells in the room. We were working 18-hour days. This whole having it all is not valid. I think it depends on how you define ambition.
Ambition can’t be the male-dominated definition of ambition.
Ambition for me is related to my kids. I want my kids to have the best life possible. I’m raising the men I want my boys to be. That is what ambition is to me. Suppose we continue to think that ambition is this work outside the home, a career-related definition that we’ve been handed down—that alpha male definition. In that case, it’s not a definition that works. Ambition at that level means sacrifice, and I'm not willing to sacrifice my family.
Motherhood and ambition do go hand in hand. Mothers are the best multitaskers and the best organizers. There is a level of accomplishment that comes from motherhood—that is ambition.
Memorable Podcast Moments
There are so many favorite moments from the Dear White Women podcast, but there are two moments that stand out for me. Sara and I interviewed a gentleman called Marcus Bullock. He is the founder of Flikshop. Flickshop is a way to have people stay in touch with their loved ones while incarcerated. Marcus created Flikshop because of his experience of being incarcerated at the age of fifteen when he was placed in an adult prison. Marcus's story about how the American prison system works and how we talk about people who have been formerly incarcerated is mind-blowing.
During the seven years that Marcus was incarcerated, his lifeline was his mother. His mother wrote to him every day. I can't imagine being fifteen, going to prison, and being housed in an adult prison. Your life is forever changed. Yet here is this remarkable man, who has grown this great business, he's a speaker, and he does fantastic things. His story is powerful because it’s a story that we don’t hear.
My other favorite moment was when we spoke with a survivor of the Japanese incarceration camps, John Tateishi. There aren’t many of these incarceration camp survivors alive today. John was in one of these camps in the Western United States from the age of three to six. He became the director of the Japanese American Citizens’ League and led the national redress so that other Japanese individuals, who had also been incarcerated in these camps could be heard in their fight for reparations.
All our interviews have a fundamental question as a premise: Who do we consider an American? We, as a society, have strong views on that one question. For example, right after WWII, we said that Japanese Americans who were U.S. citizens were not Americans, and we heard this same rhetoric after the 9/11 attack. We assume that anyone who does not look like 'X' is not American. What does an American look like? If we choose to stand up for Americans, who are we standing up for?
Hate is so blatant in our society. Remember the Atlanta spa shootings that happened in March 2021? All the rhetoric our former president used, especially around COVID being the "China Flu," was merely blatant Asian hate resurfacing. Sara and I did a series of podcasts around that time where we got loud about the history of Asian hate in our country and the sexualization of Asian women in our society. There were so many Asian women who contacted us to say that it felt good to be heard. They voiced fear around using their voices, but then said that in hearing us use our voices, they too thought they could too. That was incredibly meaningful to me, and I think that was some of the most powerful feedback I had ever received.
Lessons on Motherhood
My mom did not do paid work outside the home for the first ten years of my life. She got her Masters Degree in Education right before she was pregnant with me, but her focus was on her kids. When I was younger, I expected that, like my mother, my whole focus after a period in my life would be on motherhood, but you also have to remember who you are.
During the initial parts of motherhood, you are trying to keep this little being alive and there is also this feeling of isolation. Your baby does not talk to you, and you lose previous social interactions. My son was born at the end of September and then daylight saving time happened, and I recall thinking, “This is hard”. It was a pivotal moment for me. During that time, I had to remember who I was.
Motherhood for women of color is more challenging. There are not a lot of images of motherhood for women of color. The images are predominantly of White moms, doing perfect White mom things. First of all, there is no perfection in motherhood, period. Secondly, I am not a White mom. That is not a standard that I should have held for myself and neither should other women of color. I am so happy that now there are so many more resources and images for moms who are not White, but we still have a long way to go.
Also, it's interesting what mothers of biracial children have to handle. When we went out to the park, White moms would literally try to touch my younger son’s hair like he was some exotic zoo animal. I was like, whoa–there’s not a White mom out there dealing with people trying to touch their kid's head while simultaneously othering them in the same way. To this day, situations like that still happen. I always feel like I am on high alert for my boys.
About Misasha
1. I took ballet for thirteen years. I thought I would be a ballet dancer.
2. I didn't pursue ballet because I had back surgery at sixteen and twenty. I was diagnosed with scoliosis and had a steel rod in my back. My entire thoracic spine is fused.
3. At age twenty-four, before I went to law school and right after college, I worked in finance in Tokyo. While there, I decided that I should take advantage of the fact that I was young, without many responsibilities besides keeping myself alive and I traveled independently to China. I had taken a year of Mandarin in college, which did not help me at all once I got there. However, I managed to talk my way into tour groups. I traveled to France, England and Scotland. I'm so grateful to have had that opportunity to travel before I got married and had kids. That experience taught me so much about myself. When you travel on your own, it forces you to figure out who you are in places where you are not immediately understood.
4. My first day of class as a 1L at Columbia Law School was also 9/11. That experience profoundly marked how I viewed the role of law in society, and what communities are we trying to protect versus what communities are we trying to incarcerate/other.
Selfcare Routine
I do two things every morning.
First, I read. I love to wake up early and read. I love mystery books and FBI profile stories. I was always a mystery fan as a kid, and when I find a good book series, I can read for hours.
The other thing I do in the morning is a Zoom functional fitness class. It’s been great as a moving meditation. I can't sit still to meditate. This class allows me to focus on how my body moves and focus on the movements. I use this focus as a way to relax my mind.
Universal truth
As a mother, regardless of our socioeconomic background, race, or religion, there is a core desire to have our children be safe and to have a better life than we had. I think we should do what it takes to make that happen, equally and equitably for all, not just those who look like our families do.
