Don’t let the clever term fool you. To declare oneself a “Blasian” is to create a space for recognition. It is to proudly proclaim one’s status as both Black and Asian in its many iterations. It is not just a declaration of the self, but a demand to be understood as “both/and.” It is an implicit refutation of the expectation that one should choose one identity at the expense of the other.

In this project, we combine text and image to highlight various members of the Blasian American community. We are committed to exploring the ways the mixed race experience as refracted through the prism of blackness and Asianness opens new possibilities for the discussion of race, nation, and belonging in the 21st Century.

-Ethan Caldwell & Kimberly Singletary, Co-Contributors