Issue No. 2: Intersections + Zenbu - September 2021 -------
ZEMBU on Mixed
Mixed is “about the complexities of being mixed race. And, as I’ve been reconnecting with my Japanese ancestry and my cultural ancestry of being Jewish, just really embodying what it means to be mixed.” ZEMBU released the track in January after months of deep reflection during the pandemic.
“I was feeling into a lot of the beauty and also the tension of my identities.”
The song, in part, explores the “tension of living in such a binary world” during an age of racial reckoning in our country.
“Being Mixed is complex. It’s just important to acknowledge all of the nuances while also acknowledging that I’m whole in being Mixed…acknowledging that I am half white, and that I am half Japanese, and everything that goes with that--all the privileges and the ways that my ancestry has both harmed and been harmed. Holding that all, and being okay with that, to know how to move forward. That’s why it’s important to have these conversations.”