Speakers on Multiracial, Transracial, and Mixed Identities

Author of Night in the American Village, Akemi Johnson strives to advance racial equity, social justice, and human rights in her writing and work. She is an educator at the Fred T. Korematsu Institute, where she teaches the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans and promotes the importance of remembering this history. She speaks widely on mixed-race identity.

Tiffany Jewell is a Black biracial writer, twin sister, first generation American, cisgender mama, anti-bias antiracist (ABAR) educator, and consultant. She is the author of the #1 New York Times and #1 Indie Bestseller, This Book Is Anti-Racist, a book for young folks and everyone to wake up, take action, and do the work of becoming antiracist. She helps audiences of all ages understand topics of identity and how to talk about them.

Matthew Salesses is a novelist, scholar, and Korean adoptee who has written and spoken widely on the subjects of adoption, race, Asian-American identity, masculinity and parenting. His acclaimed first novel, The Hundred-Year Flood, was an Amazon Bestseller and, among other honors, a Best Book of the season at Buzzfeed, Refinery29, and Gawker. His newest novel, The Sense of Wonder, was recently published to great acclaim and optioned by HBO.

Born in Harlem to Dominican parents, Raquel Cepeda is an award-winning journalist, cultural activist, podcaster, and documentary filmmaker who travels widely to speak to diverse audiences about Latina identity, social justice, gentrification and inequality. Her book Bird of Paradise explores the realities of the American Dream within the context of exploring her ancestry.

Hafizah Augustus Geter is a Nigerian-American poet, writer, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria, and raised in Akron, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. Her debut memoir, The Black Period: On Personhood, Race & Origin, (Random House, 2022) won the 2023 PEN Open Book Award, the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction in addition to being a 2023 Chautauqua Prize Finalist, a New Yorker Magazine Best Book of 2022, a Good Morning America Anticipated Book, and an Amazon's Best of the Month Editor's Pick. She speaks about race, identity, intersectionality, and belonging.

Patricia Engel is the author of five works of fiction. Her most recent book, a short story collection titled The Faraway World, was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, longlisted for The Story Prize, and named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year, and a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year. Her novel Infinite Country, a New York Times bestseller, won the New American Voices Award, a Florida Book Award, was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her books consider powerful perspectives on identity and belonging.

Layla F. Saad is the author of the ground-breaking Me and White Supremacy, an anti-racism education workbook that debuted on the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists. It is also an Amazon, Wall Street Journal, Indie, and Pacific Northwest bestseller. Layla is an East African, Arab, British, Black, Muslim, neurodivergent woman who was born and grew up in the West, and lives in the Middle East. Layla has always sat at a unique intersection of identities from which she is able to draw rich and intriguing perspectives and share them with others.