Blended Future Project

According to the Blended Future Project, even though multiracial and multiethnic identity can absolutely be a fluid and difficult road to understand, Blended Future Project would like to create a platform to initiate that understanding. To start this process, the Blended Future Project is creating a new cultural identity where multiracial and multiethnic people are understood and free to develop and collaborate their own unique culture(s). They believe this would not only benefit the growing population of multiracial and multiethnic peoples, but also adopted individuals who may not even know their racial or ethnic backgrounds, or third culture kids who have grown up in a country with a different societal culture from their parents. With this, Blended Future Project is actively uniting multiracial and multiethnic people and integrating them fluidly into the cultural communities of all other racial and ethnic groups.

I had the honor of speaking with the leaders of the Blended Future Project, Maris Lidaka and Beth Chin, on June 2nd, 2021, to further discuss the hurdles of creating such a blended future and what that future may look like, as well as hearing about their own mixed-identity journeys.

Beth Chin was born and raised in the Chicagoland area and was seventeen when she co-founded her first non-profit organization with her friends in high school, earning them the President’s Volunteer Service Award from Barack Obama. Being  of Chinese, German, and Polish descent, her work focuses on multi-racial identity. She is the founder of the All Related Art collective in Hamburg, Germany, as well as the author of Being Mixed: A Visual Guide on Mixed  Identity. Chin is the creator of Blended Future Project, Re-Mixed – A Multicultural Festival, and is working to create more events and bring greater community in the years ahead.

Maris Lidaka is the founder of The Blended Future Project. Born in Oak Park, IL, he is of African-American and Latvian heritage, and has spent the past 20 years working in the entertainment industry in a variety of capacities for large companies such as Disney, Warner Bros, AT&T and Verizon. He created The Blended Future Project to empower the experience of being multiracial and multicultural. With the ultimate goal to create a larger space for empathy and understanding.

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