“You don’t look Irish!” A Reading and Conversation with Multiracial Writers of Irish Heritage

Friday, March 27, 7 pm Location:  Maraschi Room, Fromm Hall, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street @ Parker Street, San Francisco (right next to St. Ignatius Church) Free. Donations welcome.

 See a wonderful series of photographs taken during this event at our Facebook page. Thanks to everyone who joined us there.

“You don’t look Irish!” is a comment some of the featured authors have heard about their Irish heritage, if they are bi-racial or multi-racial. Words like these, from a schoolteacher, prompted Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu to write about the experience of growing up as an Irish-Japanese American. A similar comment to Leslie Ryan’s first grader son from a Mom at school, prompted her to write her children’s book “I am Flippish” (Filipino-Irish).

Attendees to this unique and thought-provoking reading heard from writers of various multi-racial backgrounds, all of whom claim Irish heritage. Sometimes the authors’ writing dealt head on with heritage, at other times the theme of heritage was just part of who the writer is.

Attendees enjoyed listening to: Dylan Amaro-McIntyre, Caroline Mar, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, and Clare Ramsaran, four very different writers and joined in the conversation about what Irish heritage “looks like” in the twenty-first century.

This event manifests part of the mission of the Irish-American Crossroads Festival to explore and embrace the multiple heritages of Irish-America.