Always Never Enough
36m | Sep 28, 2026Khyati turns to the wider world beyond family and home: What happens when mixed people carry their "both/and" identity into classrooms, courtrooms, and casual conversations that keep demanding they pick one?
The episode digs into the exhausting mechanics of "So, what are you?" — the visual guessing games, the code-switching, the moment Khyati herself mistakenly called a biracial colleague "white"— and uses these missteps to model how to actually repair them: listen, don't get defensive, believe people when they tell you who they are.
The episode then turns to academic insights on how the language of fractions didn't come from nowhere: laws designed to shrink Native populations, the one-drop rule built to enforce Black exclusion, the shifting racial categories of the U.S. Census, and the Supreme Court ruling that stripped U.S. citizenship away from a South Asian immigrant despite conceding he was scientifically "Caucasian."
Prof. Joshi explains the difference between ancestry (genealogy, DNA, lineage) and race (a social and legal invention with a body count) and closes on research: mixed-race people who are forced to fragment themselves show worse mental health outcomes than those who are supported in integrating their identities as whole. The episode ends on a cliffhanger into the series finale — turning the mic over to Kedhar to hear, in his own voice, what actually worked.
Creator: Dr. Khyati Y. Joshi is a scholar-storyteller who bridges research, lived experience, and practical wisdom. She is a tenured, Full Professor in the School of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the author of White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America (NYU Press, 2020) and several other books on race and religion in America.
Dr. Joshi is also part of a mixed marriage. Along with her husband John, they have raised their son to be Hindu and Christian; and to recognize, cherish, and embody his Indian and European heritages.
In this series, she blends scholarly expertise with her unique story, relaying the mistakes she’s made, the wisdom she’s gained, and the practical tips she can offer for cultivating mixed relationships and raising kids and adults to embrace their whole selves.
Find Dr. Joshi on Substack: https://khyatiyjoshi.substack.com/
Mixed was created by the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement (IRMCE), in collaboration with the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) through generous funding from the Henry Luce Foundation as part of the Under Gods project.
Executive Producer: Brad Onishi
Producer: Andrew Gill
Original Music, Scoring, and Engineering: Scott Okamoto
Story Editor: Leah Payne
Production Assistance: Kari Onishi
Cover Art: Jennifer Chen
