'Mixed-ish' Season 1 Episode 4 'Love is a Battlefield' sees the family pitch in to help Bow learn more about her cultural history
In this week's episode of 'Mixed-ish' titled 'Love is a Battlefield', young Bow Jackson is tasked with finding out more about her heritage and background. Bow is excited and cannot wait to learn about both her white side and her black ancestry and goes home to ask her family.
Bow's dad and grandfather are able to quickly tell her about her great-grandfather who came to America (legally, according to granddad) from Aberdeen in Scotland and later sent for her great-grandmother. Knowing this, Bow is able to soon fill up the half she's reserved for her dad's side of the family, complete with traditional outfits, "bland" Scottish food and the Scottish flag.
However, when it comes to her mom's side of the family, her mother and Aunt Deedee (Denise) offer different sides of their history. While Aunt Deedee focuses on the history of black people who had come to America as slaves, her mother Alicia focuses on the history of Africans before that period. This leads to a big disagreement between the two sisters. But Denise and Alicia make up in the end and decide to help Bow together; they don't want Bow to be confused about her black heritage and culture, because after all, both of them just wanted Bow to be proud of her history.
What comes out of that is a beautiful collage of photos that depict Bow's cultures and as an older Bow narrates, "Culture is the shared experiences that bring us together, the things we pass down in a family that makes us who we are," and that culture can grow and change just like a family grows and changes. When Bow brings her project to her classroom, an older Bow narrates that black culture, "is a tapestry, woven in real-time by each member of our community. So while we might not have a flag, what we do have is a beautiful quilt." The episode was received well by viewers with fans posting how they related to Alicia and Denise with respect to their feelings about their culture.
Next week's episode titled 'All She Wants to Do is Dance', Bow has to consider the social impact of her date choice for her first school dance -- this would remind viewers of an episode of 'Black-ish' where adult Bow deals with her son dating a white girl. Meanwhile, Johan discovers his love for fashion and Santamonica spends some time with her grandfather, Harrison. Harrison and Santamonica always have great scenes and we are looking forward to their time together.
'Mixed-ish' airs on ABC on Tuesday nights.