We honour Asher and Martin Hoyles with an Intermix Positive Contribution Award for taking that first step and helping to establish a place in history that until now mixed-race individuals have been denied. They are both guaranteed a place in the history of the mixed-race experience.

When Asher & Martin Hoyles had their daughter Rosa in 1995, they wanted to show her the positive side to her mixed-race ancestry, so together they wrote Remember Me Achievements of Mixed-Race People Past and Present. With a detailed introduction to the subject, the book gives a selection of twenty biographies of mixed-race individuals from the past and ten from the present. It is the first book of its kind in the UK and has become a source of inspiration for many mixed-race individuals and families.

Martin and Asher both have successful independent careers. Asher has an Honours Degree in Education and Communication studies, is a qualified teacher and has a Postgraduate certificate in Dyslexia. She is a celebrated performance poet and devotes her time to working with those with special needs and dyslexia.

Martin Hoyles is a senior lecturer in Communication Studies at The University of East London. He has been a visiting lecturer in Japan, Malaysia, several English universities, colleges and schools and Wormwood Scrubs Prison. He is now writing his 12th book and has earlier books translated into Japanese and Greek. His current research is on the history and politics of gardening, mixed-race identity, black performance poetry and the life of the mixed-race
nineteenth-century radical Robert Wedderburn.

Asher and Martin have since written Moving Voices, a selection of Black poetry which traces the African oral tradition, through African American and Caribbean culture, to Black performance poetry in England, and examines the many factors which have shaped this oral poetry.

The number of mixed-race children is set to increase greatly in the next decade. Hopefully this book will start to put the record straight regarding their history and tradition, and help give them more choice as to how they see their identity.

The twenty historical figures presented span the last two and a half centuries. The connecting thread between them all is the slave-trade and the African Diaspora, the dispersal of people from the African continent to the four corners of the world. The particular focus of the book is on the USA, the Caribbean and Britain, but there are clearly many similar stories to be told from other parts of the world.

The ten contemporary people are all from Britain - from England, Scotland and Wales. They represent major achievements in politics and the arts, though many other fields of activity could have been chosen. We hope they will provide inspiration and encouragement to all who read the book. (Excerpt from Remember Me)