I first caught sight of Miscegenation Blues: Voices of Mixed Race Women* in the Canadiana section of an upscale Toronto bookstore. As the first Canadian book besides historical works on the Métis** to specifically address the experience of mixed race people, the title immediately intrigued me. The pages of Miscegenation Blues are filled with poetry, short stories, biographical accounts, commentaries, and art by women of mixed racial origin. The contributors hail from a variety of backgrounds. While most are Canadian, either by birth or residence, the book includes works from countries as diverse as the United States, New Zealand, South Africa and Nicaragua. The racial combinations that make up these women's heritages appear endless: White-Arab, White-South Asian***, White-Black, White-Latin American, Black-East Asian, and Black-White-Native American are just some of them. The contributors differ in other areas as well, such as age, sexual orientation, occupation, and academic background.

The editor, who includes her own contributions in the book, is Carol Camper, a Canadian woman of mixed African, European, and North American Indian descent. She was raised by White adoptive parents in London, Ontario, a small Canadian city that, at least during her years there, had almost no visible minority population. Camper's life is one of many twists and turns. Having no knowledge of her heritage as a child and at one time believing herself to be Polynesian, she now identifies as Black. Her sexual identity has also changed. Once married to a White man, with whom she had two children, she is currently involved in a lesbian relationship.

In the introduction to Miscegenation Blues, Camper describes her personal experience as a woman of mixed race as well as her purpose in compiling an anthology. She seeks to give a voice to women like herself and to dispel stereotypes about them, particularly the notion that they are "tragic."**** While the contributors to the book come from a wide range of backgrounds, in some ways one has the impression that because of Camper's inclusion criteria, they may not represent the whole spectrum of mixed race people. For example, she deliberately excluded submissions that endorsed the view of miscegenation as the key to ending racial discrimination, claiming that "they represented a negative and misguided place where I did not want this anthology to go." I personally agree with Camper that such a view of race mixing is naïve and even racist. On the other hand, a book purporting to provide a voice for a certain category of people should be open to different opinions held by these individuals, who after all may not constitute a homogenous group.

Due to the contributors' enormous diversity in ethnicity and experience, it is difficult to find a large number of common themes in their submissions. What unites these women is their acknowledgement and, ultimately, acceptance of their mixed race status. But they differ widely in the way they have come to terms with their background. On one hand are those who identify equally with both or (in the case of women who trace their ancestry to more than two racial lineages) all parts of their heritage. One Canadian woman, for instance, describes herself as fortunate for having been exposed to both her Scottish-Canadian father's family and that of her Kwakiutl Indian mother. Another, who calls herself "Indo-German," draws her cultural identity from her German and South Asian ancestors.

Like the Scottish-Native Canadian woman mentioned above, some contributors' identification with both or all their backgrounds stems from the fact that as children they were exposed to these cultures. Some, however, discovered their second (or third) heritage later in life. Philosophy professor Naomi Zack, who was raised by her Jewish mother and grandmother and had little contact with her Black father, says she now feels comfortable in both Black and White circles. A British woman presently learning her Nigerian father's native tongue Yoruba tells her White mother to stop berating herself for not giving her children Black pride, saying that they all eventually acquired Black pride.

Other women, such as Camper, identify principally with one part of their heritage, even if they do not deny the other(s). This choice was made by a number, though by no means all, of the mixed race Black contributors. Some of these women say that because society sees them as Black and because their African background has had the most influence in their lives, it makes sense for them to call themselves Black. For others this decision is politically motivated. One young woman, for example, explains that her identification stems from the desire to "unite with people of colour... and specifically with the Black community in struggling against various forms of oppression."

A few contributors speak of feeling alienated, at least at some point in their lives, from both or all their heritages. Filmmaker Shanti Thakur recounts that in their effort to become "Canadian," her Danish mother and East Indian father did not teach her their native languages. This left Thakur with an inability to communicate with her relatives and without the "self-esteem, pride and tools for managing racism." Thakur's experience is not unique to children of mixed marriages: before multiculturalism became a household word, many monoracial and even monoethnic immigrant couples discarded their mother tongues in order to assimilate into their host society. However, given that studies have shown that knowledge of and pride in one's heritage lead to better self-esteem and social adjustment, it is important for parents, whatever their origin, to teach their children about their background.

Racial discrimination is a constant theme in the book. Most contributors have faced racism, though some have experienced it more than others. In perhaps its most painful form, it occurs within the family. Nila Gupta, a lesbian of White and South Asian descent, tells of how her French-Canadian mother, who was mentally ill during much of Gupta's childhood, would call her children racist names. However, in not all cases was such discrimination directed by Whites at non-White family members. The light-skinned "almost White" African-American mother of contributor Marilyn Elain Carmen, for example, referred to Carmen as "black and ugly like her daddy." Lisa Suhair Majaj, the daughter of a Palestinian father and German-American mother, was "held to a far stricter standard of behaviour than [her] Arab cousins" due to her paternal relatives' belief that Westerners lacked morals. Her father rejected her marriage to a Greek Cypriot on these grounds, though ironically in terms of cultural traits such as family orientation Greeks may have more in common with Arabs than with other Western peoples.

Another common theme in Miscegenation Blues is the need to recognize mixed race people for what they are. A number of contributors express frustration that their experience and sometimes their mere existence are made invisible not only by Whites, who devised such schemes as the "one-drop rule" by which everyone with any African ancestry is automatically considered Black, but by people of colour as well. Claire Huang Kinsley, a Canadian woman of Chinese and Irish descent, says for instance that during her childhood there were almost no books about children of mixed race. Camper notes in the introduction that some Blacks oppose the creation of an interracial category on the U.S. census for fear that they might lose their political power base in the country. While Camper herself identifies as Black, in her view mixed race people "should be allowed to be who [they are]."

In some ways it is difficult to conceive of a mixed race community. As one contributor of East Indian and German descent explains, " [the mixed race community] is not a cultural community... because we all come from completely diverse racial groups. How can we construct a real community that's based on history and on culture." To illustrate this point, the woman in question, who was born in Germany and came to Canada as a child with her divorced White mother, probably has little in common culturally with the South African contributor with two Coloured***** parents. Others are more hopeful of bringing mixed race individuals together under a common banner. Shanti Thakur states that "we [mixed race people] have to form our own identity. The importance of transcending our cultural boundaries is essential for knowing who we are - as members of a community which shares similar ideas and values."

I noted a few disturbing - at least to me - trends in Miscegenation Blues. One is the hostility towards White mothers of interracial children. Not all contributors express such feelings, and some, like Nila Gupta, document genuine racist abuse on their mothers' part (though Gupta herself admits her mother's mental illness may have played a role in her behaviour). Nonetheless, one occasionally receives the impression that White women with mixed race children are deemed abusive simply because they are White. For example, S.R.W., a Canadian woman of mixed British and West Indian ancestry, describes one White woman as a potential abuser of her part-Black child-to-be because the White woman, an usher, denied S.R.W. free entrance to an African cultural event. After observing some White lesbian mothers of interracial children at a women's music festival in Michigan, Camper states that "in the context of racism and colonialism, the mothering of a Black child by a white mother might not be all that benign."

These comments not only disturbed but puzzled me. In their antagonism towards these mothers, Camper and S.R.W. almost seem to be joining forces with the White Supremacists, who have always decried White women who bear children of colour. In addition, S.R.W.'s depiction of a string of White women who mistreat their interracial children appears eerily similar to the "family values" crowd's practice of citing isolated examples of abusive working and/or lesbian mothers in an attempt to prove that only women willing to embrace the June Cleaver lifestyle are fit to parent. Another problem with the automatic suspicion of White women of mixed race children as child abusers lies in the fact that the same logic could be applied to other mothers of interracial children. For instance, following S.R.W.'s reasoning, should a Chinese waitress who didn't give me a free meal at an Irish pub (I'm part Irish) be expected to mistreat a child she had by an Irishman? By the same token as Camper's notion that colonialism may affect a White woman's parenting of a Black child, one might ask whether an Arab woman would be likely to abuse a half-Filipino child, especially a girl, in light of the brutality experienced by many Filipina domestic workers in the Middle East at the hands of their female employers. Camper's suggestion that racism poses delicate issues in parent-child relationships in my opinion deserves to be taken more seriously than S.R.W.'s accusations against the White usher. Whites do hold more power in society than people of colour. In addition, White mothers can never understand the discrimination that their mixed race sons and daughters may face. But as studies on interracial families and transracial adoption show, White women are as capable of parenting such children as are women of colour.

Miscegenation Blues: Voices of Mixed Race Women is certainly recommended reading for anyone interested in learning more about the interracial experience. It also provides a rare Canadian perspective on mixed race people, as many of the contributors were born or currently live in Canada. The book has some limitations. For instance, given that it is written by women, the experiences described may not reflect those of mixed race men. In addition, and Camper can hardly be faulted for this because of current North American demographics, one wonders whether individuals from other types of interracial unions - for example, the children of White fathers and Black mothers rather than White mothers and Black fathers - might differ from the contributors featured here. Nonetheless, the book's ability to raise challenging questions and the literary and aesthetic merit of the works included make Miscegenation Blues: Voices of Mixed Race Women an enjoyable and informative book to read.

©2001 all rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part prohibited without
the express written consent of Interracial Voice.