One of the things that always bothered me in movie advertisements was the line that goes something like, "If you can only see one film this year, make it: Fry Guy 6, in 3-D!" as if that cheesy-sounding matinee-at-best movie really was the summation of all cinematic achievement for the year.Now as I do my reviews for "The Multiracial Experience" and "American Mixed Race" I find myself wanting to write, "If you could only own two non-fiction books about being racially/culturally mixed in the U.S., it should be these two." So please forgive the blatant theft of the line, because in this case, it's true.Each of these books has a multiple-author essay approach that gives you a very complete view of the larger concept of multiracial identity. It's becoming increasingly important to have an awareness of the wide variety of racial/cultural possibilities in this day and age, and these two books do a good job of educating the reader without being either too political or too pedantic.
Order "The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier," (edited by Maria Root) today through Interracial Voice and Amazon.com.
The Multiracial Experience is very much a scholarly tome, and the use of
academic language can often make it difficult for the casual reader to
really get into the book, at first.
Not that it's hard to understand, but
that when you crack open the book and get headers like "Proposed Research
Directions on Multiethnic Identity" and "Linguistic Binaries and Racialized
Bodies,"
it can be a bit worrisome. However, the structure comes to the
rescue because for every frighteningly academic essay,
there is at least
one that is more accessible. I think it would be a great book to teach
with, though,
because the essays are the sort which provoke. Not that they
get you all wound up or anything,
but you can't just read them and not be
affected in some way. You might disagree and argue with the author all the
way through their essay,
or you find yourself happily muttering, "Go,
girl!" when someone explains perfectly an idea you had in the back of your
mind that never had the right words before.
All too often, the issue of mixed-race gets reduced to, "Oh, you just think
you're too good to be just Black."
Not only is this inanely dismissive, it
totally ignores the number of people who are Hapa, Mestizo or Anglo-Indian, for example.
A significant portion of the mixed-race community is not even
part Black, and to shove them to the margins of discussion for the sake of
debates about quotas and
Affirmative Action denies us the community we need
to establish for ourselves.
By opening with first a glossary of terms
used, and following up with a Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People,
it
defines the issue with a beautiful simplicity and prepares you for the
essays to follow.
If you are at all involved in the politics of race, own this book. If you
are not yet convinced that this whole multiracial thing is valid,
this will
help you see just why we fight for self-identification. If you are already
'converted,'
this book can open your eyes to other cultures, it can give
you good material for arguing with people who insist that it's a 'Black/White thing,'
and it's an important resource for any scholar.
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