I liked this book for several reasons. The first reason, was that Elliot’s style for this book was a combination of personal accounts of experiences with race combined with theory and research. For me this made the book accessible to people who may not be that well versed in theories of mixed-race identity. For those who deal with theory and research more regularly, I think the way he presented the materials not only gave it an academic credibility, but also added a human dimension which is so important to this kind of research.

The second reason I liked this book is that even though he is mixed black/white and talks about his own experiences and some of the issues specific to that population, he is able to stop and say, while this is my experience, the experience of other individuals who are mixes of different heritages may have other experiences. This is important to do so that people who are reading this material understand that the mixed heritage population is not all the same. Another thing that he does in relation to shedding light on the variety of experiences, is to point out that mixed people of different generations have had very different experiences.

One section in particular (Part 3- Backdrop of History) did a great job of talking about the history of the black/white mix in America, some of the issues of power and the changes in construction of race, and most importantly discussed the One Drop Rule. This is something that I think more people need to know about as it is something that has affected us all whether we know it or not.

I would recommend this book to all audiences as I think that everyone could get something from this book.

A couple of the key issues talked about include, issues of colorism that are found in the African American community (ie being light skinned vs dark skinned) and how that came into play when she was in fact mixed black/white. The differences of experiences growing up between her and her brother. The differences she talked about were both the the ways in which siblings may have a difference of experience in general just because they are look different or have different life experiences with regards to race, and then also talked about how gender came into play with the experience of being mixed race. And how parents choose to deal with the questions their children bring home. Some parents have a great understanding of what their children go through. Other parents don’t see their children as anything different than themselves and thus offer solutions to problems that worked for them.
The sense of humor that she brings to her work, for me, serves to show that mixed race people are not broken by default. We have experiences due to our heritages that others might not understand, and they ways in which we are taught to cope with them, may be difficult, but they may be funny. Its the same as any other aspect of growing up. And for this I thank her. I think that she offers a great portrait of a person who has grown up and had to work through questions of race/ethnicity/gender and so forth, and come to an identity that she is comfortable with on her terms.

Available on Amazon.com