The Beiging of America, Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century (2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY)

The contributors to this excellent anthology recall painful schoolyard taunts (“you look like burnt toast!”), challenges (“If there were a race war, what side would you be on?”), nosy questions (“What ARE you?” and compliments like “exotic” that don’t feel complimentary. Their experiences show how deeply words (“What ARE You?”) can hurt – or help: it wasn’t until Jackson Bliss discovered words like happa [Hawaiian pidgin for mixed race], multiracial, and Nikkejin [people of the Japanese diaspora] that he “felt real in an existential sense.” Read this book and you will “get” Diane Tsuchida’s advice: “No one will write a handbook telling you the correct questions to ask when you’re curious about someone’s racial background. So perhaps the key to your curiosity is to silence it.”

“There are turning points in everyone’s life when we have to fight, even if we have to do it by ourselves and in public.” (Junius Williams, Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power (1968). This is especially true for individuals of mixed race living in the United States. At some point in their lives, children of mixed race realize that others may view them differently. I remember sitting next to a five-year-old African American child, who was traveling alone on a cross country airplane flight. At the end of our journey, she whispered to me, “You know, there are some people that don’t like me!” I don’t think this little girl understood why, because she didn’t yet understand racism, but she was beginning to experience it firsthand. When children of mixed race first encounter racism, it takes exceptional valor to continue their life’s journey and successfully discover their special talent or gift and nurture and develop it, so they can make their unique contribution to the world we live in, just like everybody else. In the “The Beiging of America,” we experience the life journeys of approximately thirty-nine mixed race authors, who are seeking to maximize their own unique potential, in their own words, in stories that are entertaining, humorous and informative.In closing, I believe that all readers will relate to and enjoy “The Beiging of America.” I highly recommend this book. It offers novel insight that informs our understanding of how mixed race individuals are perceived in the United States, how these individuals manage the challenges they face on a daily basis, and how this shapes the choices they make. Importantly, “The Beiging of America” also reminds us of the universality of human nature.