Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America [Hardcover]

Elliott Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 13, 2005

Television journalist Elliott Lewis weaves his memoirs as a biracial American with the voices of dozens of multiracial people, who are challenging how we think about race today.

“What are you?” This seemingly ordinary but politically charged question has become a touchstone for debate around race and ethnicity. Now more than ever, mixed-race Americans are calling themselves biracial and multiracial rather than feeling forced to choose only one race. Nearly seven million people checked more than one racial category in the 2000 U.S. census, the first time in history Americans had the option to mark more than one box.

With Fade, Lewis looks at the multiracial state of the union. Here he speaks with dozens of individuals, tackling hot-button issues such as the often complicated lives of multiracial people in communities of color, interracial dating, transracial adoption, immigration, and the birth of the multiracial movement. His interviews illuminate a variety of coping strategies and reveal stark generational differences in the ways mixed-race people have come to terms with their identity. The author also shares his own moving — and often humorous — firsthand experiences, along with intimate stories from the forefront of nationwide efforts to formally recognize the multiracial population.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Former CNN reporter Lewis's headscratcher of a book argues against pigeonholing and reductive classification systems (he mentions frequently the "one drop" rule that deems a person black if they have one drop of black blood and that the 2000 Census was the first in which a person could check multiple racial identity boxes) and for "a new racial compass." However, the compass in the borrowed metaphor can "grow old," and, for many biracial people, is "more sensitive" and "must be calibrated more often." However, Lewis does little to illustrate this concept in the real world, where he instead recounts many instances of people asking him (sometimes elaborate) variations of "What are you?" By way of answering, Lewis interviews other bi- and multiracial people, examines statistics, recounts his own experiences and offers up a new definition of race ("a catch-all term referring to a loosely defined population group"). Lewis is more interested in finding different ways to look for answers than in providing pat responses; all of Lewis's interviewees come to different conclusions about what they are and how they forged their identities. Written in conversational prose, Lewis's book is an approachable and thoughtful meditation on a controversial topic.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Broadcast journalist Lewis looks at the ever-shifting landscape of self-identification among individuals of mixed racial heritage, including himself. Focusing on the generational differences in perceptions, Lewis observes that older individuals of biracial heritage identify primarily as black, while the younger generations emphasize their biracial identity as primary, if not exclusive, from black status. Lewis, whose parents are of mixed racial heritage but have always identified themselves as black, also identified himself as black while growing up but evolved into a biracial self-identity. From his own experience, in a chameleon-like context, Lewis has been identified as black, Latin, or Jewish, expanding the dilemma for many blacks of mixed racial heritage. He examines the substantial and informative experiences of other multiracials, including those mixtures outside the black-white context. This is a most interesting read on evolving notions of racial self-identification in America. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (December 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786716681
• ISBN-13: 978-0786716685
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,445,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fresh, topical, entertaining, January 18, 2006

By 

Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America (Hardcover)

Elliott Lewis travels the country, but mostly the West Coast, and talks to biracial people about their experiences and activism. He gets the point across that mixed-race people are seen by different people differently in different settings. He also does a great job in showing how they want to be recognized in their wholeness.
Mr. Lewis has a unique positionality. Like Lisa Bonet's and Lenny Kravitz's daughter, he is mixed on both sides. His status as a second-generation biracial person is fascinating and fresh.
The late legal scholar Trina Grillo, who was also biracial and wrote on biracial persons, once stated, "It used to be that biracial issues never came up, now you can't turn on the TV without hearing about it." I was worried that this book would just rehash what other books have already stated. I was pleased to be proven incorrect. This had interesting topical chapters. I think both experts and novices can enjoy this book.
Near the end of the book, the author admits the text's most serious flaw: it almost entirely covers black-white mixed people like himself. He gives all this focus on black-white individuals, yet lists numbers that prove there are more white-Latino, white-Asian, and white-Native people than there are white-blacks. I think people from these groups will be gravely disappointed. This book shamelessly falls into "the black-white paradigm" that Latino and Asian-American scholars have lamented.
When he does mention others besides Eurafricans, he focuses on Eurasians. However, the most common interracial couple in the United States is made up of one Latino spouse and one white spouse. The children of couples like Ricky and Lucy make up the majority of mixed folks, yet they are virtually ignored. Lewis never mentions Bill Richardson, Christina Aguilera, Raquel Welch, Benjamin Bratt and numerous other Anglo-Latins. Latinos are now the most numerous group of color in the US, yet they get no attention here. Further, those mixed-race people who are fully of color, like Tiger Woods, get ignored just like they did in Rachel Moran's interracial text. The black and white colors on the front of the book signify the black-white focus here. "Fade" does not just refer to diminishing colors, but also a hairstyle popular among African-American men in the late 1980s.
While the author quotes many male biracial writers, most of his interviewees are female. My Spidey sense tells me that biracial issues may be more salient to women than men. This book seems to hint at that during its discussion on exoticization.
Mr. Lewis mentions that there are more biracials on the West Coast than in the East. Again, I think this can be explained by the heavy white-brown and white-yellow mixing over there compared to the rare black-white mixing east of the Mississippi River.
In a similar fashion that Spike Lee often creates characters in the arts like himself, Mr. Lewis paid especial attention to biracial people working in the media and from Washington State.
I think the author may have fudged a fact in the book. He says that the late NAACP head Walter White was only 1/64th Black. However, Wikipedia says Walter White had 5 great-grandparents and 17 white ones; that's about a quarter Black.
The author has a photo of himself on the back cover. This is similar to the photos in Maria Root's multiracial books. I guess visuality is important in this area. Whatever the cause, one gets to see that Mr. Lewis is incredibly cute.
This book would be good for people of all ages. It has good quotes for students writing papers in college or high school.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-read for anyone interested in race in America, January 23, 2006

By 

Laurie K. (Washington DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America (Hardcover)

I found this to be a very illuminating read. Elliott Lewis looks at multiple facets of the lives of mixed-race persons in America, and the book will be an eye-opener especially for readers who have little exposure to the subject. This is no dry sociology text: the style is lively and loaded with anecdotes and interviews that bring the topic to life. Lewis' observations on the formation of racial identities in children - and the unique challenges for multiracial kids who find themselves forced to "choose" - are of particular interest. This is a timely subject and Lewis is an engaging writer - definitely give this one a try!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Resource, November 4, 2007

By 

louie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America (Paperback)

I found Mr. Lewis's approach to exploring multiracial issues down-to-earth and mindful of historical context, and this sets his book apart from some of the other works addressing the same subject matter. I used an entire pack of Post-Its marking pages containing uncommon insights and/or useful information. Thanks for a great read! -Louie Gong, MAVIN Foundation