Customer Reviews

Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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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.

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!

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

I have to really commend Elliott Lewis for writing a very powerful book dealing with the challenges faced by multiracial people in America. This book not only taught me a lot, but also exposed some of my own ignorance as to the fluid nature of racial-identity in our beloved country. What makes a person black, white, Asian, Latina, Native-American etc? These are questions that have never really had any solid or concrete answers, even though the one-drop-rule suggests that any black heritage makes you black. Why does that not necessarily apply for other "racial" groups? We all know that our nation's history of racial segregation has something to do with this, and this book goes into other reasons. What if that "drop" of black blood is not visible to the naked eye because it is only like one sixteenth or less of the person's heritage. I was reminded of this recently when I wrongly assumed that a lady that I had met on a Social networking site was white, when she was in fact biracial, but with barely any visible signs of being black based on her skin tone...She says a lot of people either assume she is white or white-Latino.

This books deals with the complexity of the subject of race and how the challenges that face the muliracial community from all sides of their ethnic heritage. For instance, many people say Tiger Woods is black, but he is really multiracial even though American historical precendent says he is black. Remember how many black people got enraged when he told Oprah that he referred to himself as "Cablinasian"?

Maybe because I grew up in Europe and Africa (I was born here, but my dad's job had us travelling all over the world), I was shocked to see how the definitons of terms like "black" and "white" have not really been the same over the course of American history. There was a time when you could have been "black" in one part of the country by that State's definition and "white" in another part (especially if you had no visible brown hue on your skin) based on the subjective nature these terms had. For instance, take the case of the famous Plessy v Ferguson decision that started the whole "separate but equal" phase in America. Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in this case, was only 1/8th black (one of his great grandparents was black, everyone else white), but he was ruled black under the law, and his case ended up being one of the most pivotal cases in American history that solidified the use of the so-called one-drop rule into practice for a very long time. The 2000 census was the first time in American history where you could check more than one box under the question of race.

This is a must read for all of those who are concerned about the subject of "race" in America and how this plays itself out in identity-politics. It is truly a history lesson. It really brings a new light on the answer to the question, "who are you?", especially for people of multiracial heritage.

This was a wonderful and lively work touching on a very timely topic in the ever shifting demographic make up of our country. Elliott provides fresh views in a personable way that helped me with discussions with my own children in accepting those that may come from bi-racial families. Wonderfully eye opening and very touching. It's a great read!

I was required to read this book for a college course and I really did not enjoy it. Although the author speaks and writes well, I felt like he was redundant and kept coming back to points he had already made, as if he couldn't get over it, accept it, and move on. I understand this is a memoir, but I just could not bring myself to sympathize with the authors plight, especially over how difficult it is for him to get his haircut...

I do recommend this book for more sympathetic people than myself, and people who may appreciate his struggle more than I ever could.

This book covers the shared experiences, both historical and psychological, of multiracial individuals.

This book is about what every multiracial person knows. This book is also teaches the reader the things every teacher, parent and partner of a multiracial person needs to know.

Once again, I have received awesome service from Amazon. Thank you for getting me my books quickly and in great shape.