Customer Reviews

Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural

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I received this book as a gift from a mentor in undergraduate school. It has brought so much to me in terms of understanding my experiences as a biracial person, especially growing up in a rural mostly white town. This book is also great for people who want to know what struggles we face as we try to define ourselves both as individuals and as members of society. There are also some wonderful stories written by parents of biracial and bicultural children that speak to their worries, fears and hopes for their offspring. I found those stories particularly amazing because they speak to the differences between children and their parents. Overall, this book is a collection of stories that unifies the experience of falling somewhere in between.

As a Puerto Rican American who looks 'mixed' because of the ethnicities that make up my Caribbean background (Spainard, African, Taino), I 'wholely' related to 'Half & Half.' Even though I am culturally 'whole' Puerto Rican, I was asked the question 'What are you?' all my life. To further compound this, my race on my birth certificate reads 'white,' an error applied to Hispanics born in '60s. I struggled with my Spanish language, married an African-American because I identified more with his culture, and at one point denied my background for the sake of my sanity. This book teaches you that the issues with one's appearance, language, and background are attributed more to people's misconceptions than one's perceptions. As Phillipe Wamba, one of the contributing authors wrote (in 'Half & Half'): 'It is difficult to define yourself when others are so eager to do it for you.' Until we all learn to identify each other as individuals ('who' we are), instead of emphasizing 'what we are,' we will continue to struggle for acceptance in this multicultural world.

received this book as a gift from a mentor in undergraduate school. It has given so much to me in terms of understanding my experiences as a biracial person, especially growing up in a rural, mostly white town. This book is also great for people who want to know what struggles we face as we try to define ourselves both as individuals and as members of US society. There are also some wonderful stories written by parents of biracial and bicultural children that speak to their worries, fears and hopes for their offspring. I found those stories particularly amazing because they speak to the differences between children and their parents. I appreciate the attention to the multicultural perspective and the way the authors weave many aspects such as socio-economic status, culture, gender and sexuality into their stories. Overall, this book is a collection of experiences that unifies the reality of those of us who fall somewhere in between dichotomized racial constructs.

I am highschool student. all my life I have been made fun of by fellow student once I got into middle school it got worse people started asking me What Are You? and started trying to force me to pick a race no matter what I always replied I am mixed this book shows the courage and struggle us biracial and biculturel go througth everyday a truly wonderful book

This is a wonderful collection of essays on growing up biracial and bicultural. It is a little uneven. Some are more readable than others, and I found myself skimming at times when some of the essays started to feel similar, but the good parts are strong enough to make it more than worth it.

A common thread that comes up are early childhood memories of not thinking much of it, followed by some period in adolescence or early adulthood where the social, psychological, and political issues around race and culture simply could not be ignored. There are many examples of drawing on positives from both sides but also that reality, described in a most straightforward way by Garrett Hongo: "Being different wears you down."

The struggle to establish a sense of identity is a normal developmental challenge for adolescents even in the absence of confounding variables (and these days, since adolescence effectively stretches out and overlaps well into early adulthood, so to does the task of crafting a sense of self). This job is that much harder for children growing up biracial and bicultural. This because, as Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn explains in her introduction, "One and one don't necessarily add up to two. Cultural and racial amalgams create a third, wholly indistinguishable category where origin and home are indeterminate." Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in terms of having the usual `who am I?' questions we grapple with subjugated subverted by having to answer the question "what are you?"

This job is that much harder because, despite the well-meaning intentions of those who speak of a colorblind society, it simply isn't the reality. We know scientifically that racial categories as discrete entities are only social constructs, that mixing has always been more common than acknowledged, that characteristic traits exist in grades along a continuum. We know now that genetic variation within a group trumps genetic variation between groups. We know this intellectually but we still don't know it in our guts. We live in societies that are not colorblind, in families that are not colorblind, and we ourselves are not colorblind. It's just not how our brains work. None of us operate in an assumption-free, value-free environment. We internalize messages out there in our neighborhoods, in the media, and in our homes, and our expectations of ourselves and others are affected.

I particularly enjoyed Danzy Senna's essay, "The Mulatto Millennium," in which she talks about racism as "... a slippery devil. Like Madonna, it changes its image every couple of years." She describes her own experience, which she argues were "difficult not because things were confusing, but rather because things were so painfully clear. Racism, as well as the absurdity of race, were obvious to me in ways that they perhaps weren't to those whose racial classification was a given." Lori Tsang also writes powerfully on the slipperiness of race and the bind that puts those in who are saddled with positive stereotypes, as a member of a so-called "Model Minority:" "Race is the myth upon which the reality of racism is predicated, the wild card the racist always keeps hidden up his sleeve. The racist has the power to determine whether the card will be a diamond or a spade, whether a Chinese is black or white." Meri Nana-Ama Danquah talks about the `compliments' she would receive, praise for "not talking like them," for being "special, exceptional, different, exotic," verbal kindness that belied tolerance as opposed to acceptance: "These words, which flowed so freely from the lips of teachers, parents, and fellow students, were intended to excuse me from my race, to cage me like some zoo animal being domesticated; these words, I realized years later, were intend to absolve those white people from their own racism."

I also particularly enjoyed the writings of Roxane Faranfarmaian, whose mother was a Mormon and her father was a Muslim, I made the transformation most people she gets to know have to be walked through, initially being amazed that such opposites could come together but later seeing such profound similarities I could barely remember my initial reaction.

There is much more insight in this collection than I could do justice to in a review. Like I said at the top a few of the essays drag at times but, all taken together, there is enough powerful and important writing in this book to strongly encourage you to read it.

This collection of essays from well known contemporary "ethnic" writers takes the reader through myriad of racial and cultural "combinations" and the results of those combinations. For those who come from a bicultural or biracial background, you will find yourself nodding in agreement with some of the issues tackled by each of the authors. For those who are merely looking for a fascinating read, this book will open your mind to the issues that confront a sector of the American population which is often ignored or discounted. From the book, the reader senses how the need for us to categorize people neatly in racial/ethnic boxes can affect a whole generation of Americans who identify with 2 or more ethnic groups. This is a must read for people who want to stay in tune with the social trends of the ethnic potpourri that is the 90's.

When I purchased this book 2 years ago, during my sophomore year of college, I was also struggling with my bi-racial identity. (Not that this struggle ever ends). As half Pakistani and half British...brought up in America I found this book to be very close to my heart and a godsend. I only wish there was more literature out there like this. It helps people like me because we can now see that there are others out there like us. I would personally like to thank Claudine O'Hearn for her wonderful project.

Ms. O'Hearn put together a wonderful group of people who share experiences, thoughts, and feelings about being minority in U.S. of A. By the end of the book, though, I, aperson whose family threads stretch to four corners of the globe, felt, instead of the disconnected, alienated, not belonging, a sense of connection, a tremendous identification, if not on every detail, in at least one aspect of each persons experience. For those who aren't as fortunate as I am, to have family members of multi (race, religion, culture), this will give you a glimpse on how you too can erase borders. For those of us who have felt "different", these wonderful writers connect you with stories, poetry of words, humor, so deftly that you can smell the spices in some of the essays. I read in one day because I couldn't put it down. Thank you, Ms. O'Hearn, and the other writers for this piece of work.

This is a delightful book, a nice addition to all of the biracial & bicultural writings by wonderful writers. Danzy Senna's chapter is the best! This chapter had me cracking up for months. It deals with some tough racial issues w/ great humor. Behind the humor of course are issues of race, gender, power, oppression. . . however, Senna's writing mastery is brilliant. Thanks for a great anthology, overall.

As the mother of biracial children and as a bicultural person living in a country other than the one where I was born, I found this book a great help. It raises questions and possibilities about the confusion of biracial children, and also provides food for thought as well as comfort for those of us raising them. A good (amazing) variety of cultures is presented as well as a variety of different positions. It was a joy for me to be introduced to the writers in this collection and to find out that there is a body of literature in this field. (I've accessed this site today to order books mentioned.) Ms. O'Hearn is to be commended, and thanked, for the thoughtful, well-written essays, including her own. I'm looking forward to finding more "kindred spirits" based on the writers have been introduced to here.