Customer Reviews

Miscegenation Blues: Voices of Mixed Race Women

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Just as books on multiracial people in the United States are being produced rapidly, the same is beginning to happen in Canada. The editor's journey is fascinating. She starts by saying she sought her validation in dark-skinned boyfriends and that because she was brown and didn't know her ethnic identity, she made up that she was Tahitian. Finally, she's come to terms with her identity. Still, this book may dissatisfy many. Let's start off with the title. With a name like "miscegenation blues," it seems that from the start the glass is half empty for these writers. Further, the title continues a long line of oppressive literary works that deem mixed-race women "tragic." Second, the author, a transracial adoptee and lesbian, takes white lesbians who adopt children of color to task. You would think that a multiracial identity would push the author to celebrate all types of mixed phenomena, but she doesn't. This may feel dangerously essentialist to some. I think readers will flock to Maria P.P. Root's books before this one, but I applaud the contributors here for extending the selections of writings out there by and about women of color.