Five Must-Read Books About the Mixed Experience
Arranged by Jonathan Shlesinger
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother
James Mc Bride
Goodreads Review: 4.1/5
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Winner of the National Book Award and a #1 New York Times Bestseller, this haunting memoir encapsulates James McBride’s childhood and his mother’s upbringing through the lenses of race and ethnicity. The son of a black minister and a woman who would never admit to being white, McBride, in his youth, viewed his mother as a source of embarrassment. It was only after delving into her truths and her history is he able to gain a new perspective. This intimate novel weaves together the stories of his mother’s hardships and McBride’s own experiences as a black man in America.
Mexican Whiteboy
Matt de la Pena
Goodreads Review: 3.9/5
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The novel follows Danny Lopez, a half-Mexican half-white young boy growing up in San Diego California who is subjected to various stereotypical degradations because of the color of his skin. Despite being a talented pitcher, Danny finds that his appearance lowers the expectations of his peers and the faculty of his white private school. With summers with his dad in Mexico and a love for being on the baseball diamond, Danny’s understanding of his own identity only comes with confrontations of his demons that he refuses to face. At its core, Mexican Whiteboy is a story about the struggle to find oneself in a world desperate to box individuals in.
Caucasia
Danzy Senna
Goodreads Review: 4.0/5
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Danzy Senna’s debut novel is a tale of two sisters forced into different realities because of the color of their skin. Daughters of black father and white mother, both of who are activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston, Birdie and Cole are practically joined at the hip. However, Birdie is white passing, whereas her sister Cole is not. Once their parents’ marriage falls apart and racial tensions heighten, Birdie watches as her father, his new black girlfriend, and her beloved sister flee to Brazil in the hopes of finding racial acceptance the US cannot provide. With the Feds after them, Birdie and her mother relocate leaving everything behind, including their identity. They live the guise of a daughter and widowed wife of a Jewish man, but Birdie’s desperation to find Cole pushes her to confront the reality of race relations in the world.
Everything I Never Told You
Celeste Ng
Goodreads Review: 3.9/5
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In 1970s Ohio, Marylin and James Lee have placed all of their hopes, whims, and dreams into the future of their favorite child, Lydia. After Lydia’s lifeless body is discovered in the local lake, the thin string that held the Lees together quickly begins to unravel. The family descends into chaos. With each family member sharing their own individual perspective (the point of view alternating each chapter), the audience learns the stark truth of attempting to live in the very world that rejects one's existence. A gripping novel about understanding individual struggle, Everything I Never Told You, is candid in its display of various prejudices that haunt human existence.
The Death of Jim Loney
James Welch
Goodreads Review: 3.9/5
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Published in 1979, The Death of Jim Loney is a chilling depiction of the life of a half Native American and half white man who has lived a life on the margins of both communities. Loney has been secluded his entire life, too white to be truly Native American and too Native American to be white. He lives a life of solitude in a small Montana town where he is plagued by dreams that seep into his waking hours and alter his interactions with the world. Jim turns to alcoholism as a means of coping, and his lover nor his sister can ease the pain of a man who has never felt belonging. As riveting as it is somber, The Death of Jim Loney a story of the weight of marginalization has on one’s soul that makes it all too easy to slip into self-destruction.