About the site
The purpose of MixedRaceBooks is to find and review popular literature involving "mixed race" topics and identities. At present, the site focuses on U.S.-connected works written primarily in English.
MixedRaceBooks has a dual mission: first, to show the variety and rich history of mixed race literature in the U.S.; and, second, to provide resources for anyone seeking information on mixed race experiences.
Reviews and comments posted on MixedRaceBooks represent solely the opinions of their respective authors.
About the writer
My name is Bethany Lam, and I own and operate MixedRaceBooks.org. I am currently finishing my PhD in English at the awesome University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Go Heels!!!!)
Like most academics, I can get pretty long-winded. Tl;dr: this site grew out of my own experiences as a person of Asian and White descent.
My story
MixedRaceBooks has been my dream for over a decade. The daughter of a Chinese American father and a German/English American mother, I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. My family moved often throughout the Midwest and South. Aside from my younger brother and sisters, I almost never met or read about anyone who looked like me.
I wasn't upset about being "different"; it was all I knew. Sure, standing out had its disadvantages, but there were also plenty of perks. In a world of mostly White people, I was little and cute. I shamelessly embraced the role of "pet."
My parents shielded my siblings and me from most overt racism--or at least any awareness of it. (We were homeschoolers. That helped.) I grew up enjoying my mixed race identity as a gift from God. According to my childhood logic, having both white and Asian heritages made me "more than," not "less than." Why wouldn't I celebrate something that made me special?
When I left home for Harding University (Go Bisons!!!!), I stood out more than ever. Suddenly, that wasn't quite the fun, happy thing it had been before. Harding enrolled very few people of Asian descent at that time; I had effectively moved into a fishbowl.
Young, sheltered, and naive, I hadn't guessed how isolated I would feel, living in central Arkansas with my siblings--my racial community--12 hours away. Their presence, along with homeschooling, had always kept me from feeling TOO different. Now, though, a spirited class discussion on the ethics of interracial marriage left me shaken. (How, in 2003, was it still a question whether I should exist??) Total strangers seemed to think they knew me, because they'd seen me so often around campus. An introvert, I struggled with the pressure of living constantly on display.
At the same time, my black hair and short stature were easily overlooked (literally) in the crowds of tall Southern blondes and brunettes. Time and time again, I had to go to the Dean of Students' office to argue that I had indeed been present for our required morning chapel; the attendance monitor just hadn't seen me. I wasn't always believed.
Please don't touch my hair. No, I don't speak Chinese. China is not my country; my parents and I are American-born, thankyouverymuch. What do you mean, you thought I was "more exotic"?? I'm sorry (not really) that my racial identity disappoints you?
I needed an escape, so I took refuge in books. Before long, I declared an English major. My childhood reading material had been almost entirely White. Now, as a college student reading minority texts, many for the first time, I responded with unexpected appreciation, understanding, and sometimes even identification.
Minority writers had long ago put words to pain, frustration, and marginalization that seemed similar to what I was feeling. Their words resonated within my soul. Of course, our lives and privilege differed vastly, but we were all "Others," all racial outsiders. So what if I was an "Other" to them, too? I clung to their words as my coping mechanism. Imperfect parallels, they were the best I had.
And then I discovered mixed race literature.
I no longer remember which texts brought about my epiphany. What I do remember is sitting in a literature class in the American Studies Building and thinking to myself, almost with tears of joy, "Wait--I, too, have a literary tradition! Mixed race people have a literary heritage! It's been separated and pigeonholed into all these minority categories, but it's there. I never knew! I want to share this with all the other mixed race people. We have a literary canon where we belong!"
Fast-forward a dozen years or so, et voila! MixedRaceBooks.org. (I was also a French major.)
Eager to find, read, and understand more about mixed race texts, I graduated from Harding and enrolled at Baylor University (Sic 'em, Bears!!!!) to earn my M.A. in English. Then I moved to UNC-Chapel Hill. I've been studying ethnic American literatures of the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly mixed race literature, as well as critical race theory, ever since.
I'm so excited to share what I've learned with you!