Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural (edition 1998)

Lovely, lovely anthology. The editor did a superb job of collecting a diverse sampling of experiences and writing styles -- at no point does one feel that one has gotten the general drift of the anthology, and can put it down without reading the rest.

Essays range from Danzy Senna's scythingly satirical "Mulatto Millennium", to pensive and reflective essays from the likes of Gish Jen and Malcolm Gladwell. Some writers hail from mono-cultural families transplanted into another country, others hail from mixed families (Caribbean-English, Guatemalan-Jewish, African-BlackAmerican), while still other writers are from mixed families and raised in multiple countries. Some authors write about their own childhoods, others about raising children, and still more talk about switching countries as an adult and finding oneself shoehorned into a racial category the author had never known existed. Some authors try to describe their experience in toto, while others focus on a single cultural note -- food, or a barn-raising -- as a lens for viewing the larger experience.

An eye-opening, enlightening anthology, heartily recommended for anyone trying to make sense of identity and society in a multicultural world. ( )