Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural

by Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn (editor)

As we approach the twenty-first century, biracialism and biculturalism are becoming increasingly common. Skin color and place of birth are no longer reliable signifiers of one's identity or origin. Simple questions like What are you? and Where are you from? aren't answered—they are discussed. These eighteen essays, joined by a shared sense of duality, address the difficulties of not fitting into and the benefits of being part of two worlds.  Through the lens of personal experience, they offer a broader spectrum of meaning for race and culture. And in the process, they map a new ethnic terrain that transcends racial and cultural division.

Genres: Nonfiction, Race, Essays, Sociology, Memoir, Biography, Cultural

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 9, 1998

Reviews

[Kevin Ressler · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have ever had that feeling of "oh, here's where I belong" that is what reading this book is for the bi-cultural/bi-racial individual. Spending my life as a child of two nations, a child of two cultures, but living always in America only with trips to my mother's Tanzania places one in a form of uncommon blackness. It is a revelation, then, to read a book where you realize how much you identify with expats from other nations, or the mixed individuals from other ethnicities more than simply those whose skin color or whose social location most similarly shares commonalities.

For those who have asked me about race, racism, and difference I will henceforth refer to this book. The essays are succinct, but they are powerful and you can feel the truth in them. I would have given this 6 stars if I could have figured out how to reprogram their site.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another collection of essays where I didn't end up reading each and every one but only those that really drew me in. Malcolm Gladwell, Garrett Hongo, Julia Alvarez, Bharati Mukherjee, and James McBride wrote engaging memoirs of their experiences growing up in between. Because all of the writers were crossing racial, ethnic and/or cultural boundaries just by their existence, the essays tend to have an exploratory tone of someone wandering around their story until they find home. McBride in particular leads a rambling journey through his personal history, and I thought he was going to lead me out into the weeds, but he dropped enough breadcrumbs that I continued to follow him, happy to munch on the insights he provided. Part of this interest may have been due to the fact that I grew up not so very far from where his Orthodox mother was raised, so learning about the story of her rebellion was really interesting to me. I could imagine the setting for it more easily than Mukherjee's streets of Calcutta, although what kept me engaged in that particular story was that she wasn't writing about street urchins but the middle class in India, who often went overlooked around the time this book was published. All of these writers have a unique perspective to share, and the collection is a good reminder of how meaningless terms like "the average American" really are.

[Nita · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't read most of these essays, they were so bad, and clearly of the, "Hey, I'm putting together a bunch of essays about being mixed ... wanna write something?" As opposed to actually maybe say oh I don't know reading literary magazines and actually trying to find good pre-existing essays on the topic. Lazy curation for a then-trendy product that of course I hook line and sinker purchased in I think '99 or '00 and didn't get around to reading until recently.

One stellar piece by Malcolm Gladwell, whose stuff normally irks me, on his upbringing in Canadian Amish country as a light-skinned mixed boy. Francisco Goldman has a not terrible piece in here, though I can't imagine reading a longer work by him (his sentences are not tightly-constructed). Everything else is basically really bad.

(Also, I'm sorry, but if you and your husband created mixed babies, you are not mixed. Back off, bitches, and get the heck out of the contributors' list.)

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a white parent of bi-cultural children (my husband is Pakistani), I read this with much interest as I think through how my children will deal with these issues. Fortunately for them, I think we (our country, or at least the community in which we live) have come a long way just since this book was written and I have high hopes that they will grow up fully appreciating and valuing their mixed heritage - esp. since we are surrounded by a great community of multi-cultural and diverse families.

[S K Pines · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give the book as a collection two stars but a couple of the essays I really enjoyed & felt warranted five stars. So, I settled on 3 as half stars are not an option. The end of this review has those few outstanding essays called out.

As a person ego tries not to value one portion of my mixed heritage (Black, Jewish, Lithuanian, & a mix of Irish & Scottish) over the other, I was really looking forward to reading this book. The 18 essays + intro each offered something & spoke to me I someway but overall I was left wanting. I don't know if it was my unrecognized expectation that one of them would provide me with the words I've been searching for over the past 50 years until after I read the book & was still searching was too high but my overall impression is meh.

The back cover promises the essays "map a new ethnic terrain that transcends racial and cultural division." The works seemed to echo well recognized questions of leaning too much towards one ethnicity over another or searching for answers to the "what are you?" question but none of them seemed to present any new perspective one the issue. Nor do they provide a different way of considering questions around race or identity.

In the end, the reader is left still in need of new ways to express or ponder questions/answers around ethnic identity or reasons to even do so during this time of struggling race relations & evidence of society valuing certain ethnicities over others. I was left hoping someone will yet write an essay (or other work) that indeed 'transcends' racial & cultural division vs. merely reporting/describing it.

Maybe that is for fiction...

Of the 18 pieces, the following intrigued &/or represent the best of the collection:
"What Color is Jesus? James McBride
"The Road from Ballygunge" Bharati Mukherjee
"A White Woman of Color" Julia Álverrz

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this as I prepared for a multi-ethnic track for an ethnic identity conference. The book is an anthology of stories and reflections of authors of the multi-ethnic/multi-cultural experience.

I appreciated many of these stories as the authors shared candidly the experience of being "neither" or of being "both/and". In particular I appreciated the breadth of experiences represented in the book. It clearly showed the variety of experiences represented within the multi-ethnic community that some how all point back to a relatable experience of isolation, awareness, choosing, and crossing cultures.

However, since some of the authors were only multicultural or third-culture it made for different experiences that I didn't feel fit. Also, like most books on this topic, it tended towards the angsty. I am always looking for constructive accounts and multi-ethnic stories tend to remain contemplative and not move beyond the discipline of self-awareness. I almost gave this book 4 stars, but because of this I didn't feel good recommending it any higher. I would still recommend it for anyone trying to understand the multi-ethnic experience.

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put, this is a masterpiece. Unlike similar books that I have read, the authors here are all professional, seasoned writers - their stories are not merely interesting, but are written in diverse and brilliant styles. Each of these authors is so different, and they make such powerful use of metaphors, of imagery, of the imagination - this is the first time I have read a book and felt that I have been able to actually hear and taste and smell the scenes. The book covers not only biracial, but also bicultural people - which adds the stories of the children of immigrants, or of people who spent their childhood wandering the world, or even people who would normally be considered the same race but have parents from 2 different backgrounds (Cantonese from Guandong and Hakka from Jamaica, black mother from Chicago and black father from the DRC).

I was at a conference, and at lunch one of the other attendees saw this book in my hand. They said that have this exact same book on their shelf, and that it's one of their favorites that they revisit time and time again. After finishing the book, I have to agree.

[Alec · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the wide variety this book offered in personal narrative of bi-racial bi-cultural people. I found a lot of feelings and situations I could relate to even if we didn't have the same background. It was nice to have a collection where others had thoughtfully expressed things I don't always know how to describe.

[Luke Rivers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays definitely worth reading if you have a mixed racial background. Although not every essay hits home, there are enough that introduced and challenged concepts around race and culture that make it worthwhile. At best they put into words feelings and experiences that I had not until then processed in their fullness.

[Bella Stenvall · Rating 3 out of 5]

So difficult to rate anthologies because I inevitable adore a few pieces and can’t stand others BUT considering I hadn’t read anything specifically tackling mixedness before there were definitely essays that resonated and even complicated my ideas of biracial/biculturalness. The ones I enjoyed less leaned into mixedness as more of a monolith and didn’t dare acknowledge the role of whiteness in their identity crises.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Summary: An interesting subject but a very average collection.

I wanted to love this collection, but my actual feelings are closer to 'eh, it was alright.'. I liked that it included an incredible array of perspectives. It was interested to see the wide variety of ways people come by a bicultural and/or biracial identity. Of course, your parents might simply bequeath you two different cultures or racial identities, but so might your grandparents. Other contributors to this collection were adopted or had moved all over the world while growing up. Their perspectives on their identities and how other people respond to them varied just as widely. Unfortunately, this was a case where the form didn't live up to the content for me.

All of these essays were decent, but none really stood out. Many included similar themes, such as feelings of not belonging. There were several cultural references that made this feel quite dated. I'm not sure either of these is the reason the whole collection felt kind of bland and boring to me. I feel bad giving a book a middling review without being better able to identify what kept it from being a favorite. I'm not sure there was a universal problem though. Each essay was its own thing and I think I failed to fall in love with each one for its own unique reasons.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as a personal assignment for a class called Empowering Multicultural Initiatives, aimed at teaching educators about identity development both in students and how addressing the unique needs of non-white students can help the whole student population. We were supposed to read something based on our own individual cultural and racial identity development, but there aren't a whole lot of books focusing solely on kids growing up with absentee white American father and Dutch-Indonesian immigrant mother. The instructor suggested Half and Half, which is a collection of essays by established authors focusing on their multicultural upbringing.

There are eighteen essays in this collection, and after about ten of them, they start to get pretty repetitive even though each one focuses on a different combination of multi-ethnic composition. The elements of identity development in these varied writers essentially centers on the same idea: feeling out of place in the cultures of both individual parent and finding a way to navigate between the two worlds. A few were particularly good, including "The Mulatto Millennium" in which Danny Senna takes a satirical look at the issue of growing up with biracial parents, "A White Woman of Color" where Julia Alvarez discusses the colorism within Dominican cultural, "A Middle Passage" by Philippe Wamba focusing on the expatriate dilemma, and "Technicolor" where Rueben Martinez analyzes the effects of Hollywood imagery on his Hispanic development.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book, but struggled because it was 13 or so mini-memoirs and I generally don’t enjoy memoirs. I want a meta-point, observations about the greater biracial experience rather than a series of vignettes. But. There were many small moments in this book that resonated, primarily the descriptions of how violently uncomfortable America is with people that it cannot fit in to its racial and power binary, the unmoored years of your life when you wrestle with reconciling one or both of your halves, the inflection points where external factors force you to choose half your genetic and cultural makeup, the code switching, and the experience of encountering people who dismiss your being as mud, mutt.

What I got out of it was the celebration of newness. That you are not just the sum of your parts but create a new, third person. That was nice. If you want to understand a subset of the biracial experiences in America, this is worth a read. And Malcom Gladwell wrote a piece. If you’ve listened to Revisionist History, you’ll hear his dulcet tones as you read and that’s pretty delightful.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are memoirs from writers who are all in some way "half and half." They generally fall into two groups: They have parents from two different cultures, or they have parents from the same culture but either grew up or immigrated to an area of a different culture. There is quite a variety of backgrounds among the authors.

Also, several writers are quite famous. I have actually heard of Malcolm Gladwell and Julia Alvarez and many others!

Most of the memoirs were five stars, though some didn't quite measure up. (Gish Jen's memoir, for example, just left me hanging.... It didn't make me want to buy one of her books!)

It's a little outdated though. I think one writer mentions there not being a black president yet? But for most of the book, I think the fact that it is a few years old didn't seem to make a difference....

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading Half and Half on and off (mostly off) since January 2011. The collection is valuable in the ways it complicates social ideas of racial, ethnic, and cultural identity, intentionally using the truth of personal narrative to demonstrate the power of social boxes and what happens when you fall outside the boxes, between the boxes, or when you can navigate into and out of several boxes. While most (all?) of the authors now reside in the U.S., the essays are richly varied, covering a range of identity topics, spanning the globe, and showing what it looks like to struggle, to survive, and to find yourself in a world that doesn't always accept you for the entirety who you are. Most of the authors were new to me, but a few I recognized, including Malcolm Gladwell, Julia Álvarez, Rubén Martínez, and Gen Jish.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually liked this book despite it's unfortunate glossing over of what otherwise might be pretty deep subject matter. Some of the essays were really good and others were just downright boring and a waste of time. Of course Julia alvarez, ruben martinez, danzy senna, david mura, and some others, were all pretty good, but for the most part, the essays were anectodal accounts of how it feels to be caught between two or more cultures, with at least one of them being american. Some of the descriptions i really appreciated, but others were just like, huh?, I can't relate to what you're saying at all - probably because I'm not caught between anything except one parent that is white and another that thinks he's white. I'm sure it could be a lot worse.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good collection of interesting perspectives. For me, it was fascinating to see how other people react to the wet blanket that is white male culture, and compare it to mine.

The writing styles are varied, which I appreciated since all the stories focused on one theme. The honesty was nice, too. A lot of the authors used their children to focus their opinions and feelings. One author, married to a Caucasian and raising their family in a predominantly white locale, made me belly laugh with his pissy reaction to it all.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could give half stars, some of the essays were 4, some were 3. Overall an interesting mix of voices and views from different writers with different backgrounds, mostly informed by the American context or in contrast to the American context. Most are very autobiographical, as if taking an essay to answer the question "where are you from?" or "What ARE you?" others musing on the hipness of being 'mixed' in current media trends.

[Natalja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting points were brought up about racism and micro-aggressions that I had never thought about before, but found myself relating to completely. There were also chapters that were just confusing and some that I found myself just completely against the given mindset. But, each chapter was written by a different author, with different experiences, and I am aware that my experiences shaped my opinions and the same with theirs. Interesting read at that.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really helpful, broad, wide-ranging anthology of thoughts on the mixed race experience. The caliber of writers here is very high, and about 80% of the pieces had some fascinating insight on the way the writer perceives and conceptualizes the biracial and bicultural experience.

[nomdebuerre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for all us halfbreeds.

[Rachelmallinga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone whom grew up multi-ethnic, bicultrual should read this book.

[Anna Biton · Rating 4 out of 5]

a little dated, but very interesting to think about being of mixed races and mixed cultures in the U.S. and in other countries. A good group of essays.

[Tamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has great essays by authors like Malcolm Gladwell, Julia Alverez, Danzy Senna and many others of which I will soon be reading more.

[Seven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love this book.

[Fikreat]

Its good so far

[Kung Tsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read! Highly recommend!

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of essays from multi-cultural writers, which are entertaining and thought-provoking.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a biracial woman myself, I wholeheartedly related to these stories - the hilarious, the mundane, being not one or the other, etc.

[hali · Rating 5 out of 5]

insightful stories from some of my favourite writers loved it.