Mixed: Exploring What It Means to Be Blended in America

by Jeanne Jones

In Mixed , Jeanne Jones reflects on being a white wife and mother raising her blended biracial family in the Midwest, while providing the call to action America so desperately we need to fix the rampant racial injustice this country faces. Not tomorrow, not in a year, but today.
The Jones family exemplifies the race-related dichotomies that exist in their biracial twin girls have ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War and came to America via Ellis Island on one side, and rare documentation tracing their family to a runaway slave from Virginia who was captured and taken to Mississippi on the other.
Exposed to different cultures and races from a young age, Jeanne Jones has always been interested in viewing the world through the lens of others. Her children's experiences with identity come to the forefront as she explores colorism and the impact it has already had on their one is viewed as "passing," with light skin and blue eyes, while the other is often perceived as Hispanic. Touching on the hypocrisy of race relations in America, Jones highlights experiences had by her own mixed family as they navigate the world as we know it, including contrasting the way her husband is treated by those who recognize him from his college football career, and the lack of awareness by others who questioned him as a possible robber while taking a walk in his own neighborhood.
Candid, compelling, and ultimately revelatory, Mixed is a heartfelt, necessary, and timely exploration into the heart and soul of what it means to be and live as mixed, blended, and biracial in America.

Genres: Memoir

128 pages, Unknown Binding

Published May 4, 2021

Reviews

[Mary Bronson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a very well written memoir and non fiction about the author Jeanne Jones and the struggles and some triumphs of raising mixed children in America today. I thought this was very well researched and how with the research there is her stories mixed in as well. I think it is important for everyone to read more books about blended families in America and how we can treat them with the love and respect as everyone else.

[Sukaina Majeed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A white woman's account married to a black man and she in a way shows how the biracial family are looked at. The author also pays attention in the way people were not scared especially after the 2016 elections to show their hatred and the prejudices they held. The way she describes how as a white woman she never has been stopped by the cops while she has to prepare her back son before hand which in one line explains the discrimination and tells you what the book is going to show you and will literally hold up the mirror for you.