Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural

by Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375700110
• ISBN13: 9780375700118
• Release Date: June 1998
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 14 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 9 to 12

Customer Reviews

hybrid vigor

This is a wonderful collection of essays on growing up biracial and bicultural. It is a little uneven. Some are more readable than others, and I found myself skimming at times when some of the essays started to feel similar, but the good parts are strong enough to make it more than worth it. A common thread that comes up are early childhood memories of not thinking much of it, followed by some period in adolescence or early adulthood where the social, psychological, and political issues around race and culture simply could not be ignored. There are many examples of drawing on positives from both sides but also that reality, described in a most straightforward way by Garrett Hongo: "Being different wears you down." The struggle to establish a sense of identity is a normal developmental challenge for adolescents even in the absence of confounding variables (and these days, since adolescence effectively stretches out and overlaps well into early adulthood, so to does the task of crafting a sense of self). This job is that much harder for children growing up biracial and bicultural. This because, as Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn explains in her introduction, "One and one don't necessarily add up to two. Cultural and racial amalgams create a third, wholly indistinguishable category where origin and home are indeterminate." Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in terms of having the usual `who am I?' questions we grapple with subjugated subverted by having to answer the question "what are you?" This job is that much harder because, despite the well-meaning intentions of those who speak of a colorblind society, it simply isn't the reality. We know scientifically that racial categories as discrete entities are only social constructs, that mixing has always been more common than acknowledged, that characteristic traits exist in grades along a continuum. We know now that genetic variation within a group trumps genetic variation between groups. We know this intellectually but we still don't know it in our guts. We live in societies that are not colorblind, in families that are not colorblind, and we ourselves are not colorblind. It's just not how our brains work. None of us operate in an assumption-free, value-free environment. We internalize messages out there in our neighborhoods, in the media, and in our homes, and our expectations of ourselves and others are affected. I particularly enjoyed Danzy Senna's essay, "The Mulatto Millennium," in which she talks about racism as "... a slippery devil. Like Madonna, it changes its image every couple of years." She describes her own experience, which she argues were "difficult not because things were confusing, but rather because things were so painfully clear. Racism, as well as the absurdity of race, were obvious to me in ways that they perhaps weren't to those whose racial classification was a given." Lori Tsang also writes powerfully on the slipperiness of race and the bind that puts tho

WONDERFUL!! THNAK YOU SO MUCH

I am highschool student. all my life I have been made fun of by fellow student once I got into middle school it got worse people started asking me What Are You? and started trying to force me to pick a race no matter what I always replied I am mixed this book shows the courage and struggle us biracial and biculturel go througth everyday a truly wonderful book

A wonderful book for biracial/bicultural families and people

received this book as a gift from a mentor in undergraduate school. It has given so much to me in terms of understanding my experiences as a biracial person, especially growing up in a rural, mostly white town. This book is also great for people who want to know what struggles we face as we try to define ourselves both as individuals and as members of US society. There are also some wonderful stories written by parents of biracial and bicultural children that speak to their worries, fears and hopes for their offspring. I found those stories particularly amazing because they speak to the differences between children and their parents. I appreciate the attention to the multicultural perspective and the way the authors weave many aspects such as socio-economic status, culture, gender and sexuality into their stories. Overall, this book is a collection of experiences that unifies the reality of those of us who fall somewhere in between dichotomized racial constructs.

Amazing source for biracial people who feel alone!

I received this book as a gift from a mentor in undergraduate school. It has brought so much to me in terms of understanding my experiences as a biracial person, especially growing up in a rural mostly white town. This book is also great for people who want to know what struggles we face as we try to define ourselves both as individuals and as members of society. There are also some wonderful stories written by parents of biracial and bicultural children that speak to their worries, fears and hopes for their offspring. I found those stories particularly amazing because they speak to the differences between children and their parents. Overall, this book is a collection of stories that unifies the experience of falling somewhere in between.

Highly insightful

When I purchased this book 2 years ago, during my sophomore year of college, I was also struggling with my bi-racial identity. (Not that this struggle ever ends). As half Pakistani and half British...brought up in America I found this book to be very close to my heart and a godsend. I only wish there was more literature out there like this. It helps people like me because we can now see that there are others out there like us. I would personally like to thank Claudine O'Hearn for her wonderful project.