The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century (2LP explorations of diversity ;) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1940939542 ISBN 13: 9781940939544

Publisher: 2Leaf Press, 2017

Synopsis

THE BEIGING OF AMERICA, BEING MIXED RACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY, takes on "race matters" and considers them through the firsthand accounts of mixed race people in the United States. Edited by mixed-race scholars Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes and Tara Betts, this collection consists of 39 poets, writers, teachers, professors, artists and activists, whose personal narratives articulate the complexities of interracial life. THE BEIGING OF AMERICA was prompted by cultural critic/scholar Hua Hsu, who contemplated the changing face and race of U.S. demographics in his 2009 The Atlantic article provocatively titled "The End of White America." In it, Hsu acknowledged "steadily ascending rates of interracial marriage" that undergirded assertions about the "beiging of America." THE BEIGING OF AMERICA is an absorbing and thought-provoking collection of stories that explore racial identity, alienation, with people often forced to choose between races and cultures in their search for self-identity. While underscoring the complexity of the mixed-race experience, these unadorned voices offer a genuine, poignant, enlightening and empowering message to all readers.

About this title

About the Author

CATHY J. SCHLUND-VIALS is a mixed-race Cambodian and white American. She holds a Joint Appointment as professor in the Department of English and the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Her latest book is Asian America: A Primary Source Reader (2017), co-edited with K. Scott Wong and Jason O. Chang. SEAN FREDERICK FORBES is a mixed race Afro-Latino and the series editor of 2Leaf Press' 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY. He is the co-editor of the series' first book, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WHITE IN AMERICA? (2016), and author of the poetry collection, Providencia: A Book of Poems (2013). He is the director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Connecticut. TARA BETTS is a mixed-race award-winning poet, author and scholar of African American and white French descent. Betts is the author of Break the Habit (2016), Arc and Hue (2009) and the libretto, The Greatest: An Homage to Muhammad Ali (2010). She has appeared in several radio and television programs, and her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is currently a professor at University of Illinois-Chicago.

Review

"The contributors in THE BEIGING OF AMERICA tells us their stories, in their own voices. Every American should read this book and heed these voices. This is our racial future." --Paul Spickard, author of "Race in Mind: Critical Essays" (2015)

"THE BEIGING OF AMERICA points towards the next generation of first-person narratives about the mixed race experience, including those stories that go beyond the usual hand-wringing over census boxes to consider, more pressingly, the where and when of racial justice for peoples of color, mixed or not." --Michele Elam, author of "The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium" (2011)

"This disarmingly candid collection gives voice to manifold experiences of being multiracial in America, through essays that are by turns poignant, insightful, heartbreaking, thought-provoking, and essential." --Ava Dellaira, author of "Love Letters to the Dead" (2013)

Edition details

• Publisher: 2Leaf Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1940939542
• ISBN 13: 9781940939544
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 286
• Editor: Schlund-Vials Cathy J., Forbes Sean Frederick, Betts Tara