I was intrigued by the story of Gregory William's life in Life on the Color Line, and decided to look for other books about folks who cross racial lines.
In fiction, I found 3 titles:
Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen Headley
Patty Ho (yes, she's heard all the jokes about her name) is finishing up her freshman year of high school, wondering how she will get through the summer with her demanding mother. Patty's mother was a Taiwanese student when she fell in love with an American man studying in Taiwan. They married, and had two kids, moving to the United States. And then things fell apart. Patty's dad left when she was two, and she is finding it hard to live up to her mother's expectations. Math camp at Stanford wasn't her first choice, but when she realizes it will get her 900 miles away from her mom, she thinks it may work out after all. And it does, though not the way she had imagined.
Face Relations: 11 stories about seeing beyond color edited by Marilyn Singer
Eleven stories by well-known authors, all about exploring the possibility of tearing down the walls between us. Some funny, some sad, but all are hopeful.
Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet by Sherri L. Smith
Ana Shen is about to graduate from eighth grade, which would be a good thing if it didn't mean that both sides of her family were there to celebrate. Ana loves her parents, and her grandparents, but there is discomfort and competition between her Chinese grandparents and her African-American grandparents. Not to mention the Japanese-American parents of the guy she's crushing on. There is much to think about, as well as lots to laugh at, in this tale of Ana's graduation day.
In non-fiction, I found One drop : my father's hidden life--a story of race and family secrets, written by Bliss Broyard after her father disclosed to her and her brother, that both his parents were mixed race, and that he had been "passing" for white most of his adult life. Bliss began her own search to understand her father, meeting relatives she had never known, visiting New Orleans, where her father was born, and coming to grips with what race does and doesn't mean to her.
Previously, I had read Shirley Taylor Haizlip's memoir: The Sweeter the Juice: a family memoir in black and white and Loving Across the Color Line: a white adoptive mother learns about race by Sharon E. Rush.
What have you read on the subject? Anything you recommend?