Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families

by Gigi Kaeser

Book Overview

Based on an award-winning photo exhibit, this book documents the feelings and experiences of Americans who live in multiracial families. Of Many Colors tells the stories of thirty-nine families who have bridged the racial divide through interracial marriage or adoption. In these pages, parents and children speak candidly about their lives, their relationships, and the ways in which they have dealt with issues of race.

Although the number...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558491015
• ISBN13: 9781558491014
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

A Family is People Who Love Each Other

This book provided me a window into the lives of many diverse families, their shared experience of creating family across real and perceived boundaries, and a hint of how rich the idea of family can be. I appreciated that many family configurations were included, adoptive families, single parents, gay and lesbian parents, inter-faith families and the blended your-mine-ours clans. As my mom sent me off to college she confided that she hoped I would find a nice man and get married, as long as he wasn't a black man. Not having been overtly raised to be prejudiced against black people I told her I was shocked that she would say such a thing. Her only reply was that she just thought it would be too hard on me and the children. I guess my future husband was on his own! From this book I could see that for the children there are certainly both challenges and indignities, not precisely from being in mixed race families, but from biased and racists attitudes that still linger in American culture. But I also discovered that there are advantages that accrue to mixed families that my mother and I would never have imagined. Mixed race families gain a perspective they would not as easily receive in a one race household. They see firsthand the heartache of a child, a sibling or a parent who is snubbed or ill-treated and they learn ways to honor and respect their various family and personal culture heritages. They bridge the gaps for one another. The photos in this book brought home for me that family is more than our creation, more than a set formula that happens in just one prescribed way. However we can, wherever we are, we are compelled to create family, to share the joys and sorrows of life, to nurture one another. The families in this book are doing just that and with courage have allowed us to take a look inside their worlds. "A family is people who love each other." Justin Robinson, age 10

A peep into the future

A very inspiring and interesting text to read. It showed the challenges families that are of mixed race go through, which are majorly cast on them by our society. Pictures speak a thousand word, and I have to say every picture in this book did just that: spoke a thousand words. A good read for anyone in a mixed race relationship, family, or anyone that feels they don't quite fit into the rigid boxes our lovely society has created. Happy Reading!

OF MANY COLORS is Extraordinarily Moving and Instructive

OF MANY COLORS touched my heart in so many powerful ways. Reading the moving testaments of the families interviewed - couched in such exquisite family photgraphs - brought me into the very living rooms of these courageous families. I learned so much about diversity, about multiracial and multicultural families. This book would PROFOUNDLY advance the acceptance of Diversity in business, in schools, and in the home.

A Great Resource About Multiracial/Multicultural Families

This is a great book to learn more about Multiracial/Multicultural families. The photos are beautiful and the text is clear and easy to understand (especially for children). A great way to learn and to teach others about the experiences of these very special families.

A Positive View of Diversity in the Family

I found the book to be full of what I was seeking--the experiences of other families who chose to love outside the race barrier. I enjoyed seeing the black and white photos of happy and well adjusted children and parents. It was good to find many definitions of family--single parents, gay parents, and separated parents. "His, mine and ours" families, and families who made a choice to adopt as a way to share love and bring the races together. This book offers hope for humankind, that we will get past the race issue. It offered me hope personally, that if I marry outside my race, my children will have every chance that single-race children have, and maybe some that they DON'T have. However, the book does not gloss over the effects of racism on mixed children. It brings to the surface issues I may not have considered on my own. I learned a lot from these people's experiences. I'm sharing it with all my mixed-marriage friends, and I think you will too!