Fade

""What are you?" This seemingly ordinary but politically charged question has become a touchstone for debate around race and ethnicity. Now more than ever, mixed-race Americans are calling themselves biracial and multiracial rather than feeling forced to choose only one race. Nearly seven million people checked more than one racial category in the 2000 U.S. census, the first time in history Americans had the option to mark more than one box." "With Fade, Lewis looks at the multiracial state of the union. Here he speaks with dozens of individuals, tackling hot-button issues such as the often complicated lives of multiracial people in communities of color, interracial dating, transracial adoption, immigration, and the birth of the multiracial movement. His interviews illuminate a variety of coping strategies and reveal stark generational differences in the ways mixed-race people have come to terms with their identity. The author also shares his own moving - and often humorous - firsthand experiences, along with intimate stories from the forefront of nationwide efforts to formally recognize the multiracial population."--Jacket.