Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

When we’re young, it’s already incredibly difficult to figure out where we belong. It’s human nature to want to be liked, and sometimes we’ll do anything for approval. We’ll change the way we dress and what we listen to; we’ll code-switch our dialect depending on the people we’re with; whatever it takes to feel a part of something. Bobby had to do that as a child, as do a great number of mixed-race people who have been asked at far too young an age, “What are you, anyway?” Heard often enough, you begin to ask that question of yourself subconsciously, and seek to find the answers in others. Bobby had only his mother and his grandfather in his life, and Isabel could hardly take care of herself. That left his grandfather a hateful bigot. It didn’t take much to steer Bobby down the path he eventually took, and even embraced, because when he emulated his grandfather, he received love and approval, which is all he was every looking for. —John Vercher

Alex Segura, “Throwing Rocks: An Interview with John Vercher,” Los Angeles Review of Books, January 29, 2020. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/throwing-rocks-an-interview-with-john-vercher.

Sidesplitter: How to be from Two Worlds at Once

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Biography, Books, Media Archive, Monographs, United Kingdom on 2021-10-11 18:21Z by Steven

Sidesplitter: How to be from Two Worlds at Once

Hodder & Stoughton
2021-09-16
304 pages
Hardcover ISBN-13: 9781529350272
eBook ISBN-13: 9781529350296
Audiobook ISBN-13: 9781529350302

Phil Wang

One of the UK’s brightest and best comedians takes an incisive look at race and belonging.

‘But where are you really from?’

Phil Wang has been asked this question so many times he’s finally written a book about it.

In this mix of comic memoir and observational essay, one of the UK’s most exciting stand-up comedians reflects on his experiences as a Eurasian man in the West and in the East. Phil was born in Stoke-on-Trent, raised in Malaysia, and then came of age in Bath – ‘a spa town for people who find Cheltenham too ethnic’.

Phil takes an incisive look at what it means to be mixed race, as he explores the contrasts between cultures and delves into Britain and Malaysia’s shared histories, bringing his trademark cynicism and wit to topics ranging from family, food, and comedy to race, empire, and colonialism.

Tags: England, Hodder & Stoughton, Malaysia, Phil Wang, Philip Nathaniel Sin Goi Wang

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Phil Wang: I wouldn’t be a comic if I weren’t mixed-race

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Biography, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2021-09-12 23:43Z by Steven

Phil Wang: I wouldn’t be a comic if I weren’t mixed-race

BBC News
2021-09-11

Helen Bushby, Entertainment and arts reporter

Phil Wang says the face of “every Eurasian person I’ve ever seen sings with loneliness”

Phil Wang, the stand-up comic you may recall for his viral video spoofing a Tom Hiddleston advert, has been baring his soul, or at least some of it, in his new book Sidesplitter.

Wang, 31, whose TV duties include Live at the Apollo, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and Taskmaster, insists it’s not a memoir, as his life doesn’t merit one.

“I haven’t escaped a gulag or revolutionised an industry,” he explains, adding memoirs are a “saturated market” anyway.

What he really talks about in his book of essays is the impact of being mixed-race, of being “from two worlds at once”.

But although it has its serious moments, Sidesplitter is eloquently laced with laughs and bittersweet observations…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: BBC, BBC News, Helen Bushby, Phil Wang, Philip Nathaniel Sin Goi Wang

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Sidesplitter: How to be from Two Worlds at Once

Phil Wang: I wouldn’t be a comic if I weren’t mixed-race

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