{"id":13889,"date":"2011-05-21T00:53:52","date_gmt":"2011-05-21T00:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=13889"},"modified":"2014-01-16T15:44:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-16T15:44:21","slug":"tales-of-the-struggles-successes-of-the-racially-mixed-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=13889","title":{"rendered":"Tales of the struggles, successes of the racially mixed [Book Review]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/ae\/books\/articles\/2011\/05\/21\/danzy_sennas_tales_of_the_struggles_successes_of_the_racially_mixed\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tales of the struggles, successes of the racially mixed [Book Review]<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/bostonglobe\" target=\"_blank\">The Boston Globe<\/a><br \/>\n2011-05-21<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"mailto:jan.stuart7@gmail.com\" target=\"_blank\">Jan Stuart<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the final offering of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.danzysenna.com\" target=\"_blank\">Danzy Senna\u2019s<\/a> new short story collection, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=13773\" target=\"_blank\">You Are Free<\/a>,\u2019\u2019 a racially mixed woman sits in a bustling <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Los_Angeles\" target=\"_blank\">LA<\/a> fast-food joint over a plate of macaroni and cheese, counting the mixed-race couples enjoying their Sunday lunch.<\/p>\n<p>A refined radar for other folks of multicolored heritage has bound Senna\u2019s characters since her debut novel, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=8347\" target=\"_blank\">Caucasia<\/a>,\u2019\u2019 in which a light-skinned black teenager named Birdie has a white Jewish identity foisted upon her by her white mother, who is on the run from a violent radical past. Birdie ultimately reclaims her blackness, along with her estranged black family, at the end of a bruising odyssey. \u201cI had become someone I didn\u2019t like,\u2019\u2019 she confesses. \u201cSomeone who had no voice or color or conviction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Senna established her voice and convictions forcefully with \u201cCaucasia,\u2019\u2019 but the peace of mind intimated by her heroine\u2019s hard-won closure has proven to be illusory. The predominantly mixed-race protagonists of \u201cYou Are Free\u2019\u2019 continue to wallow in the societal pressures and inner tumult wrought by their ambiguous skin color and racially fused <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/DNA\" target=\"_blank\">DNA<\/a>. And their turmoil is palpable. A couple\u2019s polyracial family tree is \u201ccultural chaos.\u2019\u2019 A character\u2019s indeterminate features are perceived as \u201ca confusion of races.\u2019\u2019 Interracial couples are self-mockingly pegged as \u201cthat mewling and defensive group.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire review <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/ae\/books\/articles\/2011\/05\/21\/danzy_sennas_tales_of_the_struggles_successes_of_the_racially_mixed\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tales of the struggles, successes of the racially mixed [Book Review] The Boston Globe 2011-05-21 Jan Stuart In the final offering of Danzy Senna\u2019s new short story collection, \u201cYou Are Free,\u2019\u2019 a racially mixed woman sits in a bustling LA fast-food joint over a plate of macaroni and cheese, counting the mixed-race couples enjoying their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[1340,6386,5579],"class_list":["post-13889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","tag-danzy-senna","tag-jan-stuart","tag-the-boston-globe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}