For those of us who fall between the cracks, being “black,” being “white,” being “Chinese,” being “Latino,” is complicated. These essays, exemplary of the legion meanings of race and culture, are about inconstant categories and shifting skins. Skin color and place of birth aren’t accurate signifiers of identity. One and one don’t necessarily add up to who. Cultural and racial amalgams create a third, wholly indistinguishable category where origin and home are indeterminate…What name do you give to someone who is a quarter, and eighth, a half? What kind of measuring stick might give an accurate estimation? If our understanding of race and culture can ripen and evolve, then new and immeasurable measurements about the uniqueness of our identities become possible.
- Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn, from the introduction of Half+Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial & Bicultural
