Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories - Book Review

Please note that reviews are written by members of our community and reflect their specific lens of experience and understanding. We're excited to publish our first review by one of our KC members. 

Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories
Edited by Andrew Garrod, Robert Kilkenny and Christina Gómez
Cornell University Press, 2013.
ISBN 978-0801479144

Reviewed by Nicola Codner

Multiracial people are often used as evidence of racial harmony and a post-racial world, however the frequently complex lived experiences of multiracial people tend to go unheard. This book counters this issue by telling the life stories of 12 multiracial students who all attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. The book also includes an introduction which describes the process of how these accounts developed to become part of the publication.

It is a real strength of the text that the stories contained within it are written in such a candid and detailed style. The students explore their upbringings, relationships with family, friends, partners and both racial and cultural issues, as well as other aspects of their identities. There is a diverse range of races and cultures represented and a good mixture of both male and female voices are included. The students are from various socioeconomic backgrounds and both positive and negative experiences of multiracial students are portrayed. There is a lack of diversity in terms of the sexual orientation of the students, however one example, at least, is provided of a student also navigating an LGBTQ* identity.

I personally haven’t read another book like this, so I feel that it fills a gap by focusing specifically on college students and providing a collection of varied and in-depth multiracial perspectives all in one volume. This text is described as a resource for educators and students, along with their families. I would argue it may also be of use to mental health care practitioners as well. I am a qualified person-centred therapist and I would recommend this to others in the field as a good guide on the issues multiracial people may face in life. Particularly parents may benefit from reading this book, as it is a common theme throughout many of the narratives that the parents of the writers involved struggled to address the topic of race in meaningful ways with them while they were growing up. This often caused them additional suffering and difficulties. This book would undoubtedly help monoracial parents to develop a deeper understanding of what it means to be multiracial.

As a mixed race woman of black Jamaican, Nigerian and white British heritage, I thoroughly enjoyed reading these pieces and saw myself in all of them to some degree, regardless of the race and culture of the author. I do feel that there are certain experiences that are common among all multiracial people and I feel this work demonstrates that. The stories prompted an array of emotional responses in me from sadness to pride in my own identity. I was particularly moved however by the accounts which most resembled my own story and depicted women of black and white ancestry, from less financially privileged backgrounds, who grappled with their self-esteem after facing many distressing experiences of overt racism. It felt therapeutic and healing to hear about their experiences, even though I am from a different country and environmental context.

I felt that all the students involved were very courageous for sharing their histories so openly and it was also clear that all of them had talent as writers, although some were unmistakably more gifted than others. I would certainly recommend this book to other people of multiracial heritage, as well as to anyone who wishes to enhance their understanding of racial matters. It could be a handy reference point for almost anyone in our increasingly multiracial societies.