Mixed Blessing

October 26, 2020
Crane explores multiethnic identity from a Christian perspective in her uneven debut. The author roots her inquiry in her own mixed Thai, European American, and African American heritage and uses her own experiences and those of other mixed-race people to investigate what it means to live between demographic categories: “For ethnic minorities in a majority-culture world, a life spent on the outside looking in can be exhausting.” Crane writes that being mixed-race brings with it a burden of not belonging, of answering what-are-you questions, and of being excluded or stigmatized—though she notes the number of people of mixed heritage is growing: “generations of mixed folks are having children and even grandchildren who identify as multiethnic,” leading to more fluid, accepting family units. Crane’s understanding of multiethnicity is strongest and most concrete in her concept of “prototypes,” (such as Southern Americans being “hospitable, indirect communicators,” or Greek culture as loud and making one’s “family paramount”), which allows for useful ways of talking about group characteristics without the negative judgments that stereotyping brings. However, Crane, who is a devout Christian, provides little statistical data, and her only description of the “blessing” of mixed heritage amounts to being “part of God’s people that he loves from the center of his being.” Evangelical Christians will get the most from this diffuse work.