The Interracial Experience: Growing Up Black/White Racially Mixed in the United States

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The number of black-white mixed marriages increased by 504% in the last 25 years. By offering relevant demographic, research, and sociocultural data as well as a series of intensely personal and revealing vignettes, Dr. Brown investigates how mixed race people cope in a world that has shoehorned them into a racial category that denies half of their physiological and psychological existence. She also addresses their struggle for acceptance in the black and white world and the racist abuses many of them have suffered. Brown interweaves research findings with interviews of children of black-white interracial unions to highlight certain psychosocial phenomenon or experiences. She looks at the history of interracial marriages in the United States and discusses the scientific and social theories that underlie the racial bigotry suffered by mixed people. Questions of racial identity, conflict, and self-esteem are treated as are issues of mental health. An important look at contemporary mixed race issues that will be of particular interest to scholars, researchers, students, and professionals dealing with race, family, and mental health concerns.

Author Bio

URSULA M. BROWN is a psychotherapist in private practice in Montclair, New Jersey. Among Dr. Brown's areas of concentration are the treatment of interracial, cross-cultural, and interreligious families. Her articles have appeared in various journals, including American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.