Chandra Crane - Mixed Blessing: Embracing the Fullness of Your Multiethnic Identity

BACK WHEN I WAS A SCHOOLTEACHER , I had a coworker who always sorted her Skittles before she ate them. She would take the bag, dump out the candies on a clean surface, and then methodically group them into categories: orange with orange, red with red, and so on. She did it because she was hyper-organized and always had to have items neatly situated. She also did it because she wanted to enjoy each flavor one at a time without any mixing of colors. She wanted to taste the rainbowbut not all at once.

We often try to do with people what this teacher did with Skittles. Sort and place and categorize. When it comes to race and ethnicity, we want to drop people into carefully labeled slots: Black, White, Asian, Native, and more. But what happens when our convenient categories dont work (not that they ever did)? What happens to the people who have a blend of backgrounds? Where do we situate others and ourselves when the colors, cultures, languages, and aesthetics are mixed?

In her debut book, Mixed Blessing, Chandra Crane illuminates the underappreciated reality that people of mixed racial and ethnic background defy our simplistic social groupings. All of us have felt a sense of alienation and the awkwardness of not quite fitting in, but multiethnic people have an acute sense of this. Through her personal journey as well as a sensitive examination of other multiethnic stories, Chandra reveals the burden and privilege of living in the racial and ethnic in-between in ones embodied self.

If you, like me, think of yourself as reasonably informed about racial dynamics, prepare to be humbled. Chandras deft descriptions of the particularities of the multiethnic experience reveal in new ways the absurdities of racial categorizations while also offering insights to which few monoculture or monoethnic people are privy. She shows the clunkiness of language (arent we all people of color?) and the fluidity of racial and ethnic categories that often rely on specious assumptions about skin color, patterns of speech, or social networks. She does this all while centering her examination on the truth that we are all created in the image of God. Mixed Blessing reminds us that people are not created for boxes but for Gods glory.

This book helps fill an inexcusable gap in our understandings of racial and ethnic dynamics. It goes beyond the simple vectors of White and Black to show the spectrum of biological and cultural stories that so many people inhabit. Most of all, Chandras book helps multiethnic people feel seen. In the Gospels, Jesus miracles of healing and mercy often follow a formula. Jesus sees, he has compassion, and he acts. Mixed Blessing allows people whose experiences do not fit into predetermined categories to be seen. It renders their reality visible to a broad audience. It is then up to the reader to desire racial and ethnic justice and to act compassionately to bring about a more inclusive future.

Is Mixed Blessing an easy read? Certainly not. But it is an essential one.

SO WHAT are YOU, EXACTLY?

Im asked that often. When people see my dark-black and curly hair, my somewhat almond-shaped eyes, my pale skin with a yellow undertoneand yet frecklesthey wonder. They cant place my ethnicity in a box, so they feel unsettled, maybe even threatened.

Depending on my mood, I choose one of a few answers. If Im feeling sarcastic: Im human, thanks. And you? Or if Im feeling cryptic: Exotic, obviously. If Im feeling sarcastic and preachy: Me? Im part of the Colossians 3:12 Beloved Community, part of Gods people that he loves from the center of his being.

Ive also learned to play dumb, answering with my own question: Oh, how do you mean? Are you asking about my Myers-Briggs personality profile or maybe my Enneagram? Obviously, they arent. But hoping theyll actually hear themselves, I like to make people say it: No, what ethnicity are you? Where are you from? Why do you look so different?

What ethnicity am I, indeed.