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Title details for The Real America by Teresa Wiltz - Available

The Real America

by Teresa Wiltz
ebook
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Growing up, Teresa Wiltz always knew that she was black. Her parents, the mixed-race descendants of both the enslaved and the enslavers—and a stray American Indian or two—made it abundantly clear: we're black. Be proud. And she was proud. Problem was, everyone else was always questioning her about her racial bona fides. She grew up bumping against the either/or boxes, being mistaken for everything from Puerto Rican to Moroccan to Brazilian to Ethiopian to South Asian and getting terribly confused by it all. Looking like a generic ethnic means getting stopped by cops in Havana, Cuba, who see her hanging with other Americans and are convinced she is a jinetera, a local prostitute, up to no good. It means being hassled by the customs official in Islamabad, Pakistan, who assumes she's Pakistani American, or having a West African cabbie insist, "Your mother is white and your father is black!" (Um, nope.) She used to hate it when people asked her, "What are you?" and "What are you mixed with?" or even, "Do you speak English?"—but now, she's come to appreciate her family's convoluted racial heritage. Because her family story, with its generations of mixing and miscegenating, is very much an American story. A story of the Real America.
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Publisher: She Writes Press

Kindle Book

  • Release date: March 17, 2014

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781940838236
  • Release date: March 17, 2014

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781940838236
  • File size: 496 KB
  • Release date: March 17, 2014

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Biography & Autobiography Multi-Cultural Women's Studies Nonfiction

Languages

English

Growing up, Teresa Wiltz always knew that she was black. Her parents, the mixed-race descendants of both the enslaved and the enslavers—and a stray American Indian or two—made it abundantly clear: we're black. Be proud. And she was proud. Problem was, everyone else was always questioning her about her racial bona fides. She grew up bumping against the either/or boxes, being mistaken for everything from Puerto Rican to Moroccan to Brazilian to Ethiopian to South Asian and getting terribly confused by it all. Looking like a generic ethnic means getting stopped by cops in Havana, Cuba, who see her hanging with other Americans and are convinced she is a jinetera, a local prostitute, up to no good. It means being hassled by the customs official in Islamabad, Pakistan, who assumes she's Pakistani American, or having a West African cabbie insist, "Your mother is white and your father is black!" (Um, nope.) She used to hate it when people asked her, "What are you?" and "What are you mixed with?" or even, "Do you speak English?"—but now, she's come to appreciate her family's convoluted racial heritage. Because her family story, with its generations of mixing and miscegenating, is very much an American story. A story of the Real America.
Expand title description text
Biography & Autobiography Multi-Cultural Women's Studies Nonfiction