“When I re-read the words I spoke, I feel almost like a stranger said them. Although some of what was said still holds true, I think as you mature and understand yourself better and have more life experiences, your ideas change. I think I would say something completely different than what I said 20 years ago. More from the heart.”
Black, White, Other Flashback: Jacqueline Djanikian
“I don’t think it’s possible for people to identify as both. Take my brother, for instance. He could pass for white, but if someone were to come up to him and say, ‘What’s your race?’ he would say black. It’s just a choice you’ve made yourself. You can identify with both races, but you are one or the other. You are not both. I identify with both, but I am one.”
Neisha Wright
“As I got older, I came to understand there are so many ways to express one’s racial pride and identity and how very proud of his racial identity my father is and has always been…something I didn’t understand when I did the original interviews. Now, my father is the person to whom I most connect with around issues of race and racial identity. He is who I have my most important discussions with; he is my best friend….”
Black, White, Other Flashback: Neisha Wright
“The history books my father gave me when I was a kid didn’t do anything for me. So I learned who George Washington Carver was—it didn’t mean anything to me. Until I was in college. And then….”
Rachael Murphey-Brown
“As a bi-racial adoptee growing up in Lake Oswego, Oregon, I had more than your normal angst about creating my own identity and figuring out who I am and who I belong to….”