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Almost brown / Charlotte Gill.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Crown, [2023]Edition: First editionDescription: 242 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780593443019
  • 0593443012
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
A Little Circle -- Colonial Love -- Half-Castes in Wonderland -- Limbo -- What Are You? -- Goodbye, Motherland -- Naturalized Citizens -- Towelhead -- How Should a Daughter Be? -- A Moonbeam from Lightning -- Zones of Alienation -- Something to Declare -- Borderlands -- Fibrillations -- A Well-Worn Groove -- Bubbles -- Beige Utopia -- Inheritance.
Summary: "An award-winning writer retraces her dysfunctional, biracial, globe-trotting family's journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household. Charlotte Gill's father is Indian. Her mother is English. They meet in 1960's London when the world is not quite ready for interracial love. Their union, a revolutionary act, results in a total meltdown of familial relations, a lot of immigration paperwork, and three children, all in varying shades of tan. Together they set off on a journey from the United Kingdom to Canada and to the United States in elusive pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness-a dream that eventually tears them apart. Almost Brown is an exploration of diasporic intermingling involving parents of two different races and their half-brown children as they experience the paradoxes and conundrums of life as it's lived between race checkboxes. Eventually, her parents drift apart because they just aren't compatible. But as she finds herself distancing from her father too--why is she embarrassed to walk down the street with him and not her mom?-she doesn't know if it's because of his personality or his race. As a mixed-race child, was this her own unconscious bias favoring one parent over the other in the racial tug-of-war that plagues our society? Almost Brown looks for answers to questions shared by many mixed-race people: What are you? What does it mean to be a person of color when the concept is a societal invention and really only applies halfway if you are half white? And how does your relationship with your parents change as you change and grow older? In a funny, turbulent, and ultimately heartwarming story, Gill examines the brilliant messiness of ancestry, "diversity," and the idea of "race," a historical concept that still informs our beliefs about ethnicity today"-- Provided by publisher.
List(s) this item appears in: Women's History Month (Adults)
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Shelving location Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography In Case You Missed It GILL, C. G475 ICYMI - Recently New Available 33111011288715
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An award-winning writer retraces her dysfunctional, biracial, globe-trotting family's journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household.

" Almost Brown is that rarest of things- a memoir that is both deeply intimate and intellectually ambitious."-Susan Orlean, author of The Library Book

Charlotte Gill's father is Indian. Her mother is English. They meet in 1960s London when the world is not quite ready for interracial love. Their union results in a total meltdown of familial relations, a lot of immigration paperwork, and three children, all in varying shades of tan. Together they set off on a journey from the United Kingdom to Canadato the United States in an elusive pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness-a dream that eventually tears them apart.

Almost Brown is an exploration of diasporic intermingling involving two eccentric parents from worlds apart and their half-brown children as they experience the paradoxes and conundrums of life as it's lived between race checkboxes. Their intercultural experiment features turbans and tube socks, chana masala and Cherry Coke. Over time, Gill'sparents drift apart because they just aren't compatible. But asshe too finds herself distancing from her father- Why is she embarrassed to walk down the street with him and not her mom? -she doesn't know if it's because of his personality or his race. Is this her own unconscious biasfavoring one parent over the other in the racialtug-of-warthat plagues our society? Almost Brown looks for answers to questions shared by many mixed-race people- What am I? What does it mean to be a person of color when the concept is a societal invention and really only applies halfway if you are half white? Eventually, after years of silence, Gill and her father reclaim a space for forgiveness and love.

In a funny, turbulent, and ultimately heartwarming story,Gillexamines the brilliant messiness of ancestry, "diversity," and the idea of "race,"a historical concept that still informs our beliefs about ethnicity today.

A Little Circle -- Colonial Love -- Half-Castes in Wonderland -- Limbo -- What Are You? -- Goodbye, Motherland -- Naturalized Citizens -- Towelhead -- How Should a Daughter Be? -- A Moonbeam from Lightning -- Zones of Alienation -- Something to Declare -- Borderlands -- Fibrillations -- A Well-Worn Groove -- Bubbles -- Beige Utopia -- Inheritance.

"An award-winning writer retraces her dysfunctional, biracial, globe-trotting family's journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household. Charlotte Gill's father is Indian. Her mother is English. They meet in 1960's London when the world is not quite ready for interracial love. Their union, a revolutionary act, results in a total meltdown of familial relations, a lot of immigration paperwork, and three children, all in varying shades of tan. Together they set off on a journey from the United Kingdom to Canada and to the United States in elusive pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness-a dream that eventually tears them apart. Almost Brown is an exploration of diasporic intermingling involving parents of two different races and their half-brown children as they experience the paradoxes and conundrums of life as it's lived between race checkboxes. Eventually, her parents drift apart because they just aren't compatible. But as she finds herself distancing from her father too--why is she embarrassed to walk down the street with him and not her mom?-she doesn't know if it's because of his personality or his race. As a mixed-race child, was this her own unconscious bias favoring one parent over the other in the racial tug-of-war that plagues our society? Almost Brown looks for answers to questions shared by many mixed-race people: What are you? What does it mean to be a person of color when the concept is a societal invention and really only applies halfway if you are half white? And how does your relationship with your parents change as you change and grow older? In a funny, turbulent, and ultimately heartwarming story, Gill examines the brilliant messiness of ancestry, "diversity," and the idea of "race," a historical concept that still informs our beliefs about ethnicity today"-- Provided by publisher.

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