Journal Entry 1 by momx3lovesbooks on Thursday, August 07, 2008

"All America is in me," writes the author, whose heritage combines black, white and Indian forebears. Her effort to untangle her family history makes for an absorbing, if sometimes convoluted, American saga. Although Haizlip, who was born in 1937, grew up comfortably in Connecticut as the daughter of a Baptist minister, her mother's rejection by her own white father left an enduring wound on both mother and daughter. The author uses a rich mixture of records, interviews and memory to trace her family tree and along the way offers vignettes that illustrate America's historic racial divide: one white-looking relative became the first Washington, D.C., black police officer, albeit unbeknownst to the police department; an aunt living as a black denied her blood tie to her white-skinned niece to spare the young woman difficulties. Haizlip's own story includes satisfying, if isolated, years studying at Wellesley, her marriage to Harvard graduate student Harold Haizlip and subsequent integration into New York City life, and her search for her estranged maternal relatives. At the end, Haizlip, now living in Los Angeles, finds and attains an awkward reunion with her mother's "white" sister, who "had no colored memories at all." This memoir will confront readers with resonant questions about identity.