Tangled Roots: Two Family Stories, One Mixed American Heritage

In this truthful, intricate, and compelling narrative, two family stories are brought together to dissect the differing origins of the author's family ancestry in a way that sheds light on some of the inherent complexities of what it means to be of mixed race in America. Paying tribute to the ageless practice of familial story telling, the author details the genealogy and succession of his parents' disparate roots-ranging from the rural Appalachian Virginia origins of his mother to the lineage of his father, descending from late 19th Century Chinese immigrants. These stories are stitched together in memoir-like fashion, in an open, honest, and telling way, which reveals both beauty and suffering in the imperfect and the untold.