Jaswinder Bolina

I'm reluctant to review this book because whatever I write won't do justice to how brilliant it is. Like me, Bolina struggles with understanding what he is (American? Hyphenated American? Brown American?) and how much of it is due to American ideas of race and Western ideas of culture and how much of it is truly his personality and his true interests. Of the many books on race I've read recently, Bolina's is my favorite. I appreciated his honesty about his conflicted feelings and his refusal to come up with easy answers for what are very ambiguous and sometimes confusing questions. It perfectly captures the sometimes contradictory feelings people of color feel about our place in America. It should resonate with those of us who understand things are much more complicated than the discourse currently allows for.… (mehr)