Steve Majors

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Published by: Beacon Press
Release Date: October 13, 2026
Pages: 280
ISBN13: 978-0807021361

 
Overview

Multiracial people are everywhere—but so often their stories are oversimplified, overlooked, or left out of the narrative altogether. Mixed Roots: Writers on Multiracial Identity & Both/And Belonging collects 29 voices from different generations, geographies, and mixes of race and ethnicity. Combining powerful personal narratives with community-oriented perspectives, Mixed Roots explores themes of inherited belief systems, racism, whiteness, migration, language, trauma, ancestry, and healing.

When society so often wants to divide us into either/or categories, Mixed Roots reminds us that multiracial experiences are complex and can be told in different ways. This anthology engages with the familiar questions of “what are you?” or “where do you belong?” with nuance, dispelling the idea that there is ever one right way to identify. In a time of increased polarization, Mixed Roots invites more of us to examine the historical legacies and harm caused by racism within ourselves and our communities.

With compelling, intimate, lyrical and conversational prose, the voices in Mixed Roots honor the realities we’ve inherited around race, while pushing against old assumptions— encouraging readers to embrace paradox and non-binary belonging.

 

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Praise

Each writer within this anthology boldly charts their own path to belonging. But the true magic forms in the broader chorus, where voices who have never felt a ‘we’ write themselves into collective lineage. Refusing to be defined by categories that have never encompassed the complexity of who we are, Mixed Roots anchors itself in both history and gratitude for the ones whose stories paved the way for us, while opening new paths of possibility for the ones who will follow. This anthology is a gift for anyone who lives within the both/and.”
—Tessa Hulls, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and artist of Feeding Ghosts

“I was moved beyond words from the first pages of this book and by every essay that followed. An unprecedented ode to the wide range of mixed-root experiences and what is shared across difference. Required reading for anyone who has ever been asked what are you? I want everyone to read this.”
—Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood and The Dry Season

“Evocative, nuanced, and brimming with heart, Mixed Roots illuminates the mixed-race experience in all its kaleidoscopic wonder. This collection of essays straddles identities and worlds and yet is grounded in deeply universal truths. It takes the familiar quandary of never feeling ‘enough’ and offers something far less commonplace: In these stories, I felt like I’d come home.”
—Daniel Tam-Claiborne, author of Transplants