Mixed Blessing

ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award

"So what are you?"

Chandra Crane knows what it's like to get that question. She has a Thai birth father, a European American mother, and an African American father who adopted her when she was five. With this mixed multiethnic and multicultural background, she has keenly felt the otherness of never quite fitting in. Where do people of mixed ethnicity belong?

Those of us with multiethnic backgrounds may have pain surrounding our mixed heritage. But we also have the privilege and potential to serve the Lord through our unique experiences. Crane explores what Scripture and history teach us about ethnicity and how we can bring all of ourselves to our sense of identity and calling.

Discover the fullness of who you are. Find out how your mixed identity can be a blessing to yourself and to the world around you.



Chandra Crane (MA, Reformed Theological Seminary) is the mixed ministry coordinator for the multiethnic initiatives department of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and has written for In All Things, The Well, and The Witness: A Black Christian Collective. Growing up in a multiethnic/multicultural family in the Southwest and now happily transplanted to the Deep South, Chandra is passionate about diversity and family and is a member of the multiethnic Redeemer Church in Jackson, Mississippi.



Jemar Tisby is the author of the New York Times bestselling book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism. His writing has been featured on CNN, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. He is the founder and president of The Witness—a Black Christian Collective and the cohost of the Pass the Mic podcast. He is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Mississippi.

Foreword by Jemar Tisby


Introduction: What Are You?


1. Multiethnicity 101: The Foundation of Being Mixed


2. Multiethnicity 102: The Story of Being Mixed


3. Rejecting Stereotypes, Understanding Prototypes, Embracing Stories


4. Mixed Folks: Minorities of Minorities


5. Mixed Identity in the Multiethnic Christ


6. Exploring and Nurturing Mixed Identity


7. Mixed Identity in Our Families and Communities


8. Mixed Identity in the Church and Society


Epilogue: Our Story


Acknowledgments


Appendix A


Appendix B


Study Guide


Notes


Name Index


Subject Index

"This is the book I've been waiting for! As a person of mixed ethnicity, I've long struggled to know who I am, where I belong, and how to faithfully embrace and engage both the privilege and burden of straddling multiple worlds. Chandra is a wise and compassionate guide for all of us who walk these winding paths or seek to love and serve those who do."



"We live in a society that values placing people into neat categories and tidy boxes. Chandra Crane's important book Mixed Blessing speaks a needed word about the complexities and blessings of embodying a multiethnic identity in a world that often overlooks these voices. As a White person, this book has opened my eyes and helped me begin to better understand the experience of multiethnic people, something that will help me better minister in my church and in my community."



"Those of us who are of mixed ethnicity defy categories, stump those trying to pin us down, and can even stump ourselves while trying to figure out our own identities. Where do we belong? Where do we fit in? Will we ever feel at home? It is clear that in Mixed Blessing Chandra Crane has done her homework and has done the interior work to detail for the rest of us the complexity, beauty, and gift of being a multiethnic person. She also shares some real but hard truths about how we are 'othered' by others. In reading Mixed Blessing, I felt seen and understood. This a welcomed and needed resource!" weniger anzeigen expand_less