What I’ve Learned About Multiracial Identity — 10 Years After Publishing Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide

Ten years ago, I co-edited a book called Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide. It was a collection of personal essays by people from all over the world who live, breathe, and navigate multiracial identity every day.

At the time, the topic wasn’t often explored outside academic journals or identity theory books, but it was starting to trend. But our goal wasn’t theory — it was real voices. Honest. Raw. Unpolished at times. And deeply needed.

I’d read the 1994 anthology by Lise Funderburg, Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity when I was in my early 20s, and it altered the way I saw race. I was raised by a white father and a Black and Japanese mother who taught us three kids to identify as Black. This wasn’t uncommon in the 1960s and 1970s. However, Funderburg’s anthology dared me to consider my other races as part of the equation.

Although I would later come back to my own center (continuing to identify as Black), I still refer to it as both enlightening, timely and even groundbreaking. It was, for me, the first time I was able to even consider another possibility.

When Bryony and I embarked on this journey in 2014, we didn’t expect it to find such a wide audience. And we definitely didn’t expect people to still be discovering and quoting it a decade later.

So now, I’m bringing it back. But not as a reprint.

This Time, I’m Going Deeper

The new volume is called Being Biracial: Exploring Identity Within Multiracial Families.

This time, I’m going it alone and I’m focusing on what happens within the home — between siblings, between generations, between parents and children.

Because if you’ve lived this experience, you know:

• Identity isn’t one-size-fits-all.
• Even in the same family, people identify differently. (My unambiguously Black brother identifies as white.)
• And sometimes, the deepest wounds — and the deepest love — come from those closest to us.

I’m Currently Seeking Contributors

You don’t need to be a professional writer. You don’t need credentials. You just need a true story, written from the heart, about what it means to live multiracial identity within a family context.

If you’ve ever felt like you belonged nowhere — or everywhere — or not quite where people put you … I’d love to hear from you.

Guidelines:

• Personal essays, 1,000–2,500 words
• Ideally, members of your family may be interested in submitting their own essay, allowing for different perspective within the same family
• Themes may include identity confusion, family racism, cultural code-switching, generational differences, raising multiracial children, etc.

Send to: sarah@beingbiracial.com

Compensation includes a copy of the book and equal royalties (after costs are recouped)

Deadline: August 31, 2025

Not Sure If Your Story Fits?

Reach out anyway. I’ve already received stories from siblings who identify differently … children who learned to “pass” until they no longer could … and parents trying to raise their kids with pride in every side of who they are.

If it’s honest, it belongs.

Thanks for reading — and if this resonates with you, I hope you’ll write with me.

— Sarah Ratliff Editor, Being Biracial: Exploring Identity Within Multiracial Families beingbiracial.com