as black, but is always being taken for white, which bothers him no end. His marriage to a Welsh woman has fallen apart. He's a comic book illustrator who has recently inherited a decrepit mansion in urban Philadelphia from his father. One day a young teenager, Tal, confronts Warren that he is her father. He is. At sixteen, Warren impregnates a fourteen year old Jewish girl, Cindy Karp. Cindy is deceased and grandfather Irving Karp is handing Tal off to Warren. Warren is appalled by how much Tal, his daughter, identifies as white, and is determined to immerse her into black culture. Tal has dropped out of school. Warren and Tal embark on a journey to find a school for Tal to complete her GED. They find the Melange Center and Tal begins to explore her blackness and black roots. As their unique father and daughter relationship developed, they involved with Mélange, a collection of mixed-race folk trying to encourage each other to embrace both sides of their families, which allows for a lot of pain, awkwardness, and humor in the writing. Throughout the story, I identified with Warren's self-deprecation as a light-skinned Black man who wanted to fit in with his darker brothers and sisters. In his deep thought, there tends to be this fear of not being "enough" when he's biracial or mixed. He's afraid that he's not black enough, not white enough, not anything enough. Like Warren says, there are light-skinned Black people who identity as Black, and light-skinned Black people who identify as white... but then there's the rest of them, who don't really know where they fit in and that one of the rest of them is him. Warren's journey of self discovery and ideas of home through the novel reflected my own journey and my personal experience of home in a different way.
The importance of diversity has been ingrained in me since I was little. Starting the 8th grade in the U.S. equipped with nothing except a few English phrases was one of my biggest obstacles. “Hello! What’s your name?” people would ask. “Qi-Tong Huang,” I would answer, I see the expressions, then hear the response, “What?” Day after day, I would sit in the last row of the classroom, listening to the variety of sounds that slowly crept into my ears. I struggled tremendously just like Warren did. It was extremely hard for me to fit into any groups of people since I didn't know who I truly am. I overthought about my race, and how I identify, and how other people want me to identify. Fortunately, basketball became my best way to make friends. I was amazed and pleased to find a group of people who were passionate about the same thing. The remarkable story between my true love- basketball and I marked the peak of my involvement in different passions and a turning point in my life. My shyness had not persisted and my comfort zone had expanded. From growing up in China to immigrating to California, I have learned that this world is comprised of cultures and passions in varying complexities. I realize that diversity and race are so much more than the tint of my skin. Not many know me for my family and my childhood, but they know me
for who I am today. I represent two different cultures and I should embrace them and feel passionate about exploring more because it is a method to discover the beauty of the world. I acknowledge that I was given a situation that I did not choose, but my passion and courage have changed the course of my life and developed me into the man I am today. At the very end of the novel, when Warren and Tal see two ghost who are male and female, black and white, having sex mid air. Warren claims," I'm not scared. I see them. I see what they are, or what they were. Just lovers. Just people"(pg287). Warren finally opens his mind just like I did. He's absolutely right. No matter what colors your skins are, we're just people. We're all the same. Instead of thinking about how to fit in, we should just be ourselves!