In the wake of “Obama-mania,” conventional wisdom about racial identity is facing a set of new and unique challenges. It is therefore imperative for scholars and industry professionals to reflect upon multiracial identification, representation, past and post-racial politics as they pertain to art and to life.

This is exactly what Mixed Race Hollywood, edited by Mary Beltrán and Camilla Fojas, sets out to do. Comprised of four parts, the book is about representations of multiracial people as integral yet often silenced parts of our real and imagined communities. A truly interdisciplinary study, the essays explore a wide range of topics—from early mixed-race film characters to Blaxploitation and Multiracial “chic” to children’s television programming, same sex romance and the "outing" of mixed race stars online. Both provocative and timely, the collection helps its readers better understand the evolving conceptions of what race actually is and can be—mixed. The threads running through each essay are these two questions: How are mixed race people deployed as subjects and/or objects in Hollywood? And, when it comes to issues of mixed race, does art imitate life or does life imitate art?

"Book Review: 'Mixed Race Hollywood.'" International Journal of Communication 4 (2010): 139-141.