A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life - Softcover

Allyson Hobbs

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674659929 ISBN 13: 9780674659926

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2016

Synopsis

Countless African Americans have passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and communities. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile. This history of passing explores the possibilities, challenges, and losses that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions.

About this title

Review:

"With remarkable research and deep feeling for her subjects, Hobbs uncovers the stories of countless Americans of African descent who severed their family ties to pass into a world where they would be accorded the privileges of whites. At turns sad, inspiring, and provocative, the book raises important questions about the enduring power of race in American life." --Martha A. Sandweiss, author of Passing Strange: Love and Deception Across the Color Line

"Here, Allyson Hobbs provides fresh analysis of an oft-ignored phenomenon, and the result is as fascinating as it is innovative [...] A Chosen Exile does not allow the traditional contradictions inherent in racial categories to go unchallenged [...] Hobbs is particularly good on the dilemmas faced by educated and ambitious blacks [...] Hobbs tackles the topic with creative sensitivity, exploring hybridity rather than hyping post-racialism. Her vivid vignettes recover hidden lives and contextualise them, shedding light on entanglements that heighten our appreciation of the absurdity of requisite disguises employed to evade racial barriers --Times Higher Education

About the Author:

Allyson Hobbs is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0674659929
• ISBN 13: 9780674659926
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400