INTERRACIAL DATING AND MARRIAGE

Landau launches into her latest subject with a brief historical overview of African-American/white and Asian/white unions over the past 200 years, emphasizing the Japanese experience in the US. Then, ten teenagers of various ethnicity offer their understandably limited insights on interracial dating—e.g., a Chinese girl raised in Peru demands certain standards of her Korean-American boyfriend and loses him; a Malaysian finds happiness with an African-American; a Brazilian ÇmigrÇ tells of dating a Chinese girl and then an ``American.'' In closing, five adults with either personal experience in interracial relationships or strong views about them offer more mature (though not necessarily more open-minded) theories. With chapter after chapter of first-person reportage, loaded with individuals' stereotypes and biases (positive and negative), and without any sort of omniscient or objective voice to provide balance or real context, this mostly perfunctory examination flounders. However, it does sample the range of experience, which will be helpful for some; and, if on the dull side, the testimonials are earnest and honest. Straightforward b&w photo portraits of the narrators; further reading; index. (Nonfiction. 14+)