passing (identity)

A reprint of Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen's novel in which Irene, an African-American woman with a comfortable life, is disturbed by the return of a childhood friend, Clare, who has passed for white since adolescence and now wants to rejoin the African-American community.

"A . . . novel about a bi-racial man whose world is turned upside down when his best friend is released from prison, raising not only his own but old family demons and forcing him to reckon with the past he only thought he knew"--OCLC.

The stunning and provocative coming-of-age memoir about Sarah Valentine's childhood as a white girl in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, and her discovery that her father was a black man. At the age of 27, Sarah Valentine discovered that she was not, in fact, the white girl she had always believed herself to be. She learned the truth of her paternity: that her father was a black man. And she learned the truth about her own identity: mixed race. And so Sarah began the difficult and absorbing journey of changing her identity from white to black. In this memoir, Sarah details the story of the discovery of her identity, how she overcame depression to come to terms with this identity, and, perhaps most importantly, asks: why? Her entire family and community had conspired to maintain her white identity. The supreme discomfort her white family and community felt about addressing issues of race--her race--is a microcosm of race relationships in America. A black woman who lived her formative years identifying as white, Sarah's story is a kind of Rachel Dolezal in reverse, though her 'passing' was less intentional than conspiracy. This memoir is an examination of the cost of being black in America, and how one woman threw off the racial identity she'd grown up with, in order to embrace a new one.

A picture book biography of squash player Maria Toorpakai Wazir of Pakistan who pretended to be a boy as a young girl and defied the Taliban in order to play her sport.

Contains two films from 1934 and 1959, based on the novel by Fannie Hurst about two young widows and their troubled daughters--one who rejects both her mother and her race and the other who falls in love with her mother's suitor.

"This tenth anniversary edition of the acclaimed and fearless graphic novel features enhanced toned art, an afterword by Mat Johnson, character sketches, and other additional material.In the early 20th Century, when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South, a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. They were African-American men who, due to their light skin color, could "pass" among the white folks. They called this dangerous assignment going"incognegro." Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald, is sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi. With a lynch mob already swarming, Zane must stay "incognegro" long enough to uncover the truth behind the murder in order to save his brother -- and himself. Suspenseful, unsettling and relevant, Incognegro is a tense graphic novel of shifting identities, forbidden passions, and secrets that run far deeper than skin color"--.

Contains sixteen critical commentaries of Nella Larsen's novel "Passing," that deals with the psychological issues of race and gender and includes reviews, textual notes, chronology, and introduction.

"'Maria Toorpakai is a true inspiration, a pioneer for millions of other women struggling to pave their own paths to autonomy, fulfillment, and genuine personhood'--Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and And the Mountains Echoed. Maria Toorpakai hails from Pakistan's violently oppressive northwest tribal region, where the idea of women playing sports is considered haram--un-Islamic, forbidden--and girls rarely leave their homes. But she did, passing as a boy in order to play the sports she loved, thus becoming a lightning rod of freedom in her country's fierce battle over women's rights. A DIFFERENT KIND OF DAUGHTER tell of Maria's harrowing journey to play the sport she knew was her destiny, first living as a boy and roaming the violent back alleys of the frontier city of Peshawar, rising to become the number one female squash player in Pakistan. For Maria, squash was more than liberation--it was salvation. But it was also a death sentence, thrusting her into the national spotlight and the crosshairs of the Taliban, who wanted Maria and her family dead. Maria knew her only chance of survival was to flee the country. Enter Jonathon Power, the first North American to earn the title of top squash player in the world, and the only person to heed Maria's plea for help. Recognizing her determination and talent, Jonathon invited Maria to train and compete internationally in Canada. After years of living on the run from the Taliban, Maria packed up and left the only place she had ever known to move halfway across the globe and pursue her dream. Now Maria is well on the way to becoming a world champion as she continues to be a voice for oppressed women everywhere"--.

Abandoning her husband and nine-year-old son, Peggy takes her three-year-old daughter, Karen, and hides out in a housing project where she creates new identities for herself and Karen as African Americans.

A reprint of Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen's 1929 novel in which Irene, an African-American woman with a comfortable life, is disturbed by the return of a childhood friend, Clare, who has passed for white since adolescence and now wants to rejoin the African-American community.