Books

“The epitome of a book meeting a moment.” —Oprah Daily

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Featured on Oprah Daily’s “Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023”

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“The epitome of a book meeting a moment.” —Oprah Daily // Featured on Oprah Daily’s “Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023” //

The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging

  • In this emotionally powerful and intellectually provocative blend of memoir, cultural criticism, and theory, scholar and essayist Samira Mehta reflects on many facets of being multiracial.

    Born to a white American and a South Asian immigrant, Mehta grew up feeling more comfortable with her mother’s family than with her father’s—they never carried on conversations in languages that she couldn’t understand or blamed her for finding the food was too spicy. But in adulthood, she realized that some of her Indian family’s assumptions about the world had become an indelible part of her.

  • Learn more at Beacon.org

  • Hardcover; audio edition narrated by Fareeda Ahmed

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What People Are Saying

  • Text on blue box over textured background: "Samira Mehta is an important new voice grappling with the complexity of American identities." —Peter Manseau, author of One Nation Under Gods: A New American History
  • Text on green box over textured background: "Her unique story provides a window into the common yet underrepresented experience of mixed belonging." —SImran Jeet Singh, author of The Light We Give
  • Text on blue box over textured background: "An essential read for anyone interested in negotiating difference, confronting injustice, and extending compassion to those who both love and hurt you." —Lynn Casteel Harper, author of On Vanishing
  • Text on green box over textured background: "Thoughtful meditations on identity." —Kirkus Reviews
  • Text on box: "Relatable for all kinds of readers, with especially important insights for all of us who have people of mixed racial and religious backgrounds in our families and social circles." —Khyati Y. Joshi, author of White Christian Privilege
  • Text on green box: "As a white person in a multiracial family, I know all too well how tempting it is to buy into the myth that love is enough. Samira insists instead that love is just the beginning." —Briallen Hopper, author of Hard to Love

Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States

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What People Are Saying

  • [T]he most thorough and insightful academic analysis, so far, of those of us choosing to celebrate more than one family religion and culture. This is a book that all interfaith families, and those who love us, and those who study us, will need to read.

    Susan Katz-Miller, author of “Being Both”

  • Mehta’s research and analysis of interracial interfaith families, specifically black and Latino, is both pioneering and timely.

    Keren McGinity, author of “Still Jewish: A History of Women & Intermarriage in America”

  • Mehta’s conclusions may bring comfort to some but will certainly not settle the debate within both Jewish and Christian communities about whether interfaith marriage is inherently good or bad.

    Christian Century review by Emily Soloff, associate director for interreligious and intergroup relations at the American Jewish Committee, December 5, 2018

  • Mehta’s exploration of how religions are passed down from generation to generation will help readers understand how recent decreases in religious devotion and increased secularism in America has shifted social norms around marriage.

    Publishers Weekly review, March 26, 2018