Anomaly

Director Jessica Chen Drammeh, who is of Chinese and Caucasian descent, draws inspiration from her own background for this short documentary on multiracial identity. Like her, all of the interviewees here have faced the same question—“what are you?”—in daily life and on census forms, and they respond in different ways. Folk singer Gabriella Callender, who grew up in a foster family, used to check “black,” but then started to consider alternatives, such as “other,” since she's part white. During the course of filming, Gabriella reunites with her mother, who had to give her up when confined to a mental institution (Gabriella never met her father, but hasn't stopped searching). Thaddeus Rutkowski, a jazz musician with a Caucasian mother and a Congolese father, prefers “all of the above,” but that isn't always an option. Michelle Myers, a spoken word artist who has performed on Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, identifies herself as Asian, partially because her father's family hasn't offered as much support as that of her Korean mother, especially once she married a black man. She and her husband, Tyrone, have since had three children, who share an even more complicated racial heritage. The growth of the multiracial population in the U.S. has led to courses on the subject at colleges throughout the country, and professors from New York University, the University of Massachusetts, and Stanford University all contribute commentary here. A thought-provoking film on melting pot America, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)