I write about families like mine: multiracial, multilingual, multinational families. Like me, my characters go to protests because their fathers were Freedom Riders. Or they feel guilty for not going to protests because their fathers were Freedom Riders. Or they believe they don’t have to protest because their fathers have done that work already. Because mothers don’t know how to do our hair, my characters shave their heads or grow locs or have a White friend who learns to cornrow. My stories are about families made closer by interracial marriage and distanced by transracial adoption. And vice versa.

I do not write about people who play Monopoly because capitalism is not a game. Over the Thanksgiving turkey, my characters talk about colonialism and postcolonialism and neocolonialism. They join the Peace Corps and live as expats and refugees and missionaries and atheists. Even the atheists have to go to church when they return home. They take off their shoes indoors, as if living rooms with plastic-covered furniture are holy ground. For new beginnings, libations are poured for the ancestors. I write about children who believe in the Monkey King and Yunwi Tsunsdi but not in Santa Claus. Sometimes, in my stories, it is the English that is italicized like check all boxes that apply and prefer not to answer.

In my stories, the dreams of grandmothers are commandments, and the End Times have already happened. In the aftermath, we live on the back of a turtle. I write for families like ours: multiracial, multilingual, multinational families. But I also write about families like yours, so that you will know we are not so different: shaped by traumas and triumphs, stories and secrets, and most of all by love.