Passing

Essential Questions:How does our society encourage a “black or white” mentality?What is a “tragic mulatto”?How is “passing” related to the American Dream?Why has this novel been rediscovered and appreciated by literary critics?

“When people who don't know me well, black or white, discover my background (and it is usually a discovery, for I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of twelve or thirteen, when I began to suspect I was ingratiating myself to whites), I see the split-second adjustments they have to make, the searching of my eyes for some telltale sign. They no longer know who I am.

“I would not have known at the time, for I was too young to realize that I was supposed to have a live-in father, just as I was too young to know that I needed a race.”-Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father

I'd humbly like to become an inspiration to the biracial kids, who are the population of the new millennium. I'm everything and nothing at the same time: white, black and Latino. If I've managed to be accepted, the others can do it, too.- Mariah Carey