Multiracial Teens Launch A ‘Latte Rebellion’

Multiracial Teens Launch A ‘Latte Rebellion’

Tell Me More
National Public Radio
2011-07-15

Michel Martin, Host

“You’re half Chinese and half European, I’m half Indian, a quarter Mexican and a quarter Irish. We’re mixed up. We’re not really one or the other ethnically. We’re like human lattes.”

So explains Asha, the main character in Sarah Jamila Stevenson’s debut novel, The Latte Rebellion.

To raise money for a class trip she and her friends began as selling a few T-shirts and labeled the effort the Latte Rebellion. But the movement soon became something much larger than they could have anticipated.

Seen through the eyes of adolescents, Asha and her friends tackle the complexities of identifying as multiracial during adolescence, when identifying as anything seems like a challenge.

“At the time I was writing it … there were still some news stories about South Asians who were getting harassed and insulted, and even assaulted,” Stevenson said in an interview with Tell Me More host Michel Martin. “And because I’m part South Asian myself, it really hit close to home. It had me worried about my relatives who live in the United States. So I felt pretty strongly about working that into my book somewhere.”…

Read the transcript here.  Listen to the interview here.

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