A Room with Many Views: A Response to Essays on According to Our Hearts: Rhinelander v. Rhindlander and the Multiracial Family
Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, Vol. 16, No. 793, 2013
Boston Univ. School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 19-33
34 Pages Posted: 5 Mar 2020
Date Written: 2013
Abstract
At the outset, I should note that I am very grateful to all contributors in this issue-Professors Kerry Abrams, Jacquelyn Bridgeman, Jennifer Chacon, Robin Lenhardt, and Laura Rosenbury for their insightful, powerful, and stirring reactions to my book According to Our Hearts: Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and the Law of the Multiracial Family,I and to Professor Melissa Murray for her elegant Foreword to this issue. Reading the responses of these scholars whom I admire and respect has been exhilarating and affirming. Indeed, seeing the many ways in which just a small group of these reviewers have examined, interpreted, and even "felt" my scholarship has been invigorating. I also have found the insights from those reviewers whose visions reached beyond my intended goals for According to Our Hearts to be a positive signal of the book's ability to trigger additional debate as well as earn a special place within the literature on family, history, society, and love. Ultimately, if According to Our Hearts causes any of its readers to think more deeply about issues of race, family, and intimacy-much like it did for the scholars noted above-then the book will have achieved a significant part of what I hoped for the project.
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