Kym Ragusa is a writer, novelist, and documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. In her personal and family memoir, The Skin between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging, she explores the variety of issues facing a woman growing up biracial in the still racially turbulent 1960s and 1970s. Ragusa's mother was African American and her father Italian American; she was born from their brief but intense affair. Her parents were not interested in marriage, so Ragusa found herself frequently staying with her grandmothers from either side of the family. Traveling back and forth between homes in Harlem and New Jersey, Ragusa discovered how the two neighborhoods might as well be on opposite sides of the globe for all they ever came together and understood one another. Though she was well aware of the tension between the two worlds she occupied, she still recognized the essential humanity of the family members who helped raise her. Within her narrative, she winnows out stories of departed ancestors and family members, such as her maternal great-grandmother who was a vivacious flapper during the Harlem Renaissance. For the story of her own parents, she is compassionate and generous, noting that each gives a different reason for why they parted. Throughout her story and that of her family, Ragusa "never sugar-coats, but neither does she indulge in rancor or endless complaining about dysfunctional family dynamics," observed aKirkus Reviews reviewer. She also does not fail to grasp the political implications of her story of mixed-race upbringing, but that is not the major thrust of her recollections and family history. Booklist reviewer Hazel Rochman observed that "the particulars of Ragusa's story reveal the universal anxiety about belonging and about finding a home in America." A Publishers Weekly contributor stated that Ragusa's memoir is "refreshingly intent on creating compelling portraits and contextualizing family history rather than rehashing a personal, emotional journey."
"Kym Ragusa." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Aug. 2016.
The Library has 1 copy in Circulating Collection and 2 copies on Reserve (in-library use only) with WCC ID.
The Skin Between Us by
Kym Ragusa's stunningly beautiful, brilliant black mother constantly turned heads as she strolled the streets of West Harlem. Ragusa's working-class white father, who grew up only a few streets (and an entire world) away in Italian East Harlem, had never seen anyone like her. At home their families despaired at the match, while in the streets the couple faced taunting threats from a city still racially divided--but they were mesmerized by the differences between them.From their volatile, short-lived pairing came a sensitive child with a filmmaker's observant eye. Her two powerful grandmothers gave her the love and stability to grow into her own skin. Eventually, their shared care for their granddaughter forced them to overcome their prejudices. Rent parties and religious feste, baked yams and baked ziti--Ragusa's sensuous memories are a reader's delight, as they bring to life the joy, pain, and inexhaustible richness of a racially and culturally mixed heritage.
