1. Understanding one’s identity is a major theme of this book. Ella, Dolores, and Jennifer each chose to shape their own identities rather than go along with public norms or perceptions. How do their actions make you feel about them?
2. Dolores found the stranger’s question “What are you?” off-putting. Did you ever have that question about someone else? Why is that important to know? Or, has your own identity ever been questioned? Has it shifted based on class, education, immigration, or other reasons? How did it make you feel?
3. Ella breaks Catholic doctrine to remarry and is excommunicated. Yet she continues to turn to God and participate in Catholic practices all her life. What do you think of her actions?
4. Do you think Ella did the right thing running away to marry Charles? Which family was more important, in your opinion, her parents and sister or her husband and children? Why?
5. Did Dolores’s need to understand her full racial identity justify the family upset caused by her search for family?
6. How did race pressures affect the life-changing decisions made by Charles, Ella, Dolores, Dorothy, and Jennifer? How were they different for the black, mixed, or white people?
7. Ella’s family welcomed her back after a thirty-six-year disappearance. What was it that defined the Boehles’ ability to offer such forgiveness?
8. Was Ella right not to make an issue of her mixed marriage with her children? What insights to her character did her actions provide?
9. The term equal opportunity racism is used in the book to describe how both blacks and whites acted on racist beliefs. Does this bring to light any prejudices you hold or face?
10. The 1950s TV show Amos ’n’ Andy was detrimental to blacks’ self-image and reinforced whites’ negative black stereotypes. While today’s media has moved on from such blatant portrayals, are damaging media stereotypes still influencing the public?
11. Is it possible not to let race dictate one’s life? Is that possibility different for white people versus for people of color? Why or why not?