“The definitions of race and ethnicity have rarely been more fluid, the promise greater, the possible perils more pronounced.—Newsweek, September 18, 2000

Satra Wasserman faced more than the usual difficulties as a child growing up in New York City. The son of a black mother and Jewish father, Wasserman attended a predominantly white school during the first grade, where he endured racial taunts almost every day. Children called him a “black cupcake” and told him, “Maybe if you took a bath, you’d be like us.” In the fourth grade, after he had changed schools, he befriended a black classmate who invited him over to his house often. Wasserman relished this new friendship for about a year, until things suddenly changed: “Every time [my friend] asked his parents if I could come over, [their] answer was always no.” It turned...