Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering

Marc Notes: With 20 women writers from around the world--Cover. Publisher Marketing: What happens when your child doesn't speak your native language? How do you maintain cultural traditions while living outside your native country? And how can you raise a child with two cultures without fracturing his/her identity? From our house to your house - to the White House - more and more mothers are facing questions such as these. Whether through intercultural marriage, international adoption or peripatetic lifestyles, families these days are increasingly multicultural. In this collection, women around the world, such as Xujun Eberlein, Violet Garcia-Mendoza, Rose Kent, Sefi Atta, Christine Holhbaum, Saffia Farr, and others, ponder the unique joys and challenges of raising children across two or more cultures. Suzanne Kamata's short work has appeared in over 100 publications. She is the author of a novel, LOSING KEI, and a picture book, PLAYING FOR PAPA, both of which concern bicultural families. She is also the editor of two previous anthologies - THE BROKEN BRIDGE: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan and LOVE YOU TO PIECES: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs, and is currently fiction editor of "Literary Mama." Born and raised in Michigan and most recently from South Carolina, she now lives in rural Japan with her Japanese husband and bicultural twins. Review Citations: Multicultural Review 10/01/2009 pg. 60 (EAN 9781932279337, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Kamata, Suzanne Back in the day, Suzanne Kamata spent a lot of time hanging out in a club in Columbia, South Carolina, much like the one in "Screaming Divas". (The beat goes on . . .) She later wrote about musicians for "The State" newspaper, "The Japan Times", and other publications. Now, she mostly writes novels. In her free time, she enjoys searching for the perfect fake fur leopard-print coat and listening to the Japanese all-girl band Chatmonchy.