Multiple Identities

Sirike offers a straightforward account of how the dark-skinned Cuban American Evilio Grillo's focus on the phenotype-driven exploration of his black identity and experiences allows her and her colleagues at Florida State University to complicate issues surrounding multiple identities in a multisection course, Race, Ethnicity and Citizenship. Despite the book's title, in Black Cuban, Black American: A Memoir, Grillo largely ignores his Cuban heritage and identity, focusing instead on his experiences at historically black colleges and on opportunities that came his way as a black person. Because Grillo offers a rather positive view of Cuba in comparison with the 1930s United States, his narrative opens up some unconventional possibilities of engaging the mostly Republican and conservative Cuban American students on the Florida campus in discussions on race, ethnicity, and ideology.