The browning of America
Author Richard Rodriguez talks about the erotic conundrum of race mixing in America, his strange love for Richard Nixon and why George W. Bush is our first Hispanic president.

"Without race, we wouldn't have music, movies, prisons, politics, history, libraries, colleges, private conversations, motives. Dorothy Dandridge. Bill Clinton," writes essayist and journalist Richard Rodriguez in "Brown: The Last Discovery of America." And yet Rodriguez wants nothing more than to undermine race and usher in the idea of a "brown" -- impure, indistinct and contradictory -- America. For Rodriguez, the Catholic gay son of Mexican immigrants, "Only further confusion can save us."

"Confusion" might not be what readers are looking for when trying to make sense out of race and ethnicity. But "Brown," for the most part, is an optimistic, often romantic collection of essays that reflects what's already happening in America: A significant number of Americans define themselves as Hispanic, which, Rodriguez points out, is not a race. Americans continue to melt into each other, despite the census classifications and affirmative action programs that intend to deepen color lines.
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