One of the first questions that I’m asked when I’m doing a book event or being interviewed is: “Why did you decide to write this book now?”
For the last many weeks, I’ve given the same answer.
I chose to write this book now because, in some ways, society has changed. We are now talking about race, religion, and those who are considered “other” in ways we have not in the past. So it seemed like the right time to shine a light on my own life and how I have chosen to live in a world that has often told me that I should not exist in the way that God created me.
And, in many ways, every word of that is true.
But society is also not all that different. I am still gawked at and whispered about. I was denied service at a restaurant just last week. And much like it was in the 1970s and 1980s, on Rosh Hashanah morning this year, a woman sitting near me in synagogue could not contain herself at the sight of me. She stared, craned her neck to watch me pray and interrupted me to ask me what I was doing there. For me, it often feels like it is still 1979, where I am still the only brown Jew in a sea of white faces.
So, I am continuing to consider the question: “Why now?”
Perhaps the more complete answer is that I am different. Because I have both found and claimed my voice.
For the first few decades of my life I did not have a voice.
As a child, my parents spoke for me when we were faced with racists — and that was as it should be. No child should ever experience the things that I did. No seven year old should go to synagogue and hear a rumor widely being spread that my mother had been raped by a black man, and that’s why I “look this way.” I am grateful that I had parents who spoke the words that I could not say as a child in the face of intolerance that I could not comprehend. Even today, my mother will ask me if I want her to come to wherever the latest crime has taken place. She will always be my greatest defender.
As I grew older, I chose not to use my voice because I wanted people to like and approve of me. Speaking about being biracial and Jewish and the horrible things I faced wasn’t exactly party conversation. It made people palpably uncomfortable, and I did not want to create more discomfort than there already was. So, I did not speak. Instead, I did my best to “fit in” and hoped that I did not draw attention to my uniqueness. Of course, it didn’t work. Instead, people talked about me — sometimes in whispers and other times in screams. My silence did nothing but further leave me separate, choking on the words that I really wanted to say.
For the first few decades of my life I did not have a voice.
Then I learned that, under some circumstances, silence could keep me safe. That when faced with a racist or intolerant bully, it is best to stay quiet, for racists don’t like it when there is pushback. Just hold your breath…and your tongue. The moment will pass and you will stay safe. So, I did. That served me well on more than one occasion, for it kept my body alive and whole. But never has my silence served my soul.
I choked on my silence for decades. At times, I was unable to find the words and at other times, I was fearful if I did. Like the intolerance that created my silence, that too is poison.
When the societal door opened about five or six years ago, I saw an increased desire in talking about my personal story. I also found that, because I never used my own voice and told the story myself, people were telling me what my story must be.
A “tragic mulatto girl,” I was called.
“Someone who needs to ‘find herself’ by finding her biological relatives,” I was told.
None of that is true. I knew when people started telling me my story in every inaccurate way, that it was time to claim my voice and tell my story.
I knew when people started telling me my story in every inaccurate way, that it was time to claim my voice and tell my story.
So, I have, and it only took me fifty years to do so.
When my book tour began, a few of my Rabbi friends cautioned me not to be “cliché” when asked the question, “Why now?” by giving the answer that Hillel gave us: “If not now….when?”
But if we look at the whole of Hillel’s often quoted lines, his questions truly are a perfect answer to the one posed for this essay.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
I must speak my own truth if I want people to hear me and will never again allow anyone to tell me what my story should be. We should all be the authors of our own stories. All of our stories matter.
If I am only for myself, who am I?
In a world growing ever more beautifully diverse, our stories lay the groundwork for those who come after us. As someone who never had anyone “like me” to look to as a child, if I can be that face, voice, and person to those who are coming after me, it is my honor. I claim that honor by sharing my story.
And….If not now, when?
Marra B. Gad is an award-winning author, speaker and independent writer/producer. As president of Egad! Productions, she oversees the development and production of scripted television series and films. A grateful child of adoption, Marra speaks internationally about her own transracial adoption in 1970, and her experiences being Black/White biracial and Jewish through the lens of her debut memoir, THE COLOR OF LOVE: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl, winner of the 2020 Midwest Book Award for Autobiography/Memoir. Marra proudly holds a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MA in Jewish History from Baltimore Hebrew Institute at Towson University.