Family: Multi-Colored Families

Racially mixed households face their own challenges. Here's how they are trying to meet them

From the day Karen Katz brought her infant daughter Lena home, there was a certain question she knew was coming. It finally came when Lena was four; she turned to her mother and asked, "Mommy, how come I'm not the same color as you?" Her heart stopped. Then Katz, who is white, explained to her cinnamon-skinned, Guatemalan-born daughter that they came from different countries. Over the years, Katz and her husband Gary Richards have consciously worked to minimize the distance between themselves and their daughter: taking a trip to Mexico to surround Lena, now eight, with people who look like her...

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