Social Sciences
![Michelle Miller - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B0BRQRSQ85.jpg)
Belonging: A Daughter's Search for Identity Through Loss and Love
"[An] outstanding debut."-Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
The award-winning journalist and co-host of CBS Saturday Morning tells the candid, and deeply personal story of her mother's abandonment and how the search for answers forced her to reckon with her own identity and the secrets that shaped her family for five decades.
Though Michelle Miller was an award-winning broadcast journalist for CBS News, few people in her life knew the painful secret she carried: her mother had abandoned her at birth. Los Angeles in 1967 was deeply segregated, and her mother-a Chicana hospital administrator who presented as white, had kept her affair with Michelle's father, Dr. Ross Miller, a married trauma surgeon and Compton's first Black city councilman-hidden, along with the unplanned pregnancy. Raised largely by her father and her paternal grandmother, Michelle had no knowledge of the woman whose genes she shared. Then, fate intervened when Michelle was twenty-two. As her father lay stricken with cancer, he told her, "Go and find your mother."
Belonging is the chronicle of Michelle's decades-long quest to connect with the woman who gave her life, to confront her past, and ultimately, to find her voice as a journalist, a wife, and a mother. Michelle traces the years spent trying to make sense of her mixed-race heritage and her place in white-dominated world. From the wealthy white schools where she was bussed to integrate, to the newsrooms filled with white, largely male faces, she revisits the emotional turmoil of her formative years and how the enigma of her mother and her rejection shaped Michelle's understanding of herself and her own Blackness.
As she charts her personal journey, Michelle looks back on her decades on the ground reporting painful events, from the beating of Rodney King to the death of George Floyd, revealing how her struggle to understand her racial identity coincides with the nation's own ongoing and imperfect racial reckoning. What emerges is an intimate family story about secrets-secrets we keep, secrets we share, and the secrets that make us who we are.
The award-winning journalist and co-host of CBS Saturday Morning tells the candid, and deeply personal story of her mother's abandonment and how the search for answers forced her to reckon with her own identity and the secrets that shaped her family for five decades.
Though Michelle Miller was an award-winning broadcast journalist for CBS News, few people in her life knew the painful secret she carried: her mother had abandoned her at birth. Los Angeles in 1967 was deeply segregated, and her mother-a Chicana hospital administrator who presented as white, had kept her affair with Michelle's father, Dr. Ross Miller, a married trauma surgeon and Compton's first Black city councilman-hidden, along with the unplanned pregnancy. Raised largely by her father and her paternal grandmother, Michelle had no knowledge of the woman whose genes she shared. Then, fate intervened when Michelle was twenty-two. As her father lay stricken with cancer, he told her, "Go and find your mother."
Belonging is the chronicle of Michelle's decades-long quest to connect with the woman who gave her life, to confront her past, and ultimately, to find her voice as a journalist, a wife, and a mother. Michelle traces the years spent trying to make sense of her mixed-race heritage and her place in white-dominated world. From the wealthy white schools where she was bussed to integrate, to the newsrooms filled with white, largely male faces, she revisits the emotional turmoil of her formative years and how the enigma of her mother and her rejection shaped Michelle's understanding of herself and her own Blackness.
As she charts her personal journey, Michelle looks back on her decades on the ground reporting painful events, from the beating of Rodney King to the death of George Floyd, revealing how her struggle to understand her racial identity coincides with the nation's own ongoing and imperfect racial reckoning. What emerges is an intimate family story about secrets-secrets we keep, secrets we share, and the secrets that make us who we are.
Editorial Reviews
"An affecting narrative that explores race and racism while addressing deeply personal questions." - Kirkus Reviews
"[An] outstanding debut...Readers will be transfixed by Miller's thought-provoking queries about race and family, and inspired by her candor. The result is an elegantly structured soul-soother." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[An] outstanding debut...Readers will be transfixed by Miller's thought-provoking queries about race and family, and inspired by her candor. The result is an elegantly structured soul-soother." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Readers Top Reviews
PurchaserCathy Ro
Book is excellent. It's well-written (as I expected) and very engaging. Hard topic to share. What a story! ❤️
Anna D. CollinsPu
I read this book in less than a day. It is deeply moving, inspiring, and healing. I gained some much needed insight from this book.
Sidney P ColesAnn
This story really touched me. I can’t imagine having such a beautiful accomplished daughter and lovely grandchildren and not acknowledging them. This boggles my mind because the Black family had a much more distinguished background than the “mother” but she let skin color convince her that she’s worth more than her daughter. I read in 2 days but I found it heartbreaking in some ways.
Velma JenkinsSidn
I waited in anticipation for the Kindle version of this book. I couldn't put it down and read it in two days. I ached for Michelle as she yearned for acknowledgement of her by the mother who birthed her, which never came to pass. What a shame that her birth mother couldn't/wouldn't accept what a beautiful and accomplished woman Michelle is. I never met my maternal family except for my grandfather, grandmother and aunts because my mother disappeared from her extended family because she married a Black man. Such is racism, so sad to say.
Neki MohanNeki Mo
In this eloquently written book, Michelle uses the backdrop of the time period and her home of Los Angeles to show how the greater conundrum of race affected their family in a fundamental way. Forced to choose between family and her mixed race child, her mother choose her family. Michelle is forced to fight the feeling of loss and use the love of her father and his family to fuel her success. It is an honest and open account that will help so many to reckon with their own feelings about identity and will uncertainly inspire others in the same predicament. Incredible read!
