Fugitive Archives: My Family and the American Myth of Belonging

An incisive, lyrical exploration of her family’s history radically overturns American myths about race, violence, and belonging.

Asale Angel-Ajani and her twin, the only Black children in a working-class white family, were shuffled between relatives, coming of age in a country that offered little refuge. Years later, Angel-Ajani dove into the archives, searching for an explanation for her family’s and her country’s contradictions, and for her own unshakeable anger.

What she found were record...