Fugitive Archives: My Family and the American Myth of Belonging

Asale Angel-Ajani's incisive, lyrical exploration of her family's history radically overturns American myths about race, violence, and belonging.

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. Raised in the gaps left behind, they learned how race and betrayal shaped their family legacy and the identities they inherited. When her grandmother, the family's record keeper,...