A journalist travels the globe searching for answers to the mystery of her own ancestry, along the way raising deeper questions about the American experience of race, immigration, exile, and identity.
The daughter of a Burmese mother and a white American father, Alex Wagner grew up thinking of herself as a “futureface”—an avatar of a mixed-race future when all races would merge into a brown singularity. But when one family mystery leads to another, Wagner’s post-racial ideals fray as she becomes obsessed with the specifics her own family’s racial and ethnic history. Drawn into the wild world of ancestry, she embarks upon a quest around the world—and into her own DNA—to answer the ultimate questions of who she really is and where she belongs.
Alexandra Swe Wagner is an American journalist and author. She is the co-host of The Circus on Showtime and the author of FutureFace: A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging. She is also a contributor for CBS News and a contributing editor at The Atlantic.