MIXED MARRIAGES MIXED HERITAGE: MY OWN EXPERIENCE

About the Book

This is the true story of an African woman who came to the U.S.A. with wisdom in her mind and love in her heart, to follow a New England boy a world away. Through her journey across continents, we gain an incredible perspective of a life where race was challenged and boundaries were conquered. Beyond a simple woman’s journey through love and marriage, this book offers an intimate, heartfelt, and unpretentious insight into what it means to belong and to define oneself in our modern world.

About the Author

Béatrice Luvwefwa was born in 1948 in Mbulu-Nkanda, a village in the Kwango Region in the Southeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her father, Butsidi Ilenda, was a leather worker, and her mother, Anne Kalongo, was a traditional healer. Béatrice met her husband, an American working as a volunteer with the Mennonite Church, in early 1972 and moved to New Haven, Connecticut. She went on to receive a BA in political science magna cum laude and a Masters in Public Administration and Policy from UMASS Amherst. She has worked as a consultant for the World Health Organization and the International Labor Office, in Geneva, Switzerland. She is the mother of three children, Howard, 31, Mbambu, 28, and Aimée, 21, and the author of Silent Victims in the UN Bureaucracy (1997).