<i>Mama&#8217;s Child</i> is story of an idealistic young white woman who travelled to the American South as a civil rights worker, fell in love with an African American man, and started a family in San Francisco, where the more liberal city embraced them&#8212;except when it didn&#8217;t. They raise a son and daughter, but the tensions surrounding them have a negative impact on their marriage, and they divorce when their children are still young. For their biracial daughter, this split further destabilizes her already challenged sense of self&#8212;&#8220;Am I black or white?&#8221; she must ask herself, &#8220;Where do I belong?&#8221; Is she her father&#8217;s daughter alone?<BR><BR>As the years pass, the chasm between them widens, even as the mother attempts to hold on to the emotional chord that binds them. It isn&#8217;t until the daughter, Ruby, herself becomes a wife and mother that she begins to develop compassion and understanding for the many ways that her own mother&#8217;s love transcended race and questions of identity.