gram crackers as big as long as the streets itself and the approaching shops. marie coach had been left behind and he had two small children, maria claimed to have no knowledge of where her husband was, are refused any further searching of the premises. as grace moved from desk to death and steady buildings trying to gain interest to stores and limited to what they see from the outside. on the outside to the left and narrow street served as a separate entrance. grace walked near the stairs. grace new like it it or not that all of her misgivings about her past. why was coach missing? because he had taken the girl? because he had been spirited away by the same things that are taken root or was he terrified of being flamed all the way down to brazil. there were roomers coachy had been friendly with the motorcycle cops in his neighbor. grace new those questions might be the most dangerous ones. but they had to be asked. grace paused, considering the optioni options of play, intersecting the cities and struggling to connect the new boroughs in the one new hole. that version of the truth seemed remote but still grace went back to her office thinking through the heat, trying to come up with a plan. she called her good friend, the private detective julius crone who was a federal agent and first assigned to grace during her u.s. district attorney days. grace, one of things i found out was she was the first u.s. district attorney. this is a major historical point and you have to look really, really really hard to find it any where. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> you are watching booktv. television for serious readers. you can watch any program you see here online at booktv.org. ask r >> and now booktv is live from the gaithersburg book festival. you will hear from several authors. foreign policy magazine executive editor sharon wineburger. maria olson is up first. she is the author of "not the cleaver family" about the modern family structure. this is booktv's coverage of the gaithersburg book festival. >> good morning, how is everybody doing? i am danny windborne. i am a planning commissioner in the city of gaithersburg as well as a member of the book festival committee. this is our 8th annual books festival and we are so happy to have everyone here. we are pleased to bring you this fabulous event. if you see the people running this say thank you. please silence all devices and you can use the #gbf. we have feedback you can give us so we make the festival every year. i have read about five of the books myself. as you know, the city of gaithersburg, as one of the most diverse cities in america. this as a new contemporary life for citizens of gaithersburg. but i am hoping it is going to bring others in. maria olson has craft ad book that addresses real contemporary life in america. ms. olsen has a multi racial family and lives that of which she writes. she said she is often mistaken as the nanny for her biracial children. less than half the population of america -- ms. olsen includes herself -- excuse me. has given hundreds of interviews and includes those in the boshes talking about throughout america. a few weeks ago, our own jet ashman was on the show united shades of america to discuss what it is like to be the mayor of one of the most diverse cities in the country. i urge you to go look at that on cnn and see his response. experiencing a shift in what is coming in america and now we will talk about that paradigm shift. the name of the book is "not the cleaver family." i would like to warmly welcome ms. maria olsen to the dias. >> thank you so much for that. i am so excited to be here. i grew up in montgomery county. i was the only dark skinned person in my entire white kinsington classroom. my parents were forbidden by law to mary in the state of maryland in 1961. when i tell my children that, or even strangers, they are shocked it was illegal in 16 states, including maryland and virginia for people of other races to marry. serious. that is crazy. and likewise, when my children tell there children dad and dad were not able to marry until 2015 they will not believe it. there are so many changes going on in society. the family paradigm is changing and it is remarkable. ome in my childhood people couldn't get married that were two different races and now it is so cumin no one one would blink an eye. although i wouldn't want my children going to school in the south. there are pockets of racism. it is an examination of things changing and what we can do to support people whose families are not like the cleaver family. how many people remember the cleaver family show? i wanted my mom to dispense with him to my brother and me. kids can be cruel. we all know that. i suspect every person here can remember something mean someone said to them when they were a child because that is just the cruel nature of childhood. we are all trying to find our places and as a result some people can get nasty to others. my cross to bear at that time was i was raised catholic and went to catholic school my entire life. my parents got divorced and were exxhcommunicated from the churc. there were kids that were not allowed to come to my house. my father got custody of my mother and me i believe partially because of racism. there was talk of having my mother deported to the fill feenz -- philippines. i don't understand what happened still but i am glad that is not the case today and the base for which child custody cases are awarded. i have two children. this is the first book i wrote called "mommy why is your skin so brown? "and the reason i wrote it is because so many assumed i was my children's nanny. i started talking to people who i knew who had children that didn't like them whether they were adopted, mixed race or another race and found i am not alone. the history of racism in our country has always been more vicious against african-americans than asians and latin platina. however, there was no other dark skinned person in my all-white neighborhood who was not a domestic worker. even a filipino nanny came up to me while pushing my son in a stroller and said he is so cute, are you live-in? and i am like yes. i don't know if i can say this on tv. and i am sleeping with the father. and after that moment, the various nannies still point to me and say there she is. and my son has blue eyes. it is strange anomaly because you have to go back two generations in my family to find the gene for blue eyes. he was blond for his first year also. oh s -- a lot of things happene like mistaking me for the nanny. like the dentist would say would the mom like? and the teacher would say let's gather to have circle time and i would look around at all the blond moms and say this isn't going to end well. she asked if i had a birthing experience and i said yes, this is my second one. it was kind of cathartic to write this. i wrote an article called being a parent isn't always apparent. that article was widely distributed to area preschools to raise consciousness about how parents don't always look like their children and some people have two female parents or two male parents. my father, later in life, married a younger woman and people mistook him for the grandmother of my half brother. i have a complicated family. and i was dismayed because my half brother thought my father is so old he is surely going to die soon. so when people let their curiosity overwhelm their manners and say insensitive things especially in the presence of children they are not always aware of the effects. i wished i looked like everyone else growing up and my step brother wished his stepfather was younger. people are saying parent one and two now and that is a huge change. i believe we will see more and more but even in the last decade has been a time of momentous change for the families in our country. i then started interviewing people after the success of this book and the article, i started interviewing people in five different groups. people who adopted their children. people who chose not to have children. childfree by choice is the fastest growing demographic of all those i studied. parents of singel-tons. when i was a child, having no brother or sister was a cause of pity. but now people chose to have one child because of family resources, time, career. let me just give a little about each chapter i studied. first, i would like to say it was reported that white children within the age of five would be a niminory and by 2043 less than 50% of the population will be white. that is incredible. our country is going to go to a state where whites are not the majority. i never thought i would live to see that. i am happy my children no longer have to check white or asian pacific islander because if they have to chose then they are saying no to one side. i always had to chose asian pacific islander because my father is white no one would except that. they don't have to face that anymore. mixed race is a box on every demographic keeping paper. while laws and social services are slow to keep up with changes, the point of my book is there is no normal. we are a country where a lot of different families are accepted and the paradigm shifted. i spoke to hundreds of people about the experiences. some are slower to accept changes but changes are underway none the less. the first chapter is about child-free by choice. our culture seems to equate womenhood with motherhood. people who chose not to have children are often shamed by their colleagues or friends for not having children. the minute i got married my grandmother started off to me when i was going to have children because procreation in couplehood is just assumed. i would like to debunk that assumption. many people are fulfilled without being parents. it is not for everyone. contrary to the notion that it may be selfish to not have children i think it is selfish to have children if you are not ready for it and don't have the time or resources to give that child what he or she deserves. career concerns, lack of maternal and paternal instincts the desire not to bring children into a violent world and others as reasons not to procreate. everyone battled negative comments about their decision not to have children. i am trying to do my part to disspell those assumptions and help people being laurened with whatever choice they make. according to 2008, 15% of new marriages are interracial. and yet, are you all familiar with the cheerio ad that was so controversy? people started boycotting cheerio's because they featured on tv a commercial featuring a white mother and a black father and a mixed race kid. there was a huge uproar which just floored me. there was an interesting website called we are the 15% where mixed race families sent in pictures of their flaemz to show that we are normal too. now i see mixed race ads in print often. although every racial multi person i met has been faced with the question what are you. sometimes when i am in a bad mood i say human. but why should i have to face that? i do face that almost everything day. if i say i am american they look at me with puzzlement and will often not accept that for an answer. if i say filipino, they will let me pass. it is very crazy in foreign countries i have had that as well. i want to honor my father's irish american heritage has my mother's philippine heritage. because of the assumptions made in our country, i have been mistaken as the waitress at country clubs. my friend, who is a prosecutor, was mistaken for a criminal trying to steal his white girls from a playground in montgomery county. twice someone called the police saying this man is trying to steal the kids from the playground. we have a way to go. people interested in these topics can make changes. through not making consumptions and calling people out when they do make assumptions. i am getting better and better at that every day. my children are both in college. they are pretty liberal universities. the first day of class the teacher asked what is your name and what pronoun would you like to be called. the gender binary is slow leo roading. i walk on eggshells around my kids because if i assume a pronoun they get very upset. single parents. many of the women i interviewed focused on their career during the early years and they found they were older and didn't have time to get married. science enables us to have children now without a parent. you can have a sperm donor. i have two colleagues from law firms i worked at or from law school who chose to have children my themselves using a sperm donor and that is a valid choice nowadays. there is a huge network online of women who have chosen this. parents of singleton, the one child household is the fastest growing family unit. singleton children fare better often time because the parents treat them as adults much earlier and their vocabulary is expanded as a result and they have higher iq's by some measures. families who adopt. when i was growing up, you were adopted like it was a diss. it was a fearful thing to think i might have been adopted but why is being adopted -- why was it seen in my neighborhood as being something negative? it is a beautiful thing. when people address my friends who have adopted children with questions such as where did you get her as if she was a commodity that is a harmful thing. so what can with we do? education. is the primary way i believe to er er eradicate prejudice. i attend the largest gathering of mixed race people in the united states every year and it is the first time i ever felt truly understood. i exist in the middle. i never felt truly american and i certainly never felt fi filipo because my mother wanted me to be american and didn't teach me the language so that is a loss of a personal good. if any of you speak another language or have another culture in heritage share them with your children or they will grow up like resentful. do you guys have questions and answers? someone that has a mike with a comment on your side. i have a facebook page where i am encouraging people to share stories about this. i would like to hear from people and i would like to expand the project in the future to have a place where people with non-traditional families to meet and confer and share strategies for dealing with some of the indignit indignities we deal with. who would like to go first? >> [inaudible question] >> to think less in terms of how do we fight the bad, evil racist and more in how do we open people's minds and hearts? >> yes, yes, that is true. every time we meet somebody who has a life time prejudice because their parents and everybody thought them and they don't even know they are prejudice frankly. it is so much more important in my mind to introduce them cordually to somebody. >> i believe that is the true. what i do want to say is instance everyone knows someone who was gay but before you did wasn't there a bit of misunderstanding and possibly fear? people are afraid of what is not familiar with them. there are lgbtq groups who go door to door because they want to show they are normal, kind, concerned about the environment, so interactions, yes. interactions with kindness helps to increase understanding, you are absolutely right. thank you for that comment. anyone else? >> thank you for your story. i would like for you to talk a little bit about your children. how did it affect them? when were they aware there was a difference? >> children are good observers but poor interpreters. when my daughter was five she said why is your skin so rebobr? i believe it had a negative affect on her. people have a tribal desire to fit in and be part of it and it made her uncomfortable. my son less so. my daughter is sensitive and it took her time to come to terms with the fact our skin colors are different. now she is a huge advocate and is very involved in her college group called mix which is for anyone of mixed race or interested in other cultures. there was nothing like that for me when i was in college. my best friend text me on the way in saying you are mixed race? i didn't know that. i tried hard to be the cheerleader, the american, i wanted to be like everyone else. i am going to the philippines and bringing my kids for the first time and i am so excited. my daughter wants to stay there and i am hoping she does. people speak to me in spanish every day and luckily i learned it in high school and college enjoy practing it but i want to say i am filipino every time to bring attention to the fact one shouldn't make these kinds of assumptions. there are fewer filipinos that come into contact here. i understand my consumptions are made but i am more apt to talk about it now than i was. so, i was thinking since i have how many minutes left? three. i will tell you about my next project. which i am writing a book called 50 after 50. it is 50 new things i tried after turning 50 and what i learned from them. it is the kind of the transformation going from someone who wanted to fit in to someone who was so happy to be different. and so the world my uniqueness. i had no experience with motorcycles. i am pretty small and it is hard to find one i can hold up. it was a testament to myself and as we get older we care less and less about ourselves. i will be signing books. i work for politics and pros as well as an off site book seller. >> we have more live coverage, up next, "whistleblower at the cia". from may 31-june 2nd look for us at book expo of america, new york, where we will sit down with authors and publishers to discuss books. later, life from the 33 presidential library festival. for more information about the book fairs and festivals booktv will be covering and watch previous coverage, click the book fairs tab. >> it bent meant being from a liberal family, meant being jewish, meant being the children of my incredibly interesting engaging parents and in the end, we all have these identity that are formed by what we grow up. and there are identity that you don't realize you inherited. that is what the story of this book was for me. i didn't understand when i met someone they might come to the meeting of me with an a