When Donald Trump attacked Kamala Harris’ biracial identity earlier this summer, writer Danzy Senna wasn’t surprised.

“She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went- she became a Black person,” Trump said, falsely characterizing the way Harris has spoken about her biracial background.

This is nothing new, Senna explains: “He’s articulating the relationship of America to mixed race people and the hostility, the suspicion and the kind of bewilderment with which we’ve been faced with, historically.”

Senna’s mother, who is white, is from a prominent Boston family. Her father, who is Black, grew up in an orphanage in a small Alabama town. Senna has explored her own racial identity in both fiction and in the memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night? She notes that when she was born in 1970, “there was no ‘mixed-race’ category.”

“You were either going to identify as white … or you were going to identify as Black,” she says. “And there was no doubt in my mind or my family’s mind that I was going to identify as Black. … My father … really wanted to impress upon us our Black identity.”

Senna’s new novel, Colored Television, tells the story of a writer named Jane who’s devastated when the book she’s been working on for 10 years — a novel about how the meaning of being biracial has changed over generations — is rejected by her publisher. Without publication, Jane won’t get tenure at the university where she teaches, which means not having enough money to get by. The only solution she sees is to pitch an idea for a TV series.

“Some of my impulse to be a writer comes from that feeling that I want to write myself into existence,” Senna says. “I want to write the worlds that I’ve lived in, and the people I’ve been in the world with, into existence because I never see them.”

Colored Television

Penguin Random House

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Interview highlights

On her parents getting married in 1968, one year after the Supreme Court’s landmark Loving v. Virginia decision

They were part of a whole wave of the first marriages to come out of this huge political change. Their marriage was filled with all this symbolism and hope for the future and the sort of integration of American society and the kind of movement beyond these incredibly strict laws of segregation. …

What it meant was also that I grew up with … other mixed people around me who were also born out of the exact same moment in the exact same political movement. And so I’ve never been able to kind of separate the politics of the moment in which I was born from the personal, like those things are so intertwined for me, and the history is so clear.

On whether her parents saw their marriage as a political statement

I don’t think that you could be a white woman of a certain class — my mother’s a blond, blue-eyed, white woman who grew up the daughter of a Harvard professor in Cambridge and has this lineage that goes back to the earliest Americans, and also the slave-trading Americans — I don’t think you could be her and marry a Black man without that seeming like an incredibly potent political gesture at that time. And then there was the class issue of my father being first from an orphanage and then from a very poor family in the South and then the housing projects in Boston. … For him to marry someone of my mother’s background was a huge class leap and … crossing all sorts of lines.

I think people … Black and white people get married nowadays and it’s so common and can be sort of seen as “We just fell in love,” but at that time you were really breaking all of those laws, even those that had already been dismantled were still in place in people’s minds. I remember my mother went to the courthouse to get some paperwork for the marriage and in Boston, where interracial couples hadn’t been illegal at that time … [and] the woman said to her, “Wait, I have to go in the back and see if this is legal that you two are getting married.” And there were constant experiences that we had in the world that really brought home to all of us that we were a radical statement in the culture as a family. Just merely existing as a family was a radical statement at that time.

On how publishers reacted to her writing about biracial people

When I first started publishing was in the ‘90s with my first novel [Caucasia], and there really wasn’t anything like that. And that was a novel about a young girl of mixed race and racial passing. I had, like, eight rejections from agents when I first sent it out. And they would say, “This is too specific. … I don’t recognize this family, and I don’t understand this character’s identity, and they’re strange to me.” And finally, I found an agent who really loved it and sold it.

When I published that book, it was met with a lot of acclaim. And I had this really great experience in terms of my first novel. But one of the things I kept hearing from publishers was. “Don’t do this again. Don’t keep writing about mixed-ness,” like, “It’s time to graduate on to something new and just leave that behind.” And, it was almost as if they thought that mixed-ness was a plot and not a world and not a people, not a geography. …

And I find that so interesting, because I never hear people say that to white authors who write about, say, a particular world of white people. And I actually don’t hear it as much about Black authors who write about Blackness or Black worlds or race. But when I write about my people, it’s considered somehow … a “very special episode” that I shouldn’t do again. I think part of the reason that I find that so telling is that it’s that idea that you’re a predicament. You’re not a world. I think of it as: This is the world I write from. This is the geography and the culture that I write from, and it’s interracial America, it’s mulatto America.

On why she uses the term “mulatto”

I use the word mulatto a lot in my work, and I have sort of rejected the more politically correct term of “biracial” or “multiracial,” mainly because it’s meaningless and vague, and it could describe any two or three mixes that one could be. But mulatto — as problematic as the word is, and it comes out of slavery and the sort of pseudoscientific ideas of race, as problematic as it is — it’s the only word that really describes this very specific experience of being Black and white and being that mixture in America, which is, singular, and I think an important distinction from the other mixes.

On how writing for television compares to writing novels

I wrote a pilot for a show that was based on my work. I wrote an original pilot for a limited series that is still out there being shopped around. … What I felt writing scripts is, I really like it. It’s very interesting and sort of technical-feeling compared to writing novels. And I will continue to do it because it’s a nice break between books, and it kind of can pay … to get a new stove in your kitchen, like there’s actual financial benefits to doing it. But I think my soul is in the page and in writing novels. Being in control of the entire universe that I’m writing is really what feeds me on a much deeper level. And so I will never kind of fully abandon the written word. It just feeds me in a whole other way, but unfortunately doesn’t literally feed me or my children.

Sam Briger and Joel Wolfram produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Louis Vuitton Art Silk Squares

A tradition since 1987, Louis Vuitton’s Art Silk Squares project invites select artists from around the world to design their own Louis Vuitton silk square. This year, L.A.-based pixel-art collective eBoy created a square that explores the theme of the iconic LV Monogram Flower motif. Titled “Maze of Precious,” the silk square depicts a digital Louis Vuitton labyrinth in hues of bright pink and butter yellow, perfect to wear or to frame. Available now. louisvuitton.com

(NorBlack NorWhite)

NorBlack NorWhite Pop-Up

“My running joke is that we’re saging up Fairfax!” says Mriga Kapadiya, who along with friend Amrit Kumar founded NorBlack NorWhite, the India-based contemporary fashion label with an avid following. Popping up in L.A. for the very first time, the NorBlack NorWhite shop also features a curation of carefully selected goods and plays host to community events like a screening of singer Raveena Aurora’s short film, “Where the Butterflies Went,” on Sept.15. A charm bar on Sept. 21 with collectives Maari and Sari Sari invites guests to make their own bracelets and necklaces, and author Safia Elhillo will be joining Zara Chowdhary in a live reading of her memoir “The Lucky Ones” on Sept. 30. 424 1/2 N Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles. norblacknorwhite.com

(Aliza Nisenbaum at Regen Projects)

Aliza Nisenbaum at Regen Projects

“Altanera, Preciosa y Orgullosa” marks Mexico City-born artist Aliza Nisenbaum’s first exhibition in Los Angeles. The show will feature a new body of work depicting dance troupes, studios and teachers local to Southern California. Not to be missed, Amelia Muñoz Dancers will activate Nisenbaum’s presentation with a special public dance lesson at 5 p.m. Sept. 21. On view Sept. 12–Oct. 26. 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles.

Charlie Beads Pop-up

You’ve probably seen Charlie Beads’ signature bloomers everywhere, and now is your chance to snag some in person. Charlie Beads and fellow indie brand Cleo are hosting “The L.A. September Issue,” a special four-day pop-up at new space Yarrow Yarrow featuring a host of other L.A.-based independent designers and makers. Shop Charlie’s upcycled bloomers and Cleo’s collection of Day & Night handbags with rotating new designers each day, including Lotte.99, Their, Meredith Kahn, Little Shop and more. Sept. 19-22. 2520 James M. Wood Blvd., Los Angeles. charliebeads.com

Patricia Domínguez, “Matrix Vegetal” 2021-22. Commissioned by Screen City Biennial and Cecilia Brunson Projects. Installation at Macalline, Art Center, Beijing.

(MOLAA, ©Patricia Domínguez)

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Arteônica* at MOLAA

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Bottega Veneta Store at the Americana

Experiencing the Bottega Veneta vision is easier than ever with its new storefront at the Americana at Brand in Glendale. In good company with Saint Laurent, Gucci, Tiffany & Co. and more, the new Bottega boutique, along with its sought-after leather pieces, offers impeccable design featuring carved wood, stunning tile work and one-of-a-kind modern seating. 889 Americana Way, Glendale. bottegaveneta.com

(Burberry Classics AW24)

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(House Museum at the John Rowland Mansion)

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