Mixed Feelings
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
256pp, The Women's Press, £11.99

London Crossings
Mike Phillips
215pp, Continuum, £16.95

In some ways a landmark book, Mixed Feelings is Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's attempt to study "the complex lives of mixed-race Britons". It is a partial follow-up to The Colour of Love, which she co-wrote nine years ago on the subject of interracial relationships. Her main argument is that people of mixed parentage have their own identity, which is separate from that of black or Asian people, and that it is wrong and far too simplistic to bracket them all together.

The book's strength lies in its numerous case studies, which offer insights into a variety of individual experiences: the black/white parents who, when together, extol the virtues of a mixed heritage, while in private hoping their children will reclaim a "pure" identity; the 30-year-old who feels white but looks Asian; the former navy seaman who's travelled the world and been called "half-caste", "nigger", "Cape Coloured" and "brown", but has always seen himself as "black". There is also a white south London mother who prefers to be seen in public with only the lightest-skinned of her three children, and two sisters adopted by a white family in the shires, one of whom sees herself as black, while the other rejects this identity.

This is a timely book: relationships between all races are increasing at a rapid rate, and 40% of all "Caribbean" under-fives now have one white parent. Alibhai-Brown looks at how these unions have been perceived since ancient times, which is interesting, but makes the book somewhat imbalanced. Of the six chapters, only two are about people of mixed parentage themselves; the others are really an update of her work on interracial relationships. And most of this information-gathering centres on conversations with youngsters who have little understanding of identity. Their oft-spoken beliefs that dual heritage gives them "the best of both worlds" and that racially they are "neither one nor the other" display an immaturity that would be dangerous if relied upon for forming policy. Further research is needed to gauge the views of mixed-parentage adults, many of whom are now parents themselves.

Alibhai-Brown spends the final chapter focusing on children in local-authority care, and in particular on the potential problems caused by incorrect racial classification. Mixed-parent children are far more likely than those of single race to be referred to social services, yet many departments class them all as "black", regardless of their individual racial origins.

Such problems seem to undermine her core belief, because from the start it is apparent that Alibhai-Brown has signed up to an idealistic notion of racial mixing. She dedicates the book to her eight-year-old daughter, "who is Indian, African, Pakistani, English, British and a born Londoner". Her child is, she says later, "like those other thousands of mixed-race Britons, a person of the future". But her interpretation is some distance from the reality of many such children: born in inner cities, often to single mothers, with a life of poverty ahead of them.

Ultimately, Alibhai-Brown's regular personal references make it clear that she is far too close to this issue for her study to be considered objective. One of her more strident assertions, for example, is that the children of interracial relationships "are not black, Asian or white". In making such a declaration, she chooses to ignore the contrary views of many people of mixed parentage. And even before you open the book, a central contradiction within her argument is apparent. On the cover two young children are pictured, both presumably of mixed parentage: one appears to be of African or Asian origin, the other Caucasian. It is an attempt to illustrate how complex the race issue is becoming. But how can one possibly claim that, in terms of race, the two children's life experiences will be similar? Alibhai-Brown is herself guilty of banding together people with little in common.

Complex and confused identities are also central to London Crossings, Mike Phillips's memories and musings on life since arriving in Britain from Guyana some 45 years ago. It is an informative look at the changing face of the capital and its attitudes towards migrants, written as a collection of snapshots: leaving his home town in tears at the age of 13 as he saw his schoolfriends for the last time; being left behind for a second time by his disenchanted parents, who escaped London to build a new life in New York; becoming a father; finding his long-lost brother; and attending the same man's funeral 20 years later. In among all this he recalls trips to New York, Kenya and Cuba, where he makes connections with the experiences of his Caribbean youth.

With this cultural mix in mind he tries to sew his thoughts together, most tellingly in the chapter on black British identity. In the years immediately after his arrival, he recalls, Caribbeans would define themselves in terms of their island of origin. However, during the civil-rights tumult of 1960s America, race became the overriding factor, and the idea of "blackness" took a hold. Phillips believes that black Britons should forge their own identity based in part on those early "Caribbean" days. Others might say, though, that the later experiences of Caribbean migrants in London, plus global issues such as apartheid, show that ultimately race will always be a greater definer than nationality or geography.

Phillips ends his book with another anecdote demonstrating how, in some ways, things have gone full circle. He tells how a white woman boarding a bus with her elderly mother, who is in a wheelchair, is spat at by a black girl in the same way that white youths would abuse him when he first arrived. We are left to wonder: is the final measure of integration the compulsion to abuse other vulnerable minorities?