My name is Mike Enrico, and I spent the first 23 years of my life as the only “black” resident of Hobart, Indiana. While most of my peers took their ethnicity for granted, I had to come up with explanations for my appearance and why I was adopted, as well as answers to the often-asked question: “What are you?”
In my first book, Face It, You’re Black, I share my poignant yet often amusing recollections on family, race, no sex, and rock & roll.
My second nonfiction book, Enter the Anti, details my New York journey that began in the seedy Stapleton section of Staten Island in 1986, surrounded by bigots and heroin addicts. It was a lonely existence commuting by ferry back and forth, day after day, to a series of dead-end jobs and stumbling out of bars at 3 am. Determined to change course, I gravitated toward the creative arts and fell in love for the first time.
While working at Chthonian University, I was inspired by Malcolm X's revolutionary speeches, and my life was forever changed. My activist seeds were sown, but the black community wasn’t ready to accept a light-skinned mulatto into its ranks.
A daring Sagittariun, I don't mind ruffling a few feathers to prove a point or rouse people out of their comfort zones. Although I’m not yet a New York Times best-selling author, my memoir, Face It, You're Black, was chosen for the 2020 LA Times Festival of Books, one of the largest events in the United States.
