28. A Black Teen in China
Edward Allen Carter, Jr., was born in California in 1916 to an African American father and an East Indian mother. His parents, Christian missionaries, took him with them first to India, where he grew up, and then to China, which used to be a huge missionary magnet.
An upbringing in India and China, viewed at the time as the epitomes of the mysterious and exotic Orient, added layers of complexity to Carter. Blacks were very thin on the ground in China, which set him apart. While it would not be quite accurate to describe Edward as a social misfit, his background, the restrictions imposed by his religious parents, and the environment in which he grew up, all combined to form him in a different mold.