A multiracial family’s questions and fears

In a scene from This Is Us, NBC’s powerful new family dramedy, nine-year-old Randall, who’s black, is struggling with his identity while his white, adoptive parents are arguing about whether to try to find his biological parents.

“He’s our son,” Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) says to Rebecca (Mandy Moore). “He is our all-star, knockout boy who deserves everything we could possibly give him, even if that means sucking up our own feelings about him having birth parents out there somewhere that might fill this void that he’s feeling. . . . Why are you against even trying?”

“I cannot lose my son,” she replies. “I can’t.”