There are few things a biracial 16-year-old growing up in Southern California has in common with Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter. There are even fewer experiences in the life of that 16-year-old that have much if anything to do with the events that unfold in that novel. So it’s unsurprising that I have never liked The Scarlet Letter. Like many people who grew up in the American school system, I first read Hawthorne’s…