Listed are various articles on interracial marriages and dating - as
it relates to Asian/Asian Pacific Americans

#1) Overview of Asian/White-Black Marriages
#2) AsianWeek Article on Minority/Interracial Marriages
#3) Washington Post Article on Interracial Marriages Eroding Barriers
#4) Divorce in International Interracial Marriages
#5) Interracial Dating Guide for Asian Men
#6) Article on the Rise of Interracial Marriages
#7) Tale of an Interracial Marriage in Alabama When It was
Illegal?!?!
#8) The "One Drop" Rule
#9) Myth of Interracial Marriages by Steve Sailor
#10) Article on the Rise of Interracial Marriages

INTERRACIAL MARRIAGES AND DATING
http://www.asian-nation.org/interracial.shtml

One of the most public manifestations of race is the choice of one's
partner or spouse. This very individual and personal aspect can
sometimes produce a lot of public discussion. Studies consistently
show that Asian Americans have some of the highest ''intermarriage''
(also known as ''outmarriage'') rates among racial/ethnic
minorities -- marrying someone else outside of their own ethnic
group. But as always, there's more to the story than just the
headline.



THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SIDES OF ETHNICITY
History shows that these anti-miscegenation laws were very common in
the U.S. The first such laws were passed in the 1600s to prevent
freed Black slaves from marrying Whites. It was not until 1967,
during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, that the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that such laws were unconstitutional. At that
time, 38 states in the U.S. had formal laws on their books that
prohibited non-Whites from marrying Whites. As you can see, it's
only been in recent years that interracial marriages are relatively
common in American society.


Of course, anti-miscegenation laws were part of a larger anti-Asian
movement that eventually led to the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882
and other restrictive regulations. These laws actually made the
situation worse because Asian men were no longer able to bring their
wives over to the U.S. So in a way, those who wanted to become
married had no other choice but to socialize with non-Asians. After
World War II however, the gender dynamics of this interracial
process flip-flopped. U.S. servicemen who fought and were stationed
overseas in Asian countries began coming home with Asian ''war
brides.'' These Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese
women eventually played a role in developing the Asian American
community by sponsoring their family and other relatives to
immigrate to the U.S.

Whether it's dating or marrying someone of a different race,
interracial relationships are not a new phenomenon among Asian
Americans. When the first Filipino and Chinese workers came to the
U.S. in the 1700 and 1800s, they were almost exclusively men. A few
of them eventually married women in the U.S. who were not Asian.
However, many people soon saw Asian intermarriage with Whites as a
threat to American society. Therefore, anti-miscegenation laws were
passed that prohibited Asians from marrying Whites.

These days, Asian Americans in interracial relationships are very
common. One of the best research articles on this topic is a study
conducted by Shinagawa and Pang entitled ''Asian American
Panethnicity and Intermarriage,'' reprinted in the highly
recommended Asian Americans: Experiences and Perspectives. Similar
in structure to their study, I have analyzed national data from the
Census 2000 Supplemental Survey to construct the following table,
which updates the results from 1990 to 2000 and represents data from
the entire U.S. and not just California. The table shows the
percentage of the six major Asian ethnic groups who are married to
either someone within their ethnic group, to another Asian (outside
their ethnic group), or to someone who is White, Black, or
Hispanic/Latino, by husbands and wives.

Note that this table includes data for all members of each Asian
ethnic group who are maried -- immigrants and U.S.-born. You should
also note that because this research uses sample data, inherently
there is a small degree of sampling error, which basically means
that some of the proportions you see have a small margin of error.
In other words, just because a proportion is listed as 0.0 (i.e., a
Filipino husband and a Black wife, etc.) does not mean that there
are zero examples of those marriages in the overall U.S. population.

Also keep in mind that although generally accurate and reliable,
Census sample data is not completely perfect and that there will
always be some sampling errors, especially since Hispanics/Latinos,
as defined by the U.S. government, can be of any race (i.e., there
can be White Hispanics, Black Hispanics, Asian Hispanics, etc.).
This inherent ''fuzziness'' of the data may be one of the main
reasons why some of the percentages in the table below do not add up
to 100%. Other reasons might include being married to American
Indians (who are not listed in the tables) or to multiracial spouses
(whose self-reported identities often change or are unknown).



PATTERNS OF MARRIAGE AMONG ASIAN AMERICANS
These are certainly a lot of numbers to consider. Basically, what
these stats tell us is that among the six major Asian American
ethnic groups, among both husbands and wives, the groups that are
most likely to intermarry with Whites are Japanese followed by
Koreans. Although the numbers for intermarriage with Blacks and
Hispanics/Latinos are low, Asians who are most likely to intermarry
with Blacks are Chinese American husbands and Filipino wives while
Japanese American husbands and Filipino Americans wives are most
likely to intermarry with Hispanics/Latinos. Those who are most
likely to marry within their own ethnic group are Vietnamese
American husbands and Asian Indian wives. Finally, Japanese
Americans (husbands and wives) are most likely to marry another
Asian American (outside their own ethnic group). See the summary
below (and represented by the bold numbers in the table):

Husbands -- most likely to have a(n) __ spouse:


Endogamous: Korean
Other Asian (Pan-Asian): Chinese
White: Japanese
Black: Chinese
Hispanic/Latino: Japanese

Wives -- most likely to have a(n) __ spouse:


Endogamous: Asian Indian
Other Asian (Pan-Asian): Korean
White: Japanese
Black: Filipino
Hispanic/Latino: Filipino

These results can be considered in combination with the Shinagawa
and Pang article, which points out that for all Asian ethnic groups
and both husbands and wives, the percentage who are intermarrying
with Whites has increased in recent decades, with the one exception
of Japanese American wives. However, their study also finds that all
Asian ethnic groups and husbands and wives are also more likely to
marry another Asian (either within their own ethnic group or some
other Asian ethnic group) than before and that despite the
increasing popularity of Asian intermarriage with Whites, the data
show that these days Asian Americans are much more likely to marry
another Asian than to marry a White person.


Nonetheless, intermarriage is making its mark in the Asian American
community. The chart from the Census Bureau chart below reports that
among the six major Asian American ethnic groups in 2000, Japanese
Americans had the highest proportion of their total population that
are in combination with at least one more Asian ethnic group (i.e.,
Japanese-Chinese) or with at least one other race (i.e., Japanese-
White) at over 30%. Conversely, Vietnamese Americans have the lowest
such rates, which makes sense because they are the most recently
arrived Asian ethnic group and it is likely to take more time for
them to become 'maritally assimilated.' In fact, demographers
predict that by the year 2020, almost 20% of all Asian Americans
will be multiracial and that figure will climb to 36% by the year
2050.

Now that we have a general picture of what the marriage rates are
for all members of each of these six Asian American ethnic groups,
on the next page we will take a more specific look at only those
Asian Americans who grew up in the U.S. and are therefore most
likely to have been socialized within the context of American
intergroup relations -- the U.S.-born and those who immigrated to
the U.S. as children.


The previous page described the rates of marriage for all members of
the six largest Asian American ethnic groups (immigrants and U.S.-
born combined). This page narrows down these percentages for just
those Asian Americans who are ''U.S.-raised'': those who are either
U.S.-born or who immigrated to the U.S. before age 15 (who
sociologists call the ''1.5'' generation). This is an important
distinction because many researchers argue that in analyzing
intermarriage rates, we should focus mainly on those who were raised
in the U.S. and whose socialization was within the context of U.S.
race relations, rather than immigrants who were already married when
they came to the U.S. And as you can see, the numbers between the
overall group and just the U.S.-raised can be quite different.



MARRIAGE PATTERNS AMONG THE 'U.S.-RAISED'
The following table shows the percentage of each Asian ethnic group
who are married to Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, or Other Asians, by
husband and wife among those who are ''U.S.-raised'' -- either born
in the U.S. or who immigrated to the U.S. before age 15. In
analyzing intermarriage rates, it is actually more accurate in many
ways to focus on this portion of the Asian American population
rather than on all Asian Americans because these Asians who were
raised in the U.S. constitute the group that is most ''at risk'' in
the statistical sense. That is, having grown up in the U.S., they
are immersed in American culture and interracial dynamic much more
so than immigrants who were already married before they came to the
U.S.

Please keep in mind that although generally accurate and reliable,
Census sample data is not completely perfect and that there will
always be some sampling errors, especially since Hispanics/Latinos,
as defined by the U.S. government, can be of any race (i.e., there
can be White Hispanics, Black Hispanics, Asian Hispanics, etc.).
This inherent ''fuzziness'' of the data may be one of the main
reasons why some of the percentages in the table below do not add up
to 100%. Other reasons might include being married to American
Indians (who are not listed in the tables) or to multiracial spouses
(whose self-reported identities often change or are unknown).


The results show that, compared to the rates on the last page for
all members within each Asian American ethnic group, those who are
U.S.-raised are much more likely to outmarry with either Whites or
an Other Asian American (pan-Asian). This makes sense because U.S.-
raised Asian Americans are much more likely to have more exposure to
and interaction with members of all racial/ethnic groups before
marriage than Asian immigrants who came to the U.S. already married.
Specifically, the numbers tell us that Filipino husbands and wives
are the most likely to have a White spouse. In fact, at least half
of U.S.-raised Filipino and Korean wives are married to a White
husband.

Also not surprisingly, U.S.-raised Asian Americans have higher rates
of intermarriage with Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos than are all
Asian Americans, with Chinese American husbands and Filipino wives
the most likely to have a Black spouse. Both Filipino husbands and
wives are also the most likely to have a Hispanic/Latino spouse and
this is also not surprising given the prominent Hispanic influence
on Filipino history and culture. Somewhat surprising is the fact
that Japanese husbands are the most likely to have an endogamous
(same ethnicity) wife, since Japanese Americans are in many ways the
most assimilated of all Asian American groups so we might expect
them to intermarry with non-Japanese more. Finally, Vietnamese
husbands and Korean wives have the highest rates of being in a pan-
Asian marriage (Asian spouse of a different ethnicity). See the
summary below (and represented by the bold numbers in the table):

Husbands -- most likely to have a(n) __ spouse:


Endogamous: Japanese
Other Asian (Pan-Asian): Vietnamese
White: Filipino
Black: Chinese
Hispanic/Latino: Filipino

Wives -- most likely to have a(n) __ spouse:


Endogamous: Vietnamese
Other Asian (Pan-Asian): Korean
White: Filipino
Black: Filipino
Hispanic/Latino: Filipino

One of the more interesting comparisons between these numbers for
just U.S.-raised Asian Americans and the numbers on the previous
page for all Asian Americans is the finding that both White
intermarriages and pan-Asian marriages (spouses are of two different
Asian ethnicities) are much more common among the U.S.-raised, and
this parallels similar findings in the Shinagawa and Pang article.

The second table on this page (below) comes from the 2000 Census as
well and it shows the percentages of unmarried Asian men and women
who are living with members of the opposite sex. Although the Census
Bureau aggregated the different Asian ethnic groups into a
single ''Asian'' category, the results of this table basically
correspond to the intermarriage results and show that Asian women
are much more likely to be living with an opposite sex partner who
is White, Black, or Latino, compared to Asian men.

So the question becomes, what does this development mean? That is,
do more pan-Asian marriages mean more Asian Americans are actually
adopting a pan-Asian American identity? And if so, does the
formation of a pan-Asian identity imply a broader assimilation into
mainstream American society? Although this research cannot provide
any definitive conclusions on that issue, we can speculate that the
answer may be yes and no. The apparent increase of pan-Asian
marriages may represent a broader assimilation process into American
society in that more Asians may be moving away from their
traditional assimilation pattern of intermarriage with Whites and
instead, are broadening their experiences and choosing a pan-Asian
marriage by marrying spouses of a different Asian ethnicity. In the
process, they may be accepting and internalizing more strongly the
uniquely American socially constructed category and identity
of ''Asian American.'' In this sense, more pan-Asian marriages may
suggest that Asians are becoming more comfortable with being an
American -- of Asian ancestry.

On the other hand, we might also argue that acceptance of an ''Asian
American'' identity does not necessarily imply an accompanying
greater acceptance of mainstream American society. For example, the
article on Assimilation and Ethnic Identity notes that children who
often experience racial discrimination are most likely to identify
with a pan-ethnic identity (i.e., 'Asian American'). Further, there
is plenty of personal-level evidence to suggest that many Asian
Americans, despite their socioeconomic successes, still feel a
certain degree of disconnection and exclusion from mainstream
society. Galvanized by experiences of racial discrimination against
them and others like them (including such incidents like the Vincent
Chin episode), many (although certainly not all) Asian Americans do
not feel that they are completely assimilated into mainstream
society, by their own choice or by the actions of others.



TRUE LOVE IS A TWO-WAY STREET
Whatever the implication, high rates of outmarriages to another
Asian of a different ethnicity or in particular, to Whites, has led
many sociologists and psychologists to analyze why Asian Americans
choose to intermarry with Whites. One theory emphasizes that
marrying a White person is the ultimate form of assimilation (see
the article on ''Assimilation and Ethnic Identity'') and signifies
full acceptance by White society. Unmarried Asian Men Living
with . . .



Therefore, an Asian American may marry a White person because s/he
(consciously or unconsciously) wants to be fully accepted in White
society. However, to many people, this theory sounds rather
condescending since it presumes that the only reason why an Asian
American would marry a White would be to fulfill a need for
acceptance.

The related theory of hypergamy would also suggest that Asian
Americans marry Whites to increase their social status, since Whites
generally occupy the highest socio-cultural position in the U.S.'s
racial hierarchy. In other words, even if a working-class Asian
American marries another working-class White, her social status will
still improve, compared to if she married someone else in her ethnic
group or even another Asian.



The other issue that comes into play here is how Asian women are
frequently fetishized. Historically, it was very common for Asian
women to be portrayed as docile, subservient, exotic, mysterious,
and/or seductive. These images can be traced back to Chinese
prostitutes who were ''imported'' into the U.S. back in the 1800s
and through the prevalence of ''war brides'' (Asian women marrying
U.S. military servicemen) after World War 2. Many Asian Americans
argue that this cultural stereotype or fetish of Asian women is a
large reason why many males (particularly White males) are attracted
to Asian women. In this sense, Asian women are not seen as equal
partners but rather, as sexual objects to be controlled and used by
the male.


These critics point out that in most areas of popular American
culture, rarely do you see the opposite happening -- Asian males
being the subjects of infatuation or sexual desire by White women.
In fact, these critics would point out that Asian males have been
and continue to be purposely portrayed as non-sexual martial arts
experts, nerds and geeks, or evil villains and that this portrayal
serves to eliminate Asian males as potential rivals to White males
for the affection of Asian women. These critics also note that it is
the saddest irony when Asian women either allow themselves to be
objectified and fetishized or when they buy into and accept these
demeaning portrayals of Asian men and eliminate them as potential
partners.

As I mentioned, these theories and criticisms can sound rather one-
sided. However painful or ingrating they may be, it is necessary for
us to look at how both Asian American men and women can become the
targets of objectification and how this reinforces and perpetuates
ethnic stereotypes against both. Fortunately, that is not always the
story for many, even most interracial relationships. What these
criticisms don't mention is why Asian Americans sometimes marry
within their ethnic group.

Sometimes, particularly for young Asian immigrant women, they are
pressured or forced into marrying within their own ethnic group by
family members and cultural traditions. They also don't point out
the traditional patriarchy and sexism that still exists among many
Asian men and their expectations that Asian women are merely their
possessions and must obey their every command. Most people would
probably agree that that type of thinking by males, whether they're
White, Asian, or whatever else, is not going to win the hearts of
many women, Asian or otherwise.

The point is, dating and marriage decisions can be complicated but
they don't have to be. It's hard enough to find a person with whom
you are completely compatible. When you find that person, his/her
race may be one consideration but in the end, I think most people
would agree with me that love, a true appreciation of their
similarities and differences, mutual respect, and genuine equality
are the most important factors.

=====================

The Minority Interracial Couples
Dating someone of a different race who isn't white can be difficult
BY STACY LAVILLA
http://www.asianweek.com/040998/feature.html

Cindy, a Japanese American woman, was always considered a rebel of
sorts within her family, but four years ago, when she began dating
an African American man, she committed her biggest act of defiance.

When the administrative assistant at a health care provider in
Southern California told her parents, their reaction was far from
approving. "You know if you have children and get divorced, it's not
going to be easy to get re-married again," her mother warned,
implying that no man would marry a woman with half-black children.
From her father came more disapproval. "Our relatives aren't going
to like that. There's going to be talk in the family," her father
cautioned.

Cindy, 29, was shocked and offended--after all, both her parents are
from Hawaii, where many residents are of mixed race. What angered
her most were the racist sentiments underlying their warnings.

Like many Asian American parents, her parents would have preferred
that she find an Asian man, or even a white one. But Cindy's
decision to date an African American has forced her, like many
others in her situation, to confront startling and intense levels of
racism within their own families.

In Asian American Intermarriage, due out next year through Beacon
Press, co-authors Larry Hajime Shinagawa and Gin Yong Pang found
that a substantial number of Asian Americans are in interracial or
interethnic relationships. However, in only a small fraction of
those relationships one partner is African American or Latino.

Through interviews conducted with over 100 individuals in California
and through 1990 US Census Bureau statistics, Shinagawa and Pang
found that of the half of the Asian Americans in California that
marry non-Asians, roughly a third of those individuals are in
interracial marriages.

Of the 120 interracial or interethnic individuals Pang interviewed
for the work, half of the individuals were dating, while the other
half were married. Of the 60 married couples, 30 individuals were
married to whites, 15 were in interethnic (Asian/Asian)
relationships, and 15 individuals were married to Latinos, African
Americans, or mixed race individuals.

The breakdown was relatively even for the 60 individuals who were in
interracial dating relationships. Of the 60 couples Pang
interviewed, 20 individuals were involved with whites, 20
individuals were in interethnic relationships, and 20 were involved
with Hispanics, African Americans or mixed race individuals.

Shinagawa and Pang found that certain marriages, specifically to
African Americans and Latinos, often caused the greatest conflict
between Asian Americans and their families.

The source of that conflict, explained Pang, stems from numerous
factors including racism, pressure from Asian American families to
marry someone of the same ethnicity or race, and a belief that
marrying into the white majority will lead to greater acceptance of
the individual by society at large.

Shinagawa said that all couples, even younger ones like Fabio Andina
and Jannah Sims, who met at San Francisco State University and have
been happily dating for two months, typically experience some form
of resistance from family members.

"With African Americans and Latinos ... there is always opposition,"
from the family, said Shinagawa, a professor at Sonoma State
University. In some cases, Asian American parents might think, "What
do you gain by marrying another minority, especially when you're the
higher minority?" Shinagawa said.

Pang, a lecturer at San Francisco State University, asserts that the
acceptance of an individual's significant other is inherently tied
to a hierarchy of color, consciously or unconsciously observed.

"If there is a color hierarchy among the races, it seems to get
darker at the bottom," Pang said. "Some people I have interviewed
said, 'My parents don't want me to marry out but if I do, that
person better be white ... rather than Hispanic or black.'"


"In cultures, Asian or white, there is the negative association with
the color black. ... If it's dark it's not as attractive," Pang
said, adding that some cultures draw a correlation between skin
color and social status. "Traditionally in Asian cultures, the
darker your skin is, the lower your class standing," Pang said,
adding that Asian Americans with darker skin tones are subject to
similar scrutiny.

This correlation between skin color and social status, Pang argues,
often means that African American partners must possess exceptional
credentials--whether it be economically, professionally, or
academically--to merely be acknowledged by some Asian American
families. "If he's black, he'll have to have something exceptional
to make up for being black," Pang said.

In Cindy's case, her boyfriend's economic standing did little to
sway her parents opinion. Although her boyfriend is a highly paid
professional with a house near the beach, and a master's degree, he
was not showered with the same attention and acceptance granted to
her sister's white husband of similar economic standing and academic
accomplishment.

"My parents were very skeptical of my boyfriend, as opposed to my
brother-in-law, who they accepted right off the bat," Cindy said.

Pang and Shinagawa speculate that whites are more readily accepted
by Asian Americans because they are perceived as having more power
and a higher social status in American society. The assumption is
that marrying a white individual leads to greater acceptance by
American society.

"A white person will be much better tolerated and accepted into the
circle, because a white spouse symbolizes American society. There is
the notion about whites being real Americans," Pang said. "That kind
of respect is given to white spouses, but when it comes to blacks or
Hispanics forget it-they're not real Americans. They're not given
that equal footing or standing unfortunately because of that racism
we've internalized."

Much of the parental concern regarding interracial marriages to
African Americans or Latinos, according to Pang, also stems from
concern that their child and future grandchildren might experience
racism as a result of the relationship.

"Some parents have told their children that they're going to have a
hard time and a hard life," said Pang. "And that's usually followed
by the children, that they're going to suffer in some way. They
usually point out that it's not that there's something wrong with
black people, but society still has a lot of prejudice against
them."

Despite this fear, some couples say they haven't encountered
widespread, blatant racism from society.

Linda Forrest, a Chinese American, met her husband Thomas, an
African American, at a singles bar in New Jersey while she was a
teacher and he was a public utility employee. The couple has been
married for 23 years and lives in Fairfax, Va.

She views her marriage as unique. Her immigrant parents and her
husband's Southern parents accepted the relationship, and society
appeared to adjust as well. Although she did notice how she and her
spouse attracted stares early on in their relationship, she says
that as of late, they draw little attention.

"There have been people in later years since we've been married
where I could see the surprise in their face, but that doesn't
happen too often. ... If we were in Kansas, I'm sure it would be
very different," said Forrest. "I think whites see [us] as two
minorities, so who cares. And blacks don't have much of a problem
with me because I'm not white."

The Forrests admit that the acceptance they received by both
families was surprising. However, Linda Forrest says her family
would have expressed grave disapproval had she married a Japanese
American.

"My parents would have objected more if I married a Japanese
American than an African American," she said. "My mother lived
through the war and suffered the atrocities of the Japanese."

Thomas Forrest anticipated disapproval from Linda's parents, not so
much because he is African American, but because he isn't of Asian
descent.

"I wasn't very optimistic," about her parent's reaction, he said. "I
was a little bit skeptical."

The Forrests were not the only interracial couple to gain such a
warm reception from family and friends.


When Loida and Reginald Lewis, who died in 1993, married 29 years
ago, they found both their families to be equally enthusiastic.

Loida Lewis, who assumed the reigns of TLC Beatrice International
Holdings, Inc., as CEO and chairman after the her husband's death,
attributes her family's immediate acceptance of the marriage to
their adamant belief that individuals should not be judged by their
skin color.

"The values of our family did not have us differentiate or classify
people according to the color of their skin but only on the content
of their character. ... My mother had met Mr. Lewis in New York and
[immediately] understood why her headstrong daughter fell in love
with him. She understood and accepted," said Lewis.

While some of her husband's friends and relatives were initially
surprised that he was marrying a woman from the Philippines, their
skepticism faded once they met her. As Lewis explains, no one
doubted that their marriage was based on anything but love and
mutual respect.

"I knew in my heart that I would not meet a man like him again, and
I guess the same was true for him. So it was clear to anyone who
knew us that we loved and chose each other for life," Lewis added.

When Janice Mirikitani, a Bay Area author and poet, and the Rev.
Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco were
married 16 years ago, they experienced more of the typical family
resistance many interracial couples encounter.

"I think barriers go up [within a family and society] because of
stereotypes and because of cultural ignorance and attitudes,"
Mirikitani said. "My parents weren't at first very accepting, and
because my family is fairly traditional Japanese American, they had
a hard time at first."

Mirikitani's marriage to Williams was her second. She was married
once before to a Caucasian man. As Mirikitani explains, her family's
initial objection to both marriages was a result of her not marrying
a Japanese American.

Mirikitani's mother, like other Asian Americans who come to accept
an interracial marriage, changed her opinion of the marriage once
she came to know Williams.

"My mother is a loving and sweet woman and she came to see that
Cecil is that kind of person also. Now she says to me that you're so
lucky to be married to such a good man," Mirikitani said.

Although Mirikitani and Williams have not witnessed overt racism,
they have experienced instances where people refuse to acknowledge
their union. "It's very strange how people stereotype the marriage,"
Mirikitani said. "By white people I'll be asked if I'm the
chauffeur, because it's inconceivable to them that I could be the
wife. I've been asked if I'm the caterer, the maid, the florist."

Yuko Hata, a young jazz musician, is in a six-year relationship that
she and her African American boyfriend, Anthony Wonsley, believe
will lead to marriage.

Hata also witnessed stereotyping, but more so regarding the
viability and seriousness of her relationship.

"There always will be the initial stereotyping [of the
relationship]," Hata said. "Look at me or him betraying each other's
races ... it's 'Jungle Fever,' or it's an Asian fetish. ... Blacks
were saying that this is nothing but curiosity, or if he wasn't as
good in jazz I wouldn't go out with him, and since he is the first
[African American I've dated] that can't be real."

As a couple in their late 20s, Hata and her boyfriend have been
forced to revisit and confront the larger issues of cultural
identity within the context of their relationship.

For Hata, a second generation Japanese American, the relationship
has caused her to re-evaluate the Asian American identity she
earnestly tried to deny while growing up in mostly white Boulder,
Colo.

"In some ways, I guess my relationship did make me more political
because I was just becoming more exposed firsthand to situations
that I may not have come across," said Hata, who now lives in
Boston. "It's definitely been the core of a lot of self-evaluation."

"What's interesting is that growing up in an all white neighborhood,
race wasn't an issue. ... But for African Americans, for them, race
is an issue every day," Hata added. "I went through so many stages
of trying to see what life is like through the eyes of someone who
is African American ... what it's like to be a person of color."

Meanwhile, Wonsley was confronting the pressures he faced as a black
man dating someone outside of his race.

"He really had to come to terms with himself, because there's a lot
of pressure he was feeling from being a black man," said Hata. "He
had to know for himself that he wasn't dissing his own kind."
As they confront the sometimes painful assumptions and stereotypes
placed on the relationship by society and family, many interracial
couples focus on their commonality.

Williams and Mirikitani, for instance, know they share a common bond-
-that of racial oppression.

"Both of us had histories of severe pain," Williams said. "My folks
coming from slavery and her folks coming from the concentration
camps. We understand what it is to be hurt and humiliated and
rejected and to be told that you're no good or nobody."

Mirikitani agreed and underscored the similarities of the Asian
American and African American cultures. "That kind of oppression
against our racial groupings helped us to identify a great deal
more," Mirikitani said. "And there are all the various cultural
things such as oral tradition, storytelling, the importance of
family and extended family, and food.

"There are lots of connections."


=============


Interracial Marriages Eroding Barriers
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 28, 1998; Page A1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/dec98/melt29.htm

Latest in a series of occasional articles
MONTCLAIR, N.J. – Some see it as a demographic shift that will
irreparably tear at the fabric that binds Americans, this vast
influx of immigrants who for more than two decades have been
streaming across the nation's borders. President Clinton appointed a
commission to help the country absorb its new multicultural
citizenry, a flurry of new books have questioned the very premise of
the fabled melting pot, and several social historians are now asking
whether the country is on the verge of becoming a Balkanized nation
with shared geography but no common identity.

Yet the mounting fears of ethnic divide are being answered by a
force of potentially equal might: the enormous rate at which couples
of different races and ethnicities are marrying one another.

Since 1960 the number of interracial couples in the United States
has increased more than tenfold, to 1.6 million, including marriages
involving Hispanics. Such unions now account for about 4 percent of
U.S. marriages, a share that is expected to mushroom in coming years
and that is already offering powerful evidence that many Americans
are jettisoning old prejudices as never before.

"I think we are at the edge of a major change in how we think of
race in the United States," said Reynolds Farley, a demographer with
the Russell Sage Foundation. "Potentially, race could lose much of
its meaning in this country much like ethnicity has" for whites.

In open-minded suburbs such as Montclair, outside New York City,
mixed-race couples like Elizabeth Seaton and Sietze Frankfort are so
common that they rarely turn heads. The school system here has even
started offering seminars to address the concerns of multiracial
children.

Frankfort, the product of a union between his Indonesian mother and
Dutch father, says he knew his family would readily accept his new
girlfriend. But Seaton's family was another matter.

"I was nervous," said Seaton. "My father has attitude. He carries on
about other ethnic and racial groups, particularly black folks and
Jews."

But when Frankfort finally met his girlfriend's father, things
turned out fine. And for the 18 years the couple has been married,
Seaton's father, like the rest of her family, has been nothing but
warm toward her husband.

Interracial marriages like this one still represent only a small
percentage of all unions. But their very presence and the mixed-race
children they produce are gradually blurring the racial boundaries
that have long divided the nation.

Changing Attitudes

Not only are interracial unions complicating predictions about the
future racial makeup of the nation, they are calling into question
widely understood concepts of race.
The rates of intermarriage among many minorities now rival those of
second-generation immigrants whose parents came to America in the
decades near the turn of the century. Intermarriage among the
descendants of those early immigrants over time all but erased
ethnic stereotypes that once defined white Americans. Where white
ethnicity was once a salient feature in American life, the 1990
census found that only one in five white couples share the same
ethnic heritage. "Nobody talks about balancing a political ticket
with an Irish or an Italian anymore," Farley says.

Interracial relationships still stir racist passions. In 1992, for
instance, the volunteer coordinator of Patrick J. Buchanan's
Republican presidential campaign in New Jersey was removed after he
compared mixed marriages to the cross-breeding of animals. And it
was only three decades ago, in 1967, that the Supreme Court ruled
anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, wiping those statutes off
the books in Virginia and 15 other states. But the sentiments that
undergirded those laws are increasingly giving way to interracial
tolerance.

That is likely to be even more true as the nation's Hispanic and
Asian American populations continue to grow. Many of the new
immigrants come from countries with mixed-race traditions. Some
analysts say that makes them more open to interracial marriage,
particularly to whites.

In much of Latin America, for example, marrying a person of lighter
skin color is considered a move up the social ladder. Some Latinos
invoke the phrase, mejorando la raza, improving the race, to signal
their approval.

"There is a bit of colorism in the [Latino] community," says Greta
Gilbertson, a Fordham University professor. "It is often times
perceived as prestigious to marry outside of the group. And if that
person happens to be white, so much the better."

Today, almost one-third of U.S.-born Hispanics ages 25 to 34 are
married to non-Hispanic whites. In addition, 36 percent of young
Asian Pacific American men born in the United States marry white
women, and 45 percent of U.S.-born Asian Pacific American women took
white husbands. The vast majority of Native Americans also marry
whites.

Glenn Shimamoto, a second-generation Japanese American who grew up
near Pittsburgh but now lives here in Montclair, says his race was
only a factor on the rare occasions when he was confronted with
racist name-calling and insults from "the small group of guys who
were known for that." Otherwise, he saw his life as largely
indistinguishable from those of his white neighbors.

"Virtually all my dates would be with white girls, save for the
enforced date or two with the other Japanese student who may have
been around," said Shimamoto, now 46. "But I remember no social or
family pressure to date or not date girls of a certain race."

He met his future wife, Belinda, a tall, lean woman of English,
Irish and Scottish heritage, while they were graduate students at
the University of Pennsylvania. They both were studious and
introspective, and they shared an academic interest in energy
management policy and a love of the outdoors. In time, romance
blossomed. And if race was an issue, it seldom emerged from the
background.

"When I would talk about him at home, my parents might say something
like, 'Glenn, he's the Oriental boy, isn't he?'‚" Belinda Shimamoto
said.

By the time they got married, their families approved. And in the 17
years the couple has been together, they say they have lived
peacefully, mostly in white, suburban neighborhoods.

"It's funny," said Belinda Shimamoto. "But it probably was a bigger
deal when my Irish Catholic mother married my British Protestant
father."

New Definitions

The high rates of interracial marriage and evolving notions of race
have recently forced the federal government to rethink the types of
categories and classifications it will use in the 2000 census.
Under pressure from mixed-race Americans and their parents, the
Census Bureau changed its rules to allow people to identify
themselves by as many of the five official racial reporting
categories as they see fit. And there is no telling how the children
of interracial unions will identify themselves in the future, as
their concepts of racial identity grow increasingly fluid.

Almost one in three of the children whose fathers are white and
mothers black identified themselves as white, according to an
analysis of 1990 census data done by Harvard University sociologist
Mary C. Waters. That was almost a 50 percent increase over 1980,
when fewer than one in four of the children with black mothers and
white fathers were identified as white – a surprising change in a
nation that for generations promoted the idea that even one drop of
black blood makes someone black.

Similarly, half of the children of white fathers and Native American
mothers were identified as white, while more than half of the
children of white fathers and Japanese or Chinese mothers were
listed as white in 1990. "There is no one rule governing the choices
made by parents about mixed-race children's identities," Waters
said.

Yet if a picture is beginning to emerge of racial and ethnic
melding, one group is noticeably absent: African Americans. Rates of
interracial marriage involving blacks, while increasing, remain far
lower than those of other racial minorities. Fewer than one in 10
black men and one in 25 black women aged 25 to 34 took white
spouses, according to the 1990 census.

Some observers fear that the emerging portrait points to a future
where many African Americans will still find themselves on the other
side of a color line. But rather than separating them from whites,
this line could separate blacks from everyone else.

"In the America of the middle of the next century it might look like
the race problem is a black problem and these other groups maybe
followed some other kind of model into some kind of pluralistic
acceptance," says Roderick Harrison, a Census Bureau demographer who
is compiling a data bank for the Joint Center for Political and
Economic Studies, a Washington think tank.

Harrison and others say the differences in intermarriage rates
between blacks and other minorities illustrate the larger fact that
disproportionate numbers of blacks remain outside the American
mainstream.

When it comes to housing, blacks are the most segregated of the
nation's racial minorities, "by orders of magnitude," says Rebecca
M. Blank, a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers,
which recently compiled a report documenting the nation's racial
dynamics. On average, blacks live in neighborhoods that are 60
percent black, while Hispanics and Asian Americans tend to live in
far more diverse neighborhoods.

"When you are talking about Asian or Hispanic middle classes moving
into neighborhoods, you don't see the same tripping mechanism
causing whites to move out that you see with blacks," Harrison
said. "These things suggest that the black-white color line is still
with us and that the integration of blacks is going to be a
different story than the assimilation of Asians and Hispanics."

The explanation in part lies in the reality that many blacks are
more resistant than other minorities to the idea of marrying whites.
To many African Americans, say researchers who have studied the
issue, to marry a white is to betray their race, an attitude that is
less prevalent among Asian Americans and Hispanics.

In most cases, sociologists say that sense of racial solidarity has
developed in reaction to attitudes projected by the larger society,
which historically has viewed blacks as members of some lower caste.
A Washington Post poll taken last summer, for example, found that
nearly one in four Americans still found marriages between blacks
and whites "unacceptable." Other polls have found people more
tolerant of white marriages to Latinos and Asian Americans.

Elizabeth Seaton says she got a glimpse of that anti-black sentiment
even as she fretted about how her Indonesian boyfriend was received
by her father. For weeks after meeting him, her father said nothing.
Then he broke his silence by offering his backhanded
approval. "Well," he said, turning to his daughter, "at least he
isn't black."

It is a feeling often shared by some Latinos and Asian Americans who
say they encounter far less resistance to relationships with whites
than to those with blacks.

When Grace Chow Grund, a Singapore-born Chinese American, met Curtis
Grund, who is white, there was no clue that they would end up in
Montclair sharing a house, a mortgage and four children.

First, there was the question of race. "When we met, I wondered if
he would be interested in me, because I am Chinese," says Grace
Grund, a former modern dancer who is now a homemaker.

But the couple soon found that they shared common ground. Grace
Grund's grandfather had been a Methodist minister. Curtis Grund had
grown up Methodist, and now works supervising missionaries. Still,
when he decided to mention his new girlfriend to his parents, he
says, "I hesitated a little bit."

Grace Grund says it was also difficult when her 6-foot-4 boyfriend
met her parents, who were originally from Southeast Asia but now
live near San Francisco. "They never referred to him by his name,"
she said with an uneasy laugh. "They just called him the tall one."
When a sensitive subject arose, her parents would switch from
talking English to Chinese in his presence.

When she announced that she planned to marry Grund, her parents
urged caution. They said she should think about the children.
Eventually, they grew to accept the idea. But had her fiance been
black, Grace Grund says her parents undoubtedly would have objected.

"Sure, it would have been different," she said. "My parents have a
terrible prejudice against black people. Had Curtis been black, it
would have been Chinese the entire evening."

Children's Identities

In seven years of marriage, Grund and his wife say they have
encountered little trouble because of their relationship, which they
attribute to the unique social mix found in Montclair, a place
Interrace Magazine named the nation's best place for mixed-race
couples. Still, they worry about how their children will define
themselves racially.
"I don't want my children's Chinese identity to be lost," she
said. "The white identity is so strong in this country. Right now,
they say they are half Chinese, not half white. But at some point, I
wonder if they are going to look at themselves and say I am either
one or the other, or neither."

The idea that mixed-race children would have a difficult time
fitting into society is just one of many arguments Mark Uriu heard
against interracial marriage as he grew up in Los Angeles. There,
his family often shared the pain of the racial scars left by the
discrimination they had endured as Japanese Americans during World
War II.

"I got the lecture every day about being sent to the [internment]
camps, about someone who went to MIT, graduated in the top 10
percent of his class but could not get a job," said Uriu. "Needless
to say, I got some not-so-subtle pressure to marry Asian."

But the pressure never worked on Uriu. Instead, he dated the girls
he was attracted to and many of them happened to be white. Fourteen
years ago, he married Beverly O'Mara, a red-haired Irish Catholic he
met in a college art class. And the couple has no regrets.

But they, too, worry about where their three children will fit in
the nation's fast-changing racial tapestry.

Once, while shooting baskets on a Manhattan playground with a
friend, their eldest son was accosted by a group of boys who first
teased him, then threatened to beat him up because he was "Chinese."
The incident ended in angry words, but it left the boy shaken and
perplexed. When he and his friend were asked about the boys who had
confronted them, they hesitated, before one of them said: "I think
they were brown."

=================

Divorce in International/Interracial Marriages in Shanghai
http://www.divorcereform.org/sha.html

People frequently write to Americans for Divorce Reform asking for
information on whether international or interracial marriages are at
greater risk for divorce. I believe that statistics on this are out
there, but we do not have them, except for the article below. If
anyone has such statistics, or links or references to them, please
send them to divorcereform@....

"Divorce rates in Chinese/foreign marriages"
http://lateline.muzi.net/cgi/lateline/news?p=1940&l=english
[Lateline News (lateline.muzi.net): 8/23/97]

Shanghai - Mixed marriages between Shanghainese and foreigners rose
67 percent last year from 1991, but unions are also breaking up at a
faster rate, a survey reveals. AFP reported that more than 2,100
Shanghainese married foreigners last year, up 67 per cent from 1991,
accounting for 3.5 per cent of the total number of marriages in
1996, a survey by the city's Civil Affairs Bureau says.

Far more Chinese women than men marry foreigners, and more mixed
couples were setting up homes in Shanghai rather than moving
overseas, the survey says. It also found that divorces between
Shanghainese and foreigners have more than doubled since 1991.

The survey says some 168,000 people registered for marriage in
Shanghai, the mainland's largest cosmopolitan city, last year.

More than 24,600 couples divorced in Shanghai last year, a rise of
43.9 per cent over 1991.

A sociologist said Shanghai was not unique in the country in
witnessing a boom in interracial marriages and accelerating divorce
rates. Chinese marriages were more stable before 1978, the year
China opened up to the outside world and initiated economic reforms,
he said.

================

INTERRACIAL DATING GUIDE FOR ASIAN MEN
Karen's Korner 2
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/4732/karen2.html

About the Stats
I was talking things over with Jeremy and he wanted me to do
something about the annoying subject of statistics and academic
studies. It was hard for me to do because I didn't know much about
peoples use (or rather misuse of statistics) and those studies. I
didn't actually study love I just go with it.

Jeremy told me about all the figures and how people use them. Jeremy
hates hearing about the academic studies and the analysis stuff.
This was kind of odd since Jeremy seems like an analytical guy
himself at times. I think what he was trying to say that he dislikes
the mis-use of them.

When I first got on the net I was quite surprised to hear about
those studies and those guys who think numbers give automatic
credibility. The funny thing is me and my boyfriend had never
encountered this stuff before! It seems to be a internet specific
thing. But anyways, I'll tell you what I think of the stats stuff
Jeremy told me.

First of all, I think that lots of stats are true and people have
made sure of it. I think it's 100% correct but it's equally useless.
I think people who obsess over the numbers and it's scientific
impact really need to get a life! No really, it actually takes a lot
of time and effort to sit there thinking of all this garbage. People
who are depressed actually have to work at it. You have to think a
certain way, act a certain way, when a girl comes near you have to
move away and spend a lot of your time on that.

Anyways I do think that if you went out and did a survey that most
women would say they would not date an Asian Guy. I know because I
was one of them. Judging from some sample viewer response e-mails
Jeremy sent me and some of our private one-on-one chats I think most
women who have Asian boyfriends now never considered interracial
dating before.

It's not that we're prejudiced or anything it's just that when we
are growing up we were taught to like this type of guy, TV says that
this type of look is fashionable, cool, or "in". It's the White guys
that ask us out and dated before. It's what we see other people
doing. So, until the Black men started getting into the IR dating
thing we didn't actually think about IR dating with Asian men. When
we did think about IR dating it was with Black guys. The Asian guys
just seemed to stay away from us and we just didn't feel wanted.

When a Korean guy asked me out I said no. It wasn't that I didn't
like him it just totally surprised me. I hardly knew him and it came
as a shock and didn't know what to do. I do thank him though because
he at least got me thinking. Judging from some of the people I
conversed with I think many of you gals out there went through
similar experiences. Many of you only started thinking about it when
you saw one of your friends go out with an Asian Guy. Or heard other
people talk about it.

I, nor Jeremy ever read an e-mail from any one you women that said
that you specifically went out to look for an Asian man. What the
common pattern seemed to be was that you were taking a class, you
forgot when the exam was, so you asked a friendly looking guy. He
was real cool and you two hit it off and fell in love. Or you two
just happened to play on the same soccer team and then started
talking and one thing led to another. It seems like only a few of
you women who are married to Chinese/Japanese men said that you were
specifically looking for an interracial marriage.

Most of us it seems didn't consider IR dating until you met a great
guy or he asked you out..

SO HERE IT IS GUYS: THE ONLY REAL USEFUL STATISTIC YOU NEED TO KNOW:
MOST OF US WOULD SAY NO IF A SURVEY ASKED US IF WE WOULD DATE AN
ASIAN GUY BUT MOST OF US ARE CONVERTIBLE AND FLEXIBLE!

About the real reasons why women get into IR relationships. It's
simple enough -love. That's it. From some of the stuff I read on
newsgroups and even a few e-mails it appears some people are really
out to lunch! I hear things like "it's a power thing" or "she needs
money" or "she has low self-esteem" and crap like that.

I love my boyfriend simply because he's not a jerk. Most of the
White guys I've went out with were athletes and a few professional
types but things simply didn't click. I like my guy because he is
athletic, he is a professional, he treats me right, and we have
chemistry. If he has the right combination of things and he treats
me well...that counts for a lot. Love is a very simple and basic
concept...don't more make it more complicated for yourself than it
really is.

I heard from some people "why would you settle for him?". I say that
I'm not "settling" for him I'm dating him because I expect him to be
better than some of the jerks that I've been dating before. I look
for the good internal characteristics too.

Another thing: people in IR marriages sometimes actually have much
more in common than people of same race marriages. When people of
different races go out and do things together they really rock!
People in interracial marriages really do love each other. Love is
the only thing that can cause two people to put up with any crap
that third parties give you. When people of different races fall for
each other you know they've got a fire.

SO HERE IT IS AGAIN GUYS: THE REAL REASON WE WOULD GO INTO AN
INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIP: LOVE.


===========


Interracial (Black/White) marriages rise
http://www.sistahspace.com/nommo/interrace1.html

Is there a sexual healing of America's racial strife? In the
July/August issue of The New Democrat, Douglas Besharov and Timothy
Sullivan unveil new research showing an unprecedented increase in
Black-White intermarriage. The article is part of a cover package
that examines the future of integration in America.

With the heading "Shall We Overcome?" the latest issue features
articles by Boston University professor Glenn Loury, Harvard Law
School professor Randall Kennedy, author Tamar Jacoby, Boston
University professor Alan Wolfe and Progressive Policy Institute
senior fellow Fred Siegel.

In "On Flesh," Besharov, a resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute, and Sullivan, an instructor in the Department
of Economics as Southern Illinois University, use a new approach to
analyze government data and get an updated, more complete picture of
interracial marriage in America. Their research uncovered several
notable facts. * Interracial marriages are up sharply for Black
women and Black men. Roughly 10 percent of the Black men who marry
now marry White women. The interracial marriage rate for Black
women, while only half the rate of Black men, is climbing faster
than for Black men. * Interracial marriages look increasingly like
same-race marriages. Compared to 1985, they are about 30 percent
iless likely to be second marriages. Also, expected fertility is now
about the same. * The result is more mixed-race children. In 1990,
there were about two million children living in mixed-race homes.
That is double the one million in 1980 and four times the 500,000 in
1970.

Bescharov adds that most scholars view the limited probability of
interracial marriages as a function of social opposition to such
marriages, the relative social and economic status of potential
spouses in both groups, including their perceived sexual
attractiveness, and the ability to meet a potential spouse of
another race.

"We have found a strong, unambiguous trend toward integration within
American families," he said.

Loury's article begins with a brief look at the Black middle class,
focusing on its ambivalence and pessimism. He asserts that while the
Black middle class is determined to achieve its share of the
American dream, they are still emotionally dogged by a bitter
history of poverty and slavery.

"We live with the glaring contradiction between the ideal that a
person's race is an irrelevancy, and the ingrained social practice
of attending assiduously to racial difference," Loury said. The
result is a sense among the Black middle class that "Black gains are
too recent, too tenuous and too partial to warrant fully embracing
the ideal of a colorblind society." This, in turn, causes conflict
with White Americans.

Loury suggests the answer is not waiting for a clorblind society.
Citizens should focus instead "on the construction of a transracial
humanism," where we have a "racially demanding of sacrifice and
suffused with mutual obligation."

Copyright © 1997, Michigan Chronicle.

==========

Alabama Vote
"It's strange to think that I am a product of a marriage that might
have been illegal in some states."
By Mike Gadd
http://www.youthradio.org/politics/010104_alabama.shtml

November 7th, 2000 marked more than just a chaotic presidential
election. In Alabama, section 102, article 4 of the 1901 state
constitution - a law prohibiting "any marriage between any white
person and a Negro, or descendant of a Negro" - was finally repealed
by a popular vote.

I was initially excited by this news and was glad to see that even
in the South, where racism has so deeply affected history, laws are
finally being passed that do not denigrate people of color. But when
I learned more about the vote, I was deeply disturbed. Only 60% of
Alabama voters cast their ballots in favor of interracial marriages.
40% - more than half a million people - wanted them to remain
illegal. The fact that it has taken almost one hundred years for
interracial marriages to become legal in every state is a wake-up
call to all Americans. We need to open our eyes to the blatant
racism that still exists in our country today.

As a person of mixed-racial heritage - White and Chinese - this
issue hits close to home. When I was in elementary school, other
kids made fun of me because my eyes looked a little different, my
hair was straight and black, and my cheekbones were a bit higher
than those of my white friends. On the playground, white kids would
come up to me and ask, "What are you?" I would tell them, "I'm me,"
but they emphatically responded, "No, no. What are you?" In high
school, my family's mixed culture suddenly became an issue. I had
Asian "friends" tell me that although they believed interracial
marriages were wrong, I was okay because I was "cool." Other Asian
people told me they were glad that I was half Chinese, otherwise
they never would have even talked to me.

It's been 35 years since the civil rights movement, and many people
in our country are under the impression that conditions for people
of color are "good enough." Just because we celebrate Black history
month doesn't mean the playing field is level for people of color.

It's strange to think that I am a product of a marriage that might
have been illegal in some states. I wonder why interracial marriages
were outlawed in the first place. This election reminds me of the
law during slavery that defined an African-American as being 3/5 of
a person. It is astounding that in the year 2000, this idea still
exists in the minds of some people - those who voted to keep
miscegenation laws intact.

I cannot comprehend why people are not as angered by the Alabama
vote as I am. Maybe it's because they didn't even know about it. The
story was buried beneath arguments about dimpled chads and vote
certifications. I tried to find out more information on the web but
I could barely find anything. I did come across a lot of sites
preaching the evils of interracial marriages and even one accusing
interracial couples of committing "genocide."

In a country where 45% of US-born young Asian women marry white men,
let's face it - there's going to be a lot more mixed race children
like me around. No matter who we marry, our kids are going to be
mixed. In a couple generations, everyone is going to be mixed. But
in the meantime, there are those people in Alabama to face.

I'd like to say that I want to go to Alabama and have a talk with
the people who voted to keep interracial marriage illegal. But
honestly, I am afraid to even set foot in a place where people will
look at me and wish that a family like mine didn't exist.

— Mike Gadd is a sophomore at San Francisco State University.

===============

One Drop Rule
http://members.tripod.com/~scipoet/hapa

So what is this so-called "One-Drop" rule? Well, during the Jim Crow
years many states actually had laws defining a "white person" as one
having no non-White blood. It was outright racist White supremism --
a diabolical sort of racial quarantine. The same Loving v. Virginia,
388 U.S. 1 (1967), Supreme Court decision legalizing our interracial
marriages also overturned these One-Drop provisions. Nonetheless, by
then black people had fatalistically accepted the One-Drop custom;
and the post-King NAACP civil rights leadership boosted the rule,
too -- sort of as their sheep dog -- because it rounded up Blacks
feeling tempted to stray or "pass" into a White, Indian, or Hispanic
self-identity. But what they seem to not realize or care about is
the harm One-Drop does. It has degenerated into loathsome Social
Darwinism, a throwback to an "evolutionary ladder," with "pure"
Whites at the very top. (Can the KKK and NAACP actually collaborate
in this?!) "Lesser" races are lower rungs on the ladder. White blood
tainted with any of these (even "one" drop) is kicked out and down
the ladder to membership in the non-White race. (Thus HIF tells our
Eurasian kids they're not good enough for their White European
relatives, they're only little "Asians.") Beneath the ladder is a
sub-human sump. No matter what other-race relatives you have, one
drop of African blood, and you belong in this sump. "Your're Black!"

One Drop Rule - Equal Opportunity Discrimination

I use to think One-Drop racial annexation only happened to Black-
mixed. Not so. The big La Raza Latin civil right org (NCLR) is
trying to put the same moves on Hispanics who might feel tempted to
stray into "whiteness." And don't look now, but Hapa Issues Forum
(HIF) is bent on doing exactly the same (One-Drop and all) to our
Eurasian children. (They call our kids "Hapa" -- derogatory Hawaiian
slang, for "half-white foreigner.") HIF, cooinging like a nun, softy
reproves us for our our Asian-White interracial marriages ("What
about the children?"); it comforts young college Hapas (most of its
membership seem to be U.C. Berkely students) for their "tragic"
mixed birth. Basically, I see HIF as a "One-Drop" brainwashing
machine attempting to turn bright young Eurasians into Asian-
American clones of Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton, Kwasi Mufume, Jesse
Jackson ..., etc.

Unfortunately, it sometimes succeeds.

So, my guess is, the lack of research on Black-Asian families is
because these are double minorities. The incentive to stamp them out
or neutralize their contradiction of the racist-America message is
far less. The whole transracial minority civil rights establishment
runs on combatting White racism and the "white power structure," and
such. Although Black-Asian families are part of the troublesome
interracial/multiracial community too, they do not so blatently
contradict the White institutional racism paradigm to which NAACP,
NCLR, HIF, and the numerous other organs of the national civil
rights establishment, have become addicted. (BTW, these
same "liberal" civil rights orgs blocked inclusion of
a "Multiracial" 2000 census category. They disregard anyone's
wishing not to take part in their contentious minority racial turf-
wars.)

See back editions of "Boondocks" comic strip, dates April 28-29; May
5, 6, 8, 11-12, 24-29; June 6, 28

The Problem with the One Drop Rule

The harmfulness to everyone of the One-Drop myth, especially to
Black children is obvious. It gives anyone non-Black an incentive to
distance themselves from Black if they are not white. I believe this
effect drives Asians and others toward White, away from Black. The
census interracial marriage figures show it -- Black-Asian or other-
minority, marriages are very rare. The warmer relations between
Black and White almost certainly result from the fact that One-Drop
gives Whites no such incentive to distance themselves from Black --
White are "pure White" by definition under the rule. Similarly, by
defining Black as "inevitably Black," the One-Drop rule creates a
psychological safety net for all non-Blacks at Blacks' expense.
However low an Asian or White may plunge, he or she will always be
above "them." What NAACP One-Drop boosting fools don't think of or
care about is the reverse effect: At a tender age One-Drop hammers a
ball and chain around every little black child's heart.

=================

The Myth Of Interracial Marriage
By Steve Sailer
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/interracial_marriage.htm

For the better part of a decade, Gregory Rodriguez and Richard
Rodriguez have been writing the same article over and over again.
Their shared thesis: Hispanic immigration will solve America's
racial problems because Latin American-style interracial marriage
will make America's black-white racial hang-up obsolete.

Of course, they don't explain why 500 years of "mestizaje" have yet
to solve Latin America's own racial problems - which, according to
Amy Chua's new book "World on Fire," are growing more heated. (I
offered an answer to this historical conundrum in a two part
VDARE.COM series in 2000.)

So perhaps I may be forgiven for returning to one of my favorite
topics—what the various effects of interracial marriage actually
are, rather than what they are supposed to be. Especially because I
have some important new Census numbers to pass along.

I'm not attacking interracial marriage. My personal opinion is that
you should marry the person you love. After all, that's a lot better
than marrying a person you don't love - or not marrying at all.

I am, however, pointing out that racial divisions are not simply
some semantic confusion that can be erased by politically-corrected
vocabulary. Race has a thorny underlying reality that keeps popping
out in surprising places.

One unexpected effect of the growth of interracial marriage has been
to increase resentment toward whites felt by black women and East
Asian men. In my 1997 National Review article "Is Love Colorblind?" –
published when John O'Sullivan was editor and still generating
email - I used 1990 Census statistics on interracial marriage
patterns to document the "dating disparity" that I first noticed at
UCLA around 1981. Black men were more likely than black women to be
romantically involved with whites. In contrast, East Asian women
were more likely than East Asian men to be paired with whites.

Result: a fair number of lonely and annoyed black women and Asian
men.

Lots of people had written previously about either the black side or
the Asian side of the interracial marriage gender imbalance. But
only a few had noted this mirror image phenomenon. The ones who beat
me to it include Arthur Hu, who wrote a perceptive article in Asian
Week in 1990, and Frank Salter, who gave an academic address on it
in 1996 [not online].

I argued back in 1997 that the force driving these skewed husband-
wife proportions was racial differences in perceived masculinity.
Since then, Rick Kittles of Howard University, while researching the
causes of the high rate of prostate cancer among blacks, has
published a study showing racial disparities in two genes
controlling the strength of receptors for male hormones.

Many assume that equality is the natural human state. But I didn't
think these gaps would disappear anytime soon. And they haven't. The
social climate in the 1990s was close to ideal for diminishing the
differences. As a recent Newsweek cover story on "The Black Gender
Gap" pointed out, African-American women enjoyed a good decade,
making steady progress in the college and corporate worlds, bringing
them in more contact with whites. In contrast, black men had a
decade to forget - including a big increase in African-American men
in prison, which certainly reduced their availability on the
marriage market.

You would think that this shortfall of black men would make black
women more likely to marry white men.

Likewise, the technology boom that lasted through 2000 was good for
Asian-American men. They made lots of money in computer-related
industries.

But, as I reported for UPI on Friday, the Census Bureau finally
announced last week its "enumeration" (not an estimate, but an
actual count) of all the married couples in America, and

"In 73 percent of black-white couples, the husband was black. … Just
over 75 percent of white-Asian couples featured a white husband and
Asian wife."

My best estimate for 1990 was 72 percent for each category. But the
more I've thought about some technical issues involved in making
apples-to-apples comparisons (such as the Census Bureau's creation
of a new multiracial category in 2000), the less comfortable I am
contrasting the 2000 proportions directly to the 1990 proportions.
Still, whether or not they grew, these gaps clearly remain very
large. They offer support for my hypothesis in "Is Love Colorblind?"

One prediction I made in 1997, without any 1990 Census data to back
it up: black-Asian marriages would be even more skewed gender-wise
than black-white or white-Asian. That turned out to be true in
2000's results: 86 percent of black-Asian couples consisted of a
black husband and an Asian wife.

Contrary to what is regularly assumed in this era of Tiger Woods,
the extent of interracial marriage turns out to be quite limited. It
has been claimed that Asian-American women marry outside their race
40 percent or even 50 percent of the time: in fact, only 22 percent
of Asian-American women have a non-Asian husband. A mere nine
percent of Asian husbands have non-Asian wives. These proportions
are held down by mass immigration because immigrants are much less
likely to marry across racial lines than are native-born Americans.

The interracial/interethnic marriage rate for African-American men
is nine percent and for African-American women four percent. For non-
Hispanic whites, it's between three and four percent for both sexes.
In 2000, there were 41.3 million married couples comprised of two
non-Hispanic whites, versus only 0.5 million consisting of a non-
Hispanic white person and an Asian person - and only 0.29 million
made up of non-Hispanic whites and blacks. (The Census Bureau's data
tables can be downloaded here.)

(There were 1.4 million interethnic married couples consisting of a
non-Hispanic white and a Hispanic. But in no less than 0.9 million
of those cases, the Hispanic identified himself or herself
as "white." The gender gap in marriages between non-Hispanic whites
and Hispanics of any race was small: 54 percent consisted of a non-
Hispanic white husband and a Hispanic wife. That balance is probably
good news for American society since it's less likely to lead to
ethnic resentment than the big black and Asian disparities.)

This black-white-Asian interracial marriage pattern is another
example of "Rushton's Rule" - people of West African descent and of
Northeast Asian descent tend to be more different from each other
than either are from whites.

Bottom line: race isn't going away any time soon – regardless of any
number of recycled Rodriguez articles.

===============

Interracial marriages up
Students say study results reflect changing attitudes
By Alice Robinson
Daily Staff Reporter
http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1997/mar/03-25-97/news/news2.html

More and more Americans are choosing to marry outside of their race,
according to the results of a new study headed by University
sociology Prof. Reynolds Farley.

Farley, also a research scientist with the Population Studies
Center, examined U.S. Census data from as far back as the 1980s to
find who is marrying whom and how different factors such as
geography, education and military experience relate to people's
choice of marriage partners.

"I think we're experiencing a lot of racial change in the United
States," Farley said. "It's important to document what is happening
and to some degree why it's happening."

According to the study, American Indians, Latinos/as and Asian
Americans are more likely than blacks and whites to marry outside of
their race. But the statistics also are divided along gender lines
in some cases.

In the Asian American community, the study found that women are more
likely to marry partners of a different race than men. In the black
community, men married out of their race more frequently than women.

"Just under 10 percent of the black men who married in the 1980s or
1990s married white women, compared to less than two percent of
black men who married in the 1940s or 1950s," Farley said in a
written statement.

One student said the reason for increased interracial marriages may
be a shift in general attitudes. "Maybe the times are changing and
people are being more relaxed," said Holly, a senior in the School
of Education who requested anonymity. She said stereotypes that
interracial marriage is "awful and that it shouldn't be done" no
longer exist.

Farley said the results of the study were not exactly as he had
predicted. "I was surprised at the increase over time in the
proportion of people who marry outside of their own race," he said.

Residents of California and Hawaii were more likely to marry out of
their race than people who reside in the South or Midwest, the study
reported. Those who have served in the military were also more
likely to choose partners of a different race.

Engineering junior Tricia Allam, who is currently in an interracial
relationship, said young people seem to be more open to the idea of
interracial couples than older generations. "Most of the negative
reactions we've gotten have been from older people, like age 60 and
over," she said.

Allam said most young adults "don't even think twice" about
interracial dating.

Farley plans to share his findings with members of the Population
Association of America at their annual meeting in Washington, D.C.,
on Thursday.

03-25-97