<p>My daughter is biracial, white/AA who grew up in the county in Georgia that Oprah did her town hall meeting with the KKK back in the 80’s. Our county is still known nationally for racism, very unjustly so. Looking back on D’s Homecoming/Prom pic’s as well as recalling her dates, in no particular order, here they are. Peruvian, Asian, AA, biracial (black mother/white father) and various caucasian guys (she has a thing for redheads.) I guess she is an equal opportunity dater. </p>
<p>More important than “race” (hispanics are “white”, btw) is culture and religion. My Indian inlaws are whiter than many with south European roots. Religion, and therefore culture, totally different than the typical JudeoChristian one prevalent in the US. Shocked my father when I said it wasn’t going to be a Catholic wedding over 25 years ago, but he got over that quickly- he had met and liked the man I chose. I thought about how much I had in common with someone from a radically different religion and culture but then I realized how Catholicism and Hinduism have in things common in their approach to worship that gave us common background. Of course, neither of us kept the religion of our youth (taught son about both mythologies). I thought about how I had more in common with this foreigner than with someone with strong Black roots. We shared intellectual interests but also both did not want to continue with much of our respective family customs/culture.</p>
<p>I’m sure most parental disapproval of a person of different origins has to do with perceived stereotypes of the other culture. Those of European ancestry tend to lump people into white/nonwhite (the term “of color” is abhorrent to me for this reason- hey, I have a color- pink, or red after too much sun). I learned decades ago that Japanese ancestry people are/were prejudiced against Chinese- something that made sense to me when the friend explained the long history of wars between the two groups. We’ve come a long way since my college years.</p>
<p>Oh, yes- brown is best! The just right cookie- not underdone or overdone, as a Filipino once told my H.</p>
<p>Many years ago when I married my husband who is Jewish, both sets of parents seemed to be fine with everything. It was not until we were about to have our children, that my husbands parents started to become insulting and rude. They really had issues with the fact that their son married a Catholic woman. Their poor behavior was often disguised but when they chose to make comments it was dreadful. As a result of seeing their grandparents disapproval and poor behavior toward Christians, our own kids said they would think very carefully before entering into a marraige with someone of a different religion. All of my kids friends are of different religions but marraige poses a different situation.</p>
<p>Having beautiful grandchildren is not the issue…prejudice runs deep, and people who have these feelings just can’t really get past it.</p>
<p>momma-three: My mother had issues with my H, but no way would I have given him up. I couldn’t imagine being married to anyone else, or not having had the children I did.</p>
<p>I guess we can encourage our kids to think twice, but it’s their decision, not ours.</p>
<p>And if the parents in law are nice before the wedding and only let their true feelings out afterwards, what can you do anyway?</p>
<p>calmom–I think in many cases, the disapproving parents (or inlaws) come around when they see the gorgeous grandchildren who are some shade of brown, but are THEIR precious grandchildren. O-Kay then! :)</p>
<p>Maybe someday we’ll all be a shade of brown, like the Brazilians. Amazing country.</p>
<p>And therefore it’s harder to overcome. If one loves to eat with figures and the other hates that, for example. There are tons of less obvious differences between cultures. Race is minor in comparison.</p>
<p>My childrens introduction to bias came from their grandparents, who unfortunately left each of my four kids with the reality that what people feel may not really be what they say in a public way. I would have much preferred to know that my in-laws were hate filled people prior to marraige although I can’t really say that their attitude would have changed our decision to marry. </p>
<p>My advice to any young couple in either a bi-racial or mixed religion marraige would be to really know how accepting the parents are. If they can not love you because of your beliefs or color than put physical space between you and them. It is not healthy to a marraige or a family to live that way. As young as my children were they knew they were not loved the way they should have been because they went to church. I personally think that most people today are ashamed to admit real feelings, and those who do are at least giving their kids full warning ahead of time, as to what they could expect.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine caring about skin color or ethnic background when it came to who my son dates. My husband and I are lapsed Catholics and I occasionally feel guilty about not raisng S with any formal religious education. I would be happy for him if he met and married someone who’s faith he embraced. (okay maybe not a cult, I am not a saint) He is dating a caucasion girl who is rude, sulky and kind of a little princess. Her mom assumes because of our financial situation we are bad snobby people! I say bring on any asian, african american, american indian, hindu, jewish, protestant, buddhist or any combination of all that who can trump this annoying little miss! Poor, middle class wealthy, just respectful and with some class.</p>
<p>ETA-We are caucasion, as you probably guessed.</p>
<p>I generally have torn opinions on this issue, but for the most part I disagree. I think it is okay to prefer someone from a certain culture. Yes, you can be BORN Jewish - making it an ethnicity - but in reality marrying Jewish is marrying into a certain culture. It’s not race or birth based nearly as much as it is culture based (religious). Obviously, there are extremes. If a parent wouldn’t allow their child to date a person who had been raised Jewish but not “born” Jewish (i.e., the adopted Asian children), then it would be a race issue, not a culture issue. If a parent PREFERS a Jewish partner but does not “outlaw” any other partner, then I also don’t see it as a race issue - just a conflict of interest.</p>
<p>My younger D’s boyfriend is of another race, he treats her like gold. They have no problems relationship-wise, even though our school has less than 10 non-white students total, no racial diversity at all. If there are any looks, comments, etc. (what has come back to me at least) they are not from students but from parents, which is unfortunate. It would not be out in the open though since BF’s mother is a faculty member at the school.</p>
<p>What the big challenge is, though, is the fact that BF did have some trouble with the law in the past, which I know is not a racial thing, but there are those who are quick to tie it to that. He is on probation and he has learned his lesson, part of the reason why he was transferred to our school is to get away from the bad influences. D is willing to put that aside, even though she is cautious. Others however have already made up their minds rather than giving BF a chance (and I am sure some of them were guilty of those mistakes when they were that age). They say that D is “going down the tubes” so to speak by dating him. Sometimes I get angry because there is a good chance that some of their children are doing the same things that got BF in trouble, they just have not gotten caught, but I take a deep breath…</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s what my S’s exgirlfriend’s mother thought, too. :(</p>
<p>As far as Hispanics being all classified as “white”, that is not my understanding, though I’ll defer to experts. Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, and among that group, there are those who identify as white, black, or neither. </p>
<p>Thinking of baseball players, as their identities are well known, I’d be surprised if Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez, Carlos Delgado, Vladimir Guerrero, etc. would call themselves “white” nor would be classified so by others.</p>
<p>garland: Which is why the questionnaires asking your “race” are so stupid! What they are really trying to find out is what color your skin is, and that is totally irrelevant for most purposes, unless you are a photographer trying to light a portrait. :)</p>
<p>"I’ll defer to experts. Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, and among that group, there are those who identify as white, black, or neither. "</p>
<p>There are Hispanics who are of African, Native American, Asian, and white ancestry, and I’ve known Hispanics of all of those ancestries. For instance, one of my friends is a Chinese Panamanian.</p>
<p>I will admit that religion is a lot more important to me than race. But the issue is whether religion is important to *my kids *- if it is, they’ll marry within their religion, if it isn’t, it won’t be a factor one way or another. </p>
<p>I guess I’ll save the big talk for if one of my kids wants to marry outside of our religion but assumes that she will raise her child in our religion…both parents can’t assume that without discord. I know of two marriages that have broken up over the “raising the kids Protestant or Catholic” issue, so I would strongly encourage my kids to discuss the issue in advance of marriage.</p>
<p>I think it’s more about culture and upbringing. I became more traditional after I had kids. I know many of my Jewish friends (non practicing) became more Jewish after they had kids also. Both of my brother and sister are Christians and I am not. They were never much of church goers when they were younger, but once they had kids they started to go every Sunday.</p>
<p>My kids had no religious upbringing. It would be difficult for them to marry someone who would expect them to bring their kids up with a certain religion. I think it would be just as hard if their in-laws would expect them to behave like traditional Asian wifes or Middle Eastern wifes.</p>
<p>As other people have said, it’s really not the color or race, it’s more about culture.</p>
<p>To mention Brazil again, there are a good number of German communities there, who are not Portuguese, Hispanic, Amerindian, or Afro-Brazilian, tho from intermarriage they may be any of the above. And Argentina has Germans also and many Japanese. So if a Japanese heritage (but Spanish-speaking) person from Argentina came to this country which box would they check off? </p>
<p>My dad married a Korean woman, decades ago. His mother, my grandmother wouldn’t speak with either of them for a few years, but got over herself and grew to love my step mom in time. My brother later married a Japanese woman, which troubled the Korean part of the family, but they too got over the cultural issues. This is how progress is made, in one family, the walls of racism coming down, little by little. It may be a little uncomfortable initially, but in time people learn and grow. </p>
<p>I mentioned something about this to a Bahai friend, who totally approved, as they believe that interracial and intercultural marriage is the way to world peace. </p>
<p>LOL, I worry about my daughter, that she will subconsciously marry a guy for “genetic engineering” purposes. My sister’s ex, who has blonde hair and blue eyes, married a Korean woman and had a son. My Ds think the son is the best looking guy they’ve ever seen…a bit Asian, with hair the color of caramel. My D also has blonde hair and blue eyes and is attracted to Asian guys…</p>
<p>Regarding some of the above posts…I think once someone points out that these feelings may run deep it gives permission to others to express their real feelings. My children have no ill feelings toward any religion but they certainly understand that some religions are not as accepting as others when it comes to inter marraige. It just is what it is, and although many people think they have risen above the bias of their parents and grandparents it just simply is not the case with people, even today. I have some close friends that have made it very clear to their children that they would be very unhappy if they married out of their race or religion. We have not come that far from our parents as so many people would like to say they have, and our generation grew up in the 70’s when everything was about social acceptance.</p>