<p>10-15 years ago, I had a Japanese-American friend who moved from LA to Kansas City to take a job. During the interview process, the would-be manager apologetically said that he didn’t think there were any Buddhist temples in KC…my friend is Presbyterian. Upon moving there, she experienced people staring at her in restaurants. She moved back to LA about three years later.</p>
<p>KC isn’t someplace like Squalid Hollow, Georgia or Whiterthanwhite, Wyoming.</p>
<p>Acceptance and a cosmopolitan outlook seems to happen most in large metro areas but that alone is not an absolute signifier, as my friend found out.</p>
<p>When my dad married his Asian wife, his British mom wouldn’t talk to either of them for a few years. In time, she got over it, and couldn’t stop bragging about how lucky her son was to have such a brilliant and beautiful wife. They had a good marriage. But my adopted brother, her natural son from a previous marriage married American Asian. It’s good for him, a cultural homecoming in some ways he needed. </p>
<p>My Japanese sister in law mentioned being creeped out driving through rural Iowa. Just a little too white. But my heart was warmed by the Asian checkout at the next gas station with an midwestern accent, a probable adoptee. The color and culture of the landscape are changing, even in the rural midwest. I felt even better as we stopped at one of my favorite Nebraska stores, a Mexican/Korean grocery with products I’ve only seen in Korea and Mexico. The meat packing industry has brought new culture to the rural midwest, as well as a step in the right direction if you like a little more culinary variety. The rural members of my extended family, who would not otherwise meet non whites, have had their worlds expanded a bit. By gay family members too, as it happens. Acceptance grows through exposure, and is great to watch it happen. </p>
<p>I do think there can be difficult cultural issues at times with interracial marriages, and they can be unexpected. But the issues between my American mom and Scottish dad were more insurmountable than the ones between the Asians who are part of my family and their spouses.</p>
<p>Beautiful post, GLM. The deepest change comes one encounter at a time. Although sometimes I think, “at that rate, it’s going to take too long” so in the meantime, I wonder how to engender more understanding on a surficial level… </p>
<p>
– that part reminded me of a man from our previous community who had a Korean mom, Caucasian dad. He grew up and married a Jewish woman. Their first child was an adopted child from Korea, which he said was also a homecoming of the heart for him. He said he grew up with his mom the only one around who looked Asian. Then it knocked him out to look down at his new daughter and see someone who so resonated his mother’s face. The couple intended to keep trying for bio-kids, but this was their first one.</p>
<p>And the way life unfolds! THis couple had planned to open a deli for a solid year, and two days before their grand opening, the much awaited call came from Social Services: you have a baby girl waiting for you in Korea. They took the next flight, came back with a new baby and opened their store all in the same week. That’s not the kind of phone call you put off!</p>
<p>P3T, thanks! Yes, you never know. My Ds look Jewish/eastern European, like their dad, and I only see myself in my niece. But I love being surrounded by difference.</p>
<p>On to another point within this thread topic…does it bother anyone as much as me when I hear someone say they’re “Half” something? I like to think of identity as a “whole” identification in all directions, including interrracial children.</p>
<p>For example, when I hear a kid say they are “half Asian” I feel like I’d rather hear “I have one Asian parent.” Then at least there’s a complete “I” and a complete “Asian parent.” and no half-sies. </p>
<p>Rather than call someone “half-Black” I’d more likely say, “One of his parents is Black.” </p>
<p>Now is that wrong-headed? I like to talk about people in Whole Language to be respectful, although it’s longwinded. IDK, maybe it’s silly. I guess if I’m in a hurry, “biracial” is quicker. BUt “Half-Asian” feels like the person is only half a person. Mostly people tell me I’m wrong on this and should get over it.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s necessarily a right/wrong issue, but I don’t think that’s the right way of looking at it necessarily. I don’t think it makes me half a person to say I’m “Half German” any more than it does to say I’m …what…half-tall or something? XD bad example. I’ll get back to you when I come up with a better one.</p>
<p>It seems to be a very American issue to carefully apportion each piece of one’s family history, 1/4 Scottish, 1/8 Dutch, 3/4 Senegalese or whatever. Part of a search for roots and identity in a very transitory society. No matter that the Scottish ancestors moved up from England a generation before, the Senegalese were originally from another part of Africa, etc. I’d prefer to deal with what and where a person is right now, though certainly enjoy learning how the culture of the past influences someone’s current life. But that can be ascribed to socieoeconomics as well, which we tend to be scared to discuss as easily as skin color and country of origin. </p>
<p>Your way of referring to people is more elegant and inclusive. But if you have to reformulate sentences on a regular basis, can become cumbersome.</p>
<p>Kids in my area say half-this, half-that all the time, about themselves and others. Nobody seems to mind.</p>
<p>My kids routinely say that they are half-Jewish, even though they know that from the Jewish point of view, this isn’t technically correct. But they say it anyway because it makes sense to those around them.</p>
<p>What an interesting thread! I have traced my maternal family’s genealogy to the mid 1700’s in N.C. I am descended from “Free Persons of Color.” It means that my maternal family were non white, and not slaves. In fact, many were identified as being “mulatto,” “black,” and few identified as “white.” (No mistake on being identified as white as census takers often in a hurry going door to door would identify families of color according to their hue and not necessarily their identified race.) Free Persons of Color were often, (not always), offspring of white mothers and black fathers, and/or native americans (who could have been mixed with white or black). In the south, the children followed the condition of the mother, so it would not have mattered if the black male father were enslaved, if the mother was free and white. I think I have mentioned before that we even have a Revolutionary War Veteran, (rec’d his pension too), in our family. Today, of course, we are African Americans. I prefer being identified as Black or a person of color. I kind of like person of color, because of my history. My son’s dad is West African, (so he is a true African American). </p>
<p>I encourage my son to befriend all people, and whoever he chooses to marry, I hope that color won’t be a problem for their family, because it won’t for me. Rudeness, however, is another matter altogether.</p>
<p>Not to be discounted is where an interracial couple finds themselves living. We have friends who were very uncomfortable in Westport, Ct. and found that moving to Princeton was the right thing to do for their family. There are still places that look on it unfavorably.</p>
<p>My first awareness of interracial dating came for me in Middle School when a friend, who looked white, told me she was black; and that like her father, she
was black according to the law. I used to go to her house, which was in a black neighborhood (Baltimore in the l960’s, see the movie “Hairspray”…) and the entire family appeared white to me. They were also Quaker.
When my friend began to date black boys, people would ream her out as we walked down the streets, or on buses. It was appalling the abuse she took from elderly white women. She told me she also used to hear it from black teenaged girls, too, although I wasn’t around when that happened.
Ugh, what times those were.
Her dad told me how the family took a car trip to Nevada and when he stopped for gasoline a dog came out, kind of wagging his tail. The owner said, “Ah, don’t worry about Shep, he just barks at (N-word);s.” The dad paid for as much gas as he’d pumped, and left with the family. My friend said that she heard lots of things about race that she might not be privvy to if she looked Black.
I think each of us has people in our lives we learn lessons from, and at age 12 she was one of mine. We also lip-synched the Supreme records after school, LOL…</p>
<p>Marian, it is an ever growing experience tracing one’s genealogy. I have slowed down a bit now, but once upon a time I was truly bitten by the bug. If I could do it full time, (and I can see myself doing that once retired), I would.</p>
<p>I can relate to the above story. I am Jewish, and my sister is married to a Christian and has a very Irish last name. In her commuter van-pooling group, a woman told her a story about how “a Jew, you know how cheap they all are…” tried to cheat her or something like that. When my sister told the woman that she was Jewish, she almost fell off her seat in embarrassment.</p>
<p>I am also married to a non-Jew, and something similar happened to me which is actually sort of humorous (and, coincidentally related to CC in a roundabout way). Another couple we were friendly with consisted of a Jewish husband married to a Catholic wife. I guess the fact that I am Jewish had never come up, and she was unaware of it. When visiting our home, she was complaining to me that her husband INSISTED on saving a certain amount of money each month (way too much in her opinion) for their kids college educations. She explained this “fault” by saying, “You know, he is Jewish and that is the way Jewish people are.” A few minutes later, she noticed a piece of Judaic religious art I had on display on my mantel, and put two and two together and realized that I am Jewish. Her embarrassment was really funny to observe!</p>
<p>Heh. Just within the past three days, I was at a get together with some family members and several friends of my foster-mother, who had died in August and whose memorial service was yesterday. It’s on point that my mom, fairly late in life, had become an Episcopalian priest. One of my mom’s friend’s husband, whom I had never met, told 2-3 jokes that could have been construed as being anti-Catholic (my mom would have been appalled)…not knowing that TheMom and I were Catholic. </p>
<p>I forebore, in the circumstances, from dropping that card. But.</p>
<p>Side note: I’m something of an incorrigible punster and inveterate joke teller myself and am no prude about jokes based upon religion and culture…but there are those that are good natured and those that are not so much. I actually maintain an inventory of priest jokes that are suitable for telling priests.</p>
<p>Clergy wife here – not to a Catholic priest, obviously – but don’t be surprised if some of your goodies end up in a sermon or to cheer someone in a hospital bed. My H’s email is often full of these, including where 3 go up to a bar…and it helps the brain cells a lot to have good input. If he’s heard it before, he doesn’t mind. Also inspirational photos --nature topics, humans being wonderful – brighten his day, but I prefer when they come on attachments so they don’t upset our mailbox quota for data bytes. There really is a difference between humor that explores and humor that insults or divides, as you said so well
There are so many ways to serve the church, and you found one. :)</p>
<p>I don’t mind at all whom my D dates so long that the wedding is an Asian one, in the tradition that the groom’s family pay for the wedding cost. It is the only Asian tradition that I find totally sensible. LOL</p>
<p>The Asian parents with sons probably want their boys to marry into families who follow the American tradition of the bride’s parents paying everything :)</p>