On Interracial Dating – The Mixed Race Panel (2 of 3)

For me my parents made me proud of my culture, more so than my color, or racial classification.  So in all honesty when I date someone raised as a West Indian I don’t feel I’m in a mixed relationship.

Personally I try not to think of my relationships as interracial , but as relationships.

Holly: I think I said this once, just to point out how non-exceptional a discussion about “interracial dating” is for multiracial people — but I do think everyone’s answers here point out something interesting about cultural difference. That’s the thing that I’ve tended to notice really makes a relationship feel more “interracial” and it comes up in a lot of conversations about interracial dating. Like LM says, almost any relationship could be considered of “mixed race” and I’d interpret this to be about all sorts of cultural differences. Still, some are more significant than others. I once dated someone with ALMOST the same ethnic background as me, except that she was a mixed sansei (third generation) whereas I’m a mixed nisei (second generation). Her parents were born and grew up here and were pretty well-versed in American culture — and that made for a pretty significant difference in orientation towards Japanese culture. This kind of cultural difference — which is all about race and our relationship to it — actually felt like more of an “interracial relationship” difference than say, regional or religious differences, since I’ve dated people who are more or less religious, from the South or the East or the West, etc. It’s really the cultural differences that stand out. In a broad classification of “people of color” I usually check the “Asian” box. I’ve dated other Asians of a few different ethnicities / background — Chinese, Laotian, Sindhi — but because we all grew up in the homogenous white US, I kind of suspect that any of us would “have more in common” culturally with a white person than we would with each other. We’re all steeping in the white culture constantly. What we do have in common, however, is an experience of being outsiders and being targets of racism and prejudice in one way or another.

If you have dated interracially, did you have any fears or misgivings going into the situation?  Did you peers react to you differently?

Phil: No, though I wonder if my bias is towards white women, as I have never dated anyone Chinese. Maybe coincidence, but maybe not. As I’ve mentioned, I think that the reality was I didn’t meet a lot of Chinese women growing up, and the only images I got of them were strange (through movies, the rare news piece). I think religion played more of a role in my world. Dating a Jewish girl caused some angst for both of us, as we knew we couldn’t be together in the long term. My friends were mostly white, so dating white women wasn’t an issue.

Jozen: Dating non black women can be awkward, because of where my cultural allegiances are. But what’s funny is I’ve had some black women I dated tell me they feel like with me they’re in an interracial relationship, and I always remind them, I’m black, just not the type they’re used to. Most of my peers might react differently if I dated anybody but a black woman, but it probably wouldn’t bother me much. I’m kind of aware of how I look mixed to most people, so I handle the idea that someone is in an interracial relationship all cause they’re dating me with some humor, but I myself don’t really date outside of one of my races.

LM:  The first time I was interested in a black girl I was perhaps 14 or 15, and I felt equal amounts apprehension because 1) she was a girl and I was extremely shy, and 2) she was black and I didn’t see a lot of black-white pairings (my Puerto Rican-ness wasn’t a factor at this point, for some reason).  It was summer in Oak Bluffs, on Martha’s Vineyard, where the racial environment wasn’t particularly oppressive, but I still felt that there might be some sort of stigma.  I talked to my mother about this, and she assured me that there’d be no opposition from her or my father, but there was still the problem of actually approaching the girl.  I did one day in a doughnut shop when she was surrounded by two or three uncles.  Whatever my approach it was so weak that no outright rejection was necessary.  This wasn’t someone I’d talked to, just a girl I’d seen around town almost every day.  The same thing happened with another girl that summer, a white girl whose parents owned a stationery shop, but my fear and ultimate failure was not exacerbated by any racial concerns.

Page 2 of 5 | Previous page | Next page