Interracial Marriage Controversy

Traditionally, people have believed that when a person marries outside of their race, they do so as a way to escape from their race, culture, or traditional beliefs. In contrast, popular culture theorizes that interracial marriages are motivated not by a desire to leave behind one’s heritage, but by love between two people who happen to be of different races. In this paper, I seek to analyze and compare these two perspectives, proposing a theory that combines the two by accounting for a person’s upbringing and beliefs when deciding what their motivation may be. I first analyze the traditional belief of interracial marriage in comparison to the popular culture belief and present my theory combining the two. I then analyze the effect of dominant versus nondominant culture on motivations, and use examples from popular culture to look at the effect a person’s culture and upbringing can have their motivations for marriage. Lastly, I explain how my perspective will affect the way I live my life.

The Canadian nation prides itself on being accepting of its diversity and multiculturalism. One specific area many are grateful for the diversity and openness within Canada, is marriage; the legal or formal recognition of two individuals as partners in a relationship. (Google, 2014). With the consistent flow of immigration, marriage between the majority populations of White European people has increased between the Minority populations, including, but not limited to African Americans, Asians, Hispanics and American Indians. This stated, society still holds many judgements and stereotypes about the formation of these relationships and interracial marriage. How societal views have changed over the past few decades, opinions of those

I found my situation very thought-provoking that my family fell within the “51%” of African American kids that were raised by a single mother. Additionally, it was even more interesting that I fell within the “390,000” of black American male that is in an interracial relationship. Furthermore, Black Demographics (n.d.) states that “while black men marry white women at twice the rate of Black women, only 7% of married Black men had White (non-Hispanic) spouses in 2014. About 14% percent of African American men married non-Black or Hispanic women in 2014. It is Asian women who have the highest rates of intermarriage which is twice that of Black men”. As a result, the interracial relationship between black and white Americans has held strong.

According to the U. S. Census Reports, interracial marriages have more than tripled between 1980 and today. There are currently 1.6 million interracial marriages in the United States, and that figure is continuing to grow (Duru, 2012). Statistics show that over 70% of American society has no problem with mixed race relationships, and 40% of Americans have already dated someone of another ethnicity. For the most part relationships between people of different races are no different from the interactions between people of the same race (Duru, 2012).

Interracial marriages are still considered taboo in many countries in the world and even in the United States. While the opportunity to marry whoever one desires is a reality in America, it is not always common and sometime frowned upon in our communities. Much progress has been made as a country to allow interracial marriages to be successful, but the American population has had difficulty accepting the legal development that has taken place in our nation. Interracial Marriage has been fought throughout our history but is not an unethical relationship in fact it creates avenues to expand our diversity as a human race.

There is an abundance of evidence that displays interracial dating is on the rise. “Krikor (2001) reports that interracial marriages are increasing, from 51,000 African American-Caucasian marriages in 1960 to 330,000 in 1998. Gurung & Duong (1999) and

“Regardless, the prevalence of race mixing in the United States is forcing everyone to confront stereotypes and perhaps will engender new discussions about race and diversity” (Interracial Relationships From Opposing Viewpoints in Context, 2006, para. 1). When people have to confront bigotry that they have not had to face on a day to day basis they will start to ask questions. Questions like Why is this the stereotype for a certain race or religion? How can a person stop this hatred? Intermarriage can make the world see how certain races are treated differently and how people who practice certain religions are criticized and ridiculed. A great reason in which race or religion should not matter when choosing a mate because when two people get married they should not be scared of what could happen to

The two articles used were “Understanding the Occurrence of Interracial Marriage in the United States through Differential Assimilation” (Lewis, Ford- Robinson, 2010) and “Marital Dissolution among Interracial Couples” (Zhang, Van Hook, 2009). The first article “Understanding the Occurrence of Interracial Marriage in the United States through Differential Assimilation”, spoke about the unprecedented changes that our society is going though in the 21st century.

Interracial marriage has been a social issue for a long time but is not talked about as much as other issues. In the journal of social issues, the topic interracial marriage is talked about in the United States of America. The editors use five objectives: discuss the concerns, examine the process, review the attitudes of people towards the interracial couple, assess the “clinical and policy implication”, and synthesize “contemporary scholarship”. The introduction begins with stating that interracial marriage has been increasing in the United States. Interracial marriage has been increasing since the court case Loving v. Virginia in 1967 and The Nature of Prejudice in 1954-1979 allowed couples the “right to marry” anyone they want, regardless of race, or ethnicity (Gaines, Clark, & Afful, 2015). Even though the laws have been passed for interracial marriage, but the couple that gets married outside of their race experience racism; job discrimination, residential segregation, and hate speech and the racism are likely to continue (p. 648 & 650). The journal of social issues has been gathering research for past three years on interracial marriages. It clearly defines the definitions of race and ethnicity. “Race as individuals’ presumed biological heritage”. “Ethnicity as individuals’ presumed biological and/or cultural heritage (Gaines, Clark, & Afful, 2015, p. 649). Providing the definition give a clear image of how the words are used in the journal.

Jayson (2011) claims that, “Research has found young adults today have more friends of diverse racial backgrounds than past generations and are more willing to have relationships with those of other races and cultures. ‘We do not feel a need to be diverse, and we do not seek out relationships for that purpose. It is just who we are,’” (Jayson, 2011, para.5).This demonstrates that since people are surrounded by countless different religions, they are more common to date and marry someone of another religion than their own. In “Americans Marrying Out”, it implies that, “The percentage was 14.6% in 2008, up from 6.7% in 1980, according to a new analysis of Census data by researchers at Ohio State University and Cornell University” (Jayson, 2011, para. 6).Seeing how the percentage has increased, it shows that many became more open to interracial dating. Race and religion do not matter when picking a spouse because everyone is surrounded by those of different backgrounds. This situation has created support groups for those who are in an interracial marriage and need

My family’s view about intermarriage between races is shaped by our religious believes, and the fact that there are African American children in our culture. My whole family believes that if both people are christens and God fearing there is no reason why they cannot get married and serve Jesus together. “A large majority (63 percent) of Americans say that they’d be fine with a family member’s marriage to someone of a different racial or ethnic group” (sociology 196-197). This is how my family feels. Our views have changed over the years because there were no members of a different race in our culture. Over the years families have adopted children from Russia, China, and Africa. So basically our culture is starting to have a more racial variety.

While my grandparents lived in a community where interfaith marriage was accepted, they still struggled with discrimination and isolation from some of their family members, particularly from my grandmother’s side. Some family members showed understanding for her choice but others did not, which is the reason she had to leave her

The success of an interracial marriage, to withstand all the prejudices in society, needs one major ingredient, and that is love. One of the hardest things an interracial couple has to deal with is acceptance from both their families and society. Interestingly, though, Interracial marriages tend to last longer than same race ones because people going into interracial marriages are prepared for a rocky road and are prepared to stick with it, while same race couples may have not experienced that same adversity, and at the first sign of struggle, back out of the marriage. This obviously tells us that whether the marriage is a success or not does not depend upon the races of the partners, or at least not in the way everyone thinks it does. It is obvious that people in general are becoming more open minded and accepting of interracial marriages, however, there still are many social taboos that prevent people from being in such a marriage. Society tends to concentrate on skin color when

Since the nineteenth century began, the American family has gone through many changes. Among the many changes that researchers have studied, a few of these changes have been very apparent. The evolution and structure of American households have never seemed to be more diverse than they are now in these modern times. Families have become more racially, religiously, and ethnically diverse (Angier, 2013). Although some still frown upon it, one marrying another person of a different race is much more common and accepted now. Individuals of different religions will marry one another and find ways to make it work. People from different cultures have also come together and formed families. Overall, today’s society seems to be much more accepting than in the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Marriage is one of the important institution in human society as it is a universal phenomenon that has been developed over time and currently, still continues to grow. In the Oxford dictionary, marriage is defined as, “The legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship.” In other words, it is a union between two people, particularly regulated by law in which they become partners. Therefore, selecting a husband or a wife is considered one of the most important decisions of a person’s life. As a result, in today’s world, people think of many questions before getting married. Who should I marry? What should I look for when choosing a partner? Would it be more likely to be successful if it the same culture as mines or would cross-cultural marriage be as beneficial? Nevertheless, today, cross-cultural marriage is not as frowned upon as it once was. Romano (2003) claims, “Interracial love were once quite rare and were almost uniformly negative” (p. 2). That is because the world is now an interesting and a diverse place to live in. Thus, there is more and more marriages of people from different cultures. In a marriage with a person from the same culture, there is already some distinct differences. Each individual was taught by different families, went to different schools, and grew up in different surroundings, therefore, their idea of the world is different and in general, their way of life is different. Walsh (2012) mentions, “Although