Japanese American Interracial Marriage

Neomoto argues that although America is seeing more interracial marriage, we haven’t reached a post-racism era because there are only certain types of interracial couples who are embraced by society. To demonstrate this point, he discusses the gendered ideas surrounding interracial marriages of whites and Asians or Asian Americans. Neomoto points out how marriages between white men and Asian women are far more common and accepted than between white women and Asian men. This is because Asian women, along with being eroticized by their petite frames and dark hair, are often stereotyped with traditional gendered qualities like being submissive and good caretakers (Neomoto, pg. 223). This is seen as attractive for white men and a way for them to feel more masculine in a world where white women strive for more

“Asian Americans are the highest-income, best educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are more satisfied than the general public with their lives, finances and the direction of the country, and they place more value than other Americans do on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success, according to a comprehensive new nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center.”

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

Single Black Female BA Seeks Educated Husband: Race, Assortative Mating and Inequality is an article that addresses income inequality in the United States by presenting how people choose their spouses. Rodrigue and Reeves (2015) show the correlation between choice of a spouse and education, income level, and race. They further present data on existing marriage gaps in relation to education, race and income level in the United States. Key in their argument are two issues: “assortative mating” and “marriage gaps”. This paper explores the authors’ arguments on “assortative mating” and “marriage gaps” and presents opinions on how “marriage gaps” can be addressed.

Following the Korean War, American soldiers were coming back with foreign wives, which was taboo to the American culture. This was unacceptable and a foreign concept for American men to engage in interracial marriages. A common trend that was seen was Asians immigrating over to be with their American husbands. However, laws were enforced to restrict this behavior. Laws such as 1924 Immigration Act prohibited most Asians from entering, while War Brides Act of 1945 was stricter in allowing no married Asian women to enter the country. Asian women who were able to enter were considered to be “War Wives” and were expected to assimilate to American culture quickly. They were forced to leave all traditions behind and raise the “perfect” American family with their American husbands. For many of these war brides, they wanted to live the American life and become citizens. Many Korean War brides migrated to American for a better life. In Korea, they faced poverty, so when the right American man came along, they did not only fall in love with the man, but also the opportunity in starting a new life.

It also goes that that the Asian men are generally unmoved and understands his struggles as an Asian soul and difficulty in conforming to the standards of other races particularly whites. This gives him an opportunity to look at other races like Black and Latino. It is also generally felt that Black women are more vocal and authoritative in nature. This kind Black women’s image has been made to be believed by the media, films and TV shows. In the case of Black women, most feel that they could not submit themselves to the white supremacy and while looking out for daters feel that Asians are relatively better than whites and Blacks. Most Black women consider an Asian man are loyal to the woman married and takes enough responsibility in running a family and upbringing of the children. This is one of the causes of attraction between Asians and Blacks. If you talk to some of the Black women who have married Asian men, you will hear them calling their Asian husband “Cute” and appreciate that there are some basic cultural backgrounds in both their races. Asian men are appreciated for their mental masculinity rather than physical masculinity and their unending love towards familial responsibility. Race is only one of the elements that people have on their list of things in a dating partner and these multi- ethnic couples would increase in the years to come, as evolutionary reasons would make them look more

America’s population has become more diverse within the years ethnically and culturally, which created opportunities for individuals from different backgrounds to engage in more romantic relationships. In the past society followed the social norms, with accepting the racial boundaries in dating and marriage. Interracial dating has had consequences that included family rejecting and social ridicule, which is still prevalent today, just not as much.

Interracial dating and marriage is a very touchy subject. Society today and in the past has always discriminated against interracial intimate interaction; and this is not limited to the United States. Today, interracial dating and marriage is beginning to be accepted simply because love triumphs all. However, there are still a vast amount of people, communities, and ethnic groups that oppose intimate interracial interaction. They believe that such intimate relationships between two different races should never be developed or maintained. So the real question is, will love be enough to break the barrier and change the minds of those who oppose interracial marriage?

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

Generally, the young are more accommodative to dating outside their own ethnic and cultural groups. This is despite strongly held beliefs contrary to this among their parents. Shenhav, Campos & Goldberg (2016) show that a sizeable majority of individuals between the ages of 18 and 29 are more likely to accept family members married to individuals from a different ethnic or cultural group. However, this is not the case for individuals between the ages of 50-60. As such, there’s a glaring intergenerational gap that translates into starkly different perceptions of preferred mates for Asian Americans. In the case of Asian Americans ethnicities matter more than religion (Witt, Murray & Kim, 1992; Blair & Madigan,

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.

As of 2009, a Pew Research Center survey found that just 6 percent of whites and 3 percent of blacks said they could not accept a black-white interracial marriage within their own family. The increase in the proportion of marriages that are interracial reflects a general decrease in overt racism in the United States over the last several decades. Although overt racism has declined, many researchers believe that individuals express their negative attitude toward other races through “aversive racism,” personally avoiding members of other races while publicly supporting racial equality (Kleinpenning & Hagendoorn, 1993). Aversive racism might include a public acceptance of interracial dating in general, but a personal preference for only dating within one’s own race. This led us to our research question, which is, “Why are there differences between personal attitudes and general attitudes on interracial dating?”

In social scientific research, intermarriage is treated as a key indicator of social distance among different groups (Qian et al 2012). More specifically, marriage between immigrant/ethnic minorities and the native/dominant racial group indicates the extent to which new immigrants, minorities, and/or their children have assimilated into the host society (Gordon 1964). Nonetheless, contemporary scholars have pointed out that the original theoretical framework of intermarriage as a litmus test for immigrant and minority integration may be outdated and inadequate for several reasons. First, the demographic and racial profiles of “new” immigrants of post-1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act are vastly different from that of early 20th century European immigrants (citation). Most notably, these immigrants are mostly from Asian and Latin American countries. Their non-whiteness, therefore, may not lead them to the same patterns of group boundary shifting that resulted in many South and Eastern European immigrants becoming “white.” Second, whereas early 20th century European immigration eventually stopped, the post-1965 immigration is still ongoing (citations). This continuous immigrant replenishment creates diversity

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.

The community has a great impact on mate selection and family formation (McGoldrick, 1998). Molina et al., (2004) argue that communities serve as proxies for extended families in many societies and are extremely important in bringing intercultural couples together. People who are in intercultural relationship must understand that there will be challenges and obstacles from others that are against interracial or intercultural relationships. If the relationship is valuable to them then they will be able to over come adversity such as prejudice and discrimination and a host of other negative challenges they may occur.