The History and Patterns of Interracial Marriage and Families in the United States

Interracial marriage has traditionally been viewed as a means of expressing a hatred of oneself, of escaping something in one’s culture or self that one no longer wants to identify with. Jacki Thompson Rand describes the outcome of this phenomenon in an essay on her experience as the child of an interracial marriage. She explains how her mother married a white man in an effort to make herself more white, and therefore more legitimate: “My mother 's marriage to my father was a racial love

One’s colour, religion and families origin should not interfere with the happiness between the couple. A publication by the University of Toronto Scarborough furthers this notion of love and relationships; yet explains there are many barriers and challenges which many interracial couples strive to overcome.

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.

In the article “Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race & Romance, Antimiscegenation Laws and the Enforcement of Racial Boundaries,” Rachael E. Moran writes about the problems blacks and Asians experienced in regards to sex, marriage, and family. Laws were created addressing interracial sex and marriage with the goal of keeping whites superior to all other races. Blacks and Asians encountered many restrictions regarding whom they could marry and have sexual relations with. Meanwhile white males were allowed to associate with black females, black males were punished for having any relationship with white females. Restrictions on sex and marriage were also evident for Asians. From all the Asians, Chinese were the ones who suffered the most as a result of these laws. Since many Chinese men were not able to bring in their wives or marry women from different races, they had no other choice than to live lonely lives. The results that these laws generated left both blacks and Asians to have undesirable personal lives.

The formation of pan-ethnic and pan-minority boundaries, as well as intermarriage, also has important implications for changing racial landscapes and race relations of the United States. On one hand, newly emerging racial order along the axes of socioeconomic status and interracial attitudes and relations suggests that Asian American pan-ethnic boundaries may be shifting or being redefined altogether. On the other hand, interracial marriage patterns and the ways in which intermarried individuals discuss their mixed unions reveal that black exceptionalism in the (inter)marriage market is likely to continue.

Personal attitudes would be whether people would date interracially themselves, and general attitudes would be whether the person thinks it is ok for other people to date interracially. Before discussing reasons for this difference, we first review research on the factors contributing to attitudes toward interracial

Firstly, it has been throughout history that interracial marriages are unacceptable or even illegal for two people of a different race to marry. A tradition that has been around for centuries until in 1958 the case of, Loving v. Virginia, two Virginia natives Richard Loving, a white man and Mildred Jeter, a black woman got married in the District of Columbia and returned home soon after the wedding, Virginia declared that they violated the state’s anti-miscegenation statute and was sentenced to a year in jail or leave the state and not return for 25 years (Loving). On June 12, 1967, the United

Societal intolerance of interracial relationships. Societal intolerance of interracial relationships can contribute to stressors for the partners. Some segments of society still view such unions as something of an anomaly that does not readily fit into the racial stratification system. Such ambivalence in society creates a similar ambivalence for the inter- racial couple themselves, because those beliefs could be internalized (Motoyoshi, 1990). According to Pope (1986), interracial couples, and especially black-white couples, cannot ignore the impact of racial tensions and divisions in U.S. society. Cultural and racial differences often become magnified during a crisis situation, and the lack of support and isolation from the society at large poses a threat to the stability of inter- racial relationships (Falicov, 1995; Solsberry, 1995). Certain racial combinations may be more accepted and tolerated than others. For in- stance, African American and Caucasian American couples historically have tended to experience the most hostility and opposition from society whether in Hawaii or in mainland states (Chan & Wethington, 1998; Qian, 1999). Interracial couples will sometimes intentionally isolate themselves from their own communities in an attempt to establish independence from their group’s prejudices and disapproval. However, this mechanism can result in total isolation from support including those that the natural extended family system might afford (Falicov, 1995; Ratliff,

There is a persisting problem in our society that seems to never go away. It sometimes seems to diminish, but then suddenly it is put back into the light. This problem is racism against interracial families. Still, in 2017, interracial families face scorn from our traditions society. These families face hatred and prejudice for the blending of cultures and are subjected to vocal hatred from members of the families and communities. Whether or not you feel the need to stand up for the hatred interracial families receive, you should continue reading to gain more knowledge on the prevalence of interracial families in American, the harassment interracial families receive, and the value of interracial families.

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 issue of racism and relationships in the United States has been rooted back in the country’s history. According to Roberts, by the time of the March on Washington in 1963, nineteen states in the U.S. had laws that did not allow men and women of different races to get married (2). The laws that did not allow interracial marriage would not be abolished, until four years after the March on Washington. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Loving v Virginia.

Amid this overall increase, the propensity to marry out of one’s racial or ethnicity varies. Among recently married whites, 17 percent were married to someone of another race, but for Hispanics and Asians, more than four in ten recent marriages are multiracial. Among minorities,blacks continues to have the lowest prevalence of multiracial marriages, a legacy of the anti-miscegenation statutes that persisted in 16 states until 1967, when the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional in the landmark Loving v. Virginia decision. It was only after this ruling in the post–civil rights environment that black multiracial marriages began to rise noticeably, but among recent, typically younger marriages involving blacks, nearly three in ten were multiracial marriages,

America’s first biracial child was born in 1620 before anti miscegenation laws were created to prevent African Americans from getting involved with Whites. Negative attitudes towards interracial relationships were fueled by racial discrimination and the devotion to keep each race authentic. In today's evolving society interracial relationships are still discouraged especially between Whites and Blacks (Childs, 2005) due to race preference, parental approval, racism, and an individual's background. Interracial unions are believed to be evidence of a culture development in America’s conventional practices of racial boundaries in social interaction (King & Bratter, 2007). In today’s diverse society it is influential to increase contact amongst

Many people want to have their family’s approval, however not every family is accepting. A Vietnam father may protest to his son marrying an American girl because of pervious history that the two nations share. On the other hand, the rejection can empower the newlyweds. Yet, relatives are not the only problem the spouses will face. In 1967 miscegenation was legal in the United States, but some people in the United States societies’ are still against it. Addressing the problem of racism against themselves and one another will consolidate their marriage even further.

One in six newlyweds are intermarried to someone with a different race today, creating a more cultural environment