race relations

[aventurine]

anybody here been in an interracial relationship?

what kind of challenges did you face and what happened?

Comments

[jjjiii]

I'm in one right now. It hasn't really been a big deal. My family likes her, her family seems to like me (although at first I think they were skeptical -- she wouldn't let me kiss her in front of them for a long time). She's pretty Americanized, having lived here her whole life, so there haven't been a lot of cultural issues.

[aventurine]

what nationality is angelhipster?

[jjjiii]

She's Vietnamese.

[aventurine]

that seems like it would be a big cultural difference. were her parents every nasty about it?

[ravyn440]

did it once...

there was really only one challenge - the language barrier. my parents liked her, and i guess (i only met them once) her family liked me - but she was from japan and her english wasn't too hot. my japanese was even worse. so it was always hard for us to get into any really involved conversations.

[aventurine]

so if someone were american but just of a different race, you don't think there'd be any issue? i wonder about things like that... i wonder if there's really no issue, or at least not any more of an issue than there would be with just any old person that wasn't raised exactly the same way you were?

[ewake]

yeah, she was indian, her parents came over before she was born. her mother hated me intensely, and when she heard we'd broken up and weren't speaking, declared she would go to temple and crack a coconut in honor of this great occasion. the cultural issues were closely tied with her mother being absolutely totally insane and thinking that i'd ruined her life because she didn't go to med school or something. it would have been a bigger deal had we stayed together -- my cousin married a girl who was indian/hindu and the fact she wasn't jewish was a huge big deal.

[aventurine]

that's horrible. that's the kind of thing i'm worried about. how did she handle her parents? did she care at all about how they felt, did she ever stand up to them?

[aventurine]

oh, and i wanted to ask one other follow up question - how important is it for you (and your family in general) that you be with someone who's jewish? all the jewish people i've dated have sorta been like, "eh, if she's jewish, great; if not, we'll deal with it" but they've also admitted that their families would be sorely disappointed.

[ewake]

i think each race and culture has different issues associated with it... like dating an african american person (and their family) would be very different from dating an african immigrant, etc.

for me personally, it's really important that the person be jewish, because i want to have a jewish household. i'm trying to only date jewish people for that reason. it makes dating harder, but i think it'll make coupled life easier... one less battle to fight.

[devolving]

when i was sixteen, i dated a black boy named jeff. my parents didn't care he was black, and neither did my friends. we never had any problems with that. when we went to the mall and stuff, though, we got looks from some people. it never bothered us.

[tootie23]

I am currently in an interracial relationship....actually, I am always finding myself in one.
I think we just celebrate our differences and have lots of hot lovin' and thats that.
Others might have more of a problem than we do, but I havn't encountered anything.
My parents don't care, But I am not sure if hers do.
hope this helps a bit.

[aventurine]

after asking this question, everyone seems to have a similar answers - it's really only ever mattered to the parents. so how do you deal with the parents?

[tootie23]

try to get them to realize they lived their life their own way, and now it's your turn...mine did it on their own (I was LUCKY!)