Today is Loving Day, the celebration of the anniversary of the appositely named Supreme Court decision ever: Loving vs. Virginia. It is because of Mildred and Richard Loving that miscegenation laws were struck down across America, and you can now legally have sex with and marry any member of the opposite sex, regardless of race, anywhere in America. 
At the time of the Loving decision, 16 states had anti-miscegenation statutes, and over America’s history 42 states have enforced similar laws. Amazingly though, it took South Carolina until 1998 to remove the anti-miscegenation clause from its state constitution, and Alabama until 2000 to do the same!
Although there weren’t many desis in America before the 1967 Loving decision, they were affected by such restrictions as well:
Anti-miscegenation laws discouraging marriages between Whites and non-Whites were affecting South Asian immigrants and their spouses from the late 17th to early 20th century. For example, a Eurasian daughter born to an East Indian father and Irish mother in Maryland in 1680 was classified as a “mullato” and sold into slavery, and the Bengali revolutionary Tarak Nath Das’s white American wife, Mary K. Das, was stripped of her American citizenship for her marriage to an “alien ineligible for citizenship.” In 1918, there was controversy in Arizona when an Indian farmer married the sixteen year-old daughter of one of his White tenants. [link]
Such discrimination continued into the 20th century. Most desis were in California, which amended its anti-miscegenation statutes in 1931 to prevent inter-marriage between whites and asians. This could have caused problems for Punjabis married to Mexicans since desis had been classified as Asians under the Thind decision and Mexicans were considered white under California state law.
The original decision against the Lovings at the state level leaves no doubt that the judge was opposed to any interracial marriage whatsoever, not just between blacks and whites:
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix. [link]
Fast forward to the present where I grew up on a block with kids whose parents were Ethiopian & White, Korean & German, and Japanese & white American. Family friends included couples who were Japanese & white American, Chinese & white American, white British & dark Tunisian, Afro-cuban & white British (my father set up this couple), etc. Even America now has a bi-racial President whose “black” daughters have “asian” cousins. Thank you very much, Richard and Mildred Loving, for everything.
differences in color, religion, culture will not be easily accepted by the broad society. outside academic enclaves and major urban centres, cross-cultural/religion/color couplings are still hard to realize. it’s one thing to have an exotic fling, but quite another to have community or family support when you or your partner hits the skids. that said, the Loving ruling DID take law out of the equation. which is a good thing. Go out and breed ye in the summer sunshine. WTF are you doing reading a blog.
yeah, ye
Did the judge really say “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. “…. didn’t his white ancestors cross the ocean to a different continent against interfering with arrangement of the same God ? Seriously WTF.
Hat tip to you for acknowledging this, Ennis. Khoofi, it is hard at times for our multiracial, multiethnic and multifaith family. But not as hard as 20, 40, 60 or 80 years ago. Because others before us paved the way. And we will pay it forward.
Ennis; appreciate the hat tip as well. Both my parents are what is now termed bi-racial, which always meant they were black in America; except if you do something really big like become POTUS, then the rule changes /is changed 😉 one of the grandparents match would have been legal, I think (?), the other not,-[ both were voluntary.]
1differences in color, religion, culture will not be easily accepted by the broad society. outside academic enclaves and major urban centres, cross-cultural/religion/color couplings are still hard to realize
and
maybe if the scaredy cat crazies don’t kill us all, the common thread will be ‘American’
Great post Ennis…you increased my awareness…
clearly this post is a veiled attack on Prez Bam’s apparent unwillingness to extend the Loving precedent to gay couples.
OK, now when are desi parents gonna step up to the plate in this regard?
This is not unusual. Japanese and Korean women marry White over their own race. If it were Japanese-Japanese or Korean-Korean pairing, then it would be a marvel of note.
Your comment on my post makes an assumption which is incorrect: in one case the Asian was male (Chinese) in the other case the asian was female (Japanese). In any case thought the exogamy pattern was that Japanese-American women married out at 50%, in this case the Japanese woman was foreign born.
Very nice post. Thanks, Ennis.
Great post! For more on the Sikh-Mexican California connection, check out Jayasri Hart’s film, Roots in the Sand and work by Arturo Singh (myspace). We’re screening Roots in August on Aug 14- to point out the debt that California Chicanos owe India and Gandhi through the study Cesar Chavez did of non-violent resistance.
This is not unusual. Japanese and Korean women marry White over their own race. If it were Japanese-Japanese or Korean-Korean pairing, then it would be a marvel of note.
there is no sex discrepancy for native born japanese americans. additionally, the majority of both native born korean american males and females outmarry.
. outside academic enclaves and major urban centres, cross-cultural/religion/color couplings are still hard to realize.
this may, or may not be true, but plenty of people have argued that for many groups intermarriage is much more common outside major urban areas, because the pool of same-ethnic group partners shrinks. this is clearly evident among indian americans.
Good post, Ennis.
State laws couldn’t separate them, but unfortunately a drunken driver did.
From Wiki: Richard Loving died at age 41 in 1975, when a drunken driver struck their car. Mildred Loving lost her right eye in the same accident.
OK, now when are desi parents gonna step up to the plate in this regard?
You might have to wait a while, the sad thing is that more then few desi/south asian women have had there own family end there life due to them chosing to be with someone of a different background.
Suki, Seriously? I do live in a bubble, I will admit. How should we stop this?
“This could have caused problems for Punjabis married to Mexicans since desis had been classified as Asians under the Thind decision and Mexicans were considered white under California state law.”
GRAVE INJUSTICE! Punjabis and White people are kissing cousins. We share much in common right from our Aryan ancestry to cultural obsession with pomp and facial aesthetic. How are Mexicans white? They like Chinese/Nepali to me.
How long until this comment section turns into an endless debate about how “[certain] Indian people are actually white” and vis a vis how they’re somehow better off/worse as a result of this.
There was supposed to be a question mark at the end of that last thing I posted. 😛
Grave injustice indeed! Because every race tirelessly strives to be the white race, the obvious pinnacle of human evolution.
“Grave injustice indeed! Because every race tirelessly strives to be the white race, the obvious pinnacle of human evolution.”
We are the extract of a superior race. Punjabis are the last bulwark of the pure white race in South Asia, serving our race, and saving Delhi from the Madrassis, Biharis, Chinkies and other Sepoys since 1856. You would wish you were us, just look at your Bollywood movies, overrepresented by Punjabi heroes and their mothers mouthing bad Gurumukhi.
21
It takes only one Neanderthal……
Oi. Stop y’all. Even if it’s in jest, somebody else will take the bait and then it’s all downhill from there …
Protocol please don’t feed the troll.
Seriously? I do live in a bubble, I will admit. How should we stop this?
I have to be honest, I don’t know how this problem will ever be fixed. The fact that we live in such PC/white guilt world does not help the many young desi women who have to deal with this.
I learned about the Loving couple quite a while ago. In fact, one of their sons delivered materials at the job where I was about 10 years ago. Very nice guy who looked like a white person with a tan. I don’t want to get into the whole Scythian thing (they were knocking about on the central Asian steppes weren’t they? What’s the Indian connection?) The population of India is, to say the least, diverse and yet similar. Brown and yet yellow. Brown and yet white. Brown and yet browner. White and yet brown. Some are even black and yet brown. Old and yet new. Atheistic and yet religious. Modern and yet ancient. All things to all people potentially. There’s a word for this dichotomy that I learned in poetry class but i can’t remember it. There has been a large population of “Mexicans” in the southwest U.S. since forever. What has happened in the last 50 years is that this population has gotten more Mexican identified as opposed to “Spanish” and less eligible for official whiteness, which they are not exactly lining up for anyway. Now that they are well established and numerous, they are Mexicans with a genetic major in Native American and a minor in European, and that is that. In Texas and New Mexico, a lot of Mexicans actually are of Spanish and other European descent. Think Ricky Ricardo, Linda Ronstadt and Raquel Welch. The Mexicans in California, prior to the great influx of the post-60s, were somewhat more like this group, though there were always plenty of those with more Native American ancestry than European. But the readiness to call them “white” results from the fact that more of them actually were more white than brown. A survivor of the ill-fated Donner party, writing back east, encouraged her correspondant to come to California to marry because she could get a “Spaniard” as soon as she liked. This was circa 1855. She also advised against taking iffy short cuts on the journey but that’s another topic. The Mexican population in California is from a different demographic, has a different history and culture than those who had lived for many decades in the North American Southwest.
Suki, that’s a real stretch. Think about it. Desi girl comes home with white / black / red / yellow / green boyfriend. Who will be more upset – a liberal father or a conservative one? C’mon. Next look at all the regions which were deadset against interacial marriage. Were they conservative or liberal?
Depends on how you define “conservative” and “liberal”. If its within the United States political paradigm of “republican” and “democrat”, well, both were deadset against interracial marriage at the point in time. Working class southern democrats were and some still are, deadset against it, especially if they grew up during segregation.
So, are you drawing parrallels between conservative and liberal and republican and democrat, or not?
I don’t know if you can really make blanket statements about anti-miscegenation laws and conservative vs. liberal. California did not repeal its anti-miscegenation statute until 1948, when the state supreme court struck down the law as unconstitutional. On the other hand, Ohio repealed its anti-miscegenation law in 1877. I think most people tend to think of California as liberal and Ohio as conservative.
What’s more, through most of the 1950s and 1960s, most Americans (regardless of their political leanings) did not think of bans on interracial marriage as a form of injustice.
Well, I know people from about 10-15 different religions, and the parents and grand-parents in ALL of them are against marrying people from other groups – be it ethnic, religious, caste groups and even regional and linguistic groups. And their relgions – especially if they are desi religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism or Jainism, are all about the inherent equality of all living beings – from plants through animals up to human beings. Yet they still, by and large, marry within their groups and get flack from the elders when they don’t.
I really don’t think the objection has anything to do with religious influence but its more of a cultural thing or even perhaps a biological evolutionary thing.
Yoga practicioners in the West are shocked when they go to India and experience all the groupism and prejudice there. In their minds how could a place and people with such a rich “spiritual” heritage be so closed? To them spirituality = openness, not insular closedness.
So you see, religion and spirituality have very little to do with it. Though people still seem to suspect it would.
Do you really think because your Nani does puja to a sacred tree that she is going to celebrate her grand-daughter marrying her girlfriend? Or her grandson marrying a Ruskie or an African (either male or female?)
People’s spirituality just does NOT extend into these areas unless they are post-modern types.
Exactly my point. It just seemed like good, common sense to marry within “your own” group. For the most part, it still makes sense to most people around the world who are enmeshed in their non-post-modern cultures (just about everyone).
Sure, you find exceptions everywhere, but by and large, people are marrying within their ethnic group or their religious group. In India they are marrying within their caste group in addition to ethnic and religious group.
Human beings group themselves. Its just what we do.
the gss has data on attitudes toward interracial marriage.
row – racmar colunm – polviews filters – race (only whites), year(1972-1975)
favor laws against interracial marriage by politics
EXTREMELY LIBERAL/LIBERAL /SLIGHTLY LIBERAL/MODERATE/SLGHTLY CONSERVATIVE/CONSERVATIVE/EXTRMLY CONSERVATIVE 25/21.3/26.4/39.0/31.9/42.9/55.1
change to 1996-2002
10.8/8.9/7.0/12.1/10.0/12.6/22.3 ie., 11% of self-identified white extreme liberals favor laws against interracial marriage. 22% of extreme conservatives do.
now, by region for 1996-2002
NEW ENGLAND/MIDDLE ATLANTIC/E. NOR. CENTRAL/W. NOR. CENTRAL/SOUTH ATLANTIC/E. SOU. CENTRAL/W. SOU. CENTRAL/MOUNTAIN/PACIFIC 8.7/9.9/10.2/11.4/14.3/32.0/14.6/4.9/5.5
now, for age by 1996-2002 18-35/36-50/50+ 6.3/9.0/19.2
in other words, 6.3% of those in the 18-35 age groups favored laws against interracial marriage in the late 1990s.
since i’ve given you the variables above, and the link to the GSS, i assume people can look through the data themselves instead of getting into pointless arguments about whether california was more or less conservative in 1948 than ohio was in 1877 (look at the states which voted for herbert hoover and it is clear how pointless removing the variable of time is from these sorts of comparisons).
To further complicate things. I can think of a whole host of activities that I personally disapprove of but would also not want to government to encourage or discourage in any way.
It’s not that hard to imagine someone saying it’s not the government’s business to tell people who they can marry while also thinking that people should, generally, try to keep to their own.
i’m assuming people are interested in using opposition to interracial marriage as a position they can leverage in their political debates, but a historical aside. in the early 19th century a host of states which allowed blacks to vote repealed those laws and limited the suffrage to white men only. the details here though are interesting: in the process of curtailing the vote for blacks, these laws also extended the franchise to all white men regardless of property. the push behind some of these laws, such as in new york, were “radical” democrats (e.g., the “bucktail” faction), who called themselves “the democracy.” this populist faction aimed to overturn the oligarchy of the early republic and limit the powers of large institutions, gov. & corporate & financial. additionally, the democrats were generally less hostile to immigrants and assimilated working class catholics into their coalition. against them were the federalists, whigs and later the republicans. federalists, such as rufus king of new york, were generally conservative in a european sense, favoring the rule by men of learning, status and property (i.e., they opposed “king mob”), and they naturally opposed extending the franchise as it was throughout the first half of the 19th century to those without property or means. but their class bias also was balanced by an element of racial cosmopolitanism, and they accepted that if a black man attained property he should be given the franchise. additionally, black voting rights was a conservative position insofar as it had been the norm throughout the north during the early republic. in other words, modern left-right dichotomies don’t map onto to “good and evil” in the same way in the past as they do today. (not only in race, the “conservative” party was arguably the one who favored activist government during this period as well as tariffs in the form of the whigs) much more in the book What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.
blacks to vote repealed those laws
actually, i misspoke. what occurred was laws which stipulated property and sex qualifications for voting were overturned by laws which stipulated race and sex qualifications. the overall result was to extend the franchise since the number of blacks in the north was small.
In all fairness, I don’t think that was my point. I was only trying to point out that the standard conservative vs. liberal (or red state vs. blue state) view of this decade might not match up well with historical views on interracial marriage and politics. I think razib’s poll data in his comment backs this up (even if his intent was actually to show me the error of my argument, lol). I concede that perhaps relying on polls from the 1950s to support arguments that “most Americans” were for or against something is a bit of a red herring, considering the polling sample was probably heavily skewed towards white respondents at the time. Aaargh, I’m not expressing this very well. Stupid Mondays.
Basically, I don’t think anti-miscegenation statutes were meant to promote the common sense “virtue” of marrying “your own” kind. Rather, I think they were designed to discourage “upward” racial mobility, or what people quaintly referred to as “passing” back in the day.
Also, isn’t marrying “your own” kind more of an economic construct than a racial one, especially in 2009? An upper middle class Indian-American is much more likely to have a great deal in common with an upper middle class Caucasian-American than with a recent Indian immigrant of similar religious/linguistic/ethnic background. Just my two cents.
Maybe. Maybe not.
But most upper middle class Indian-Americas marry other upper middle class Indian-Americans, is it not? That way they get all their bases covered.
Also, interesting how you used Caucasian-American rather than African-American in the example.
Razib – thanks for those facts 🙂
While the above is broadly true, the fallacy is in assuming that the recent Indian immigrant is not/ cannot be upper middle class. Many of the young desis who migrate to the west belong to middle and upper middle class families. I learnt through trial and error that as far as dating/relationships are concerned, the significant predictors of compatibility are culture, race and class in that order (the first woman I dated in the UK was a classic Chav, if you’d excuse the term, and the scales fell from my eyes rather quickly). Caste and Religion are the confounding variables.
I don’t think that’s particularly interesting in and of itself. I just used that as an example given that Caucasian-Americans make up two-thirds of the US population (whereas African-Americans make up less than 15% of the population).
I don’t recall making any assumption of the sort. Basically, I’m saying that even assuming similarities in class and religious backgrounds among Indians (regardless of their immigrant status), an Indian-American is likely to have more things in common with a Caucasian-American of similar class than with someone born and raised in India.
I’m not razib, so I don’t have statistical backup. I’m working entirely on anecdotal information, such as it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage
In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations banning or restricting interracial marriage in the past, including Germany during the Nazi period, South Africa under apartheid, and many states in the United States prior to the Supreme Court’s 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia. In both Nazi Germany and certain American states, such laws have been linked to eugenics programs[1].
So America before the Civil Rights Movement was akin to Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa in its racial climate. Nice role model for the world.
I’m not razib, so I don’t have statistical backup. I’m working entirely on anecdotal information, such as it is.
outmarriage rate from census survey:
% of indian american men who marriage indian american women where both are american born – 57% % of indian american women who marriage indian american men where both are american born – 54%
It just reflected the rest of the world, it didn’t model for it. However NOW I think, at least in regards to mating game openness, it serves as a type of model, maybe.
I see more mixes of all kinds here than I have anywhere in the world, UK being the exception, and including even the Carribbean, where mixing has been going on for a long time, though now the mixes will mix with other mixes. (And there is heavy tension between Indo-Caribs and Afro-Caribs still now)
So…what does it all mean, razib? 😉
So America before the Civil Rights Movement was akin to Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa in its racial climate.
the laws were state-by-state. additionally, as i allude to above the attitudes went back and forth. e.g., between 1836-1840 the vice president of the united states was someone who had had a common law wife who was black. and he was even a member of the more racist party (the democrats, as opposed to the whigs).
razib’s comments are despicably heteronormative. when will desis learn to be progressive? i writhe in agony.
writhe.
writhe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage
Not all Asian ethnicities show similar intermarriage patterns; for instance, Indian Americans were overwhelmingly endogamous, with only a small amount of outmarriage to other ethnic groups. The interracial marriage disparity for Indian Americans was low, with outmarriage to White Americans slightly higher for Indian American males, whereas all other major Asian groups had more outmarriage for women.[24]
So, just like in the UK and most everywhere else in the south asian diaspora, desis are the least likely to marry outside their race.
Their last name’s so apt as to defy belief.
So…what does it all mean, razib? 😉
that’s up to you guys. but obviously indian americans exhibit high levels of endogamy in relation to what they “should” in a random mating population (3% X 3% = very small :-). if you are the type of person whose religion matters to you a great deal, you probably shouldn’t marry someone of a different religion if you want to increase your probability of long term success. as a non-religious person who doesn’t know many religious people, i know that many non-religious people feel the same way. i guess the same goes for race. i know of people who want their children to look like themselves. if you want that, you probably shouldn’t marry someone of a different race, as they will look like you, but not as much as they would otherwise.
i do disagree with the assumption that it is hard to be an interracial couple outside of urban areas or academic towns. i speak from personal experience. it’s not a big deal today. or if it is for someone, they keep their reservations to themselves.
So, just like in the UK and most everywhere else in the south asian diaspora, desis are the least likely to marry outside their race.
the difference between indian americans and japanese americans is mostly accounted for (but not all) by the fact indian americans are mostly an 1st gen immigrant community, and japanese americans are not. also, there are wide differences in the UK in intermarriage. the muzzie groups are way lower than hindus, especially the east african origin hindus, last i checked.