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.
Telson, I don’t know if you realize you’re on a Desi site or not. Perhaps you don’t even know what a “Desi” is. But your comment above does not apply to Desis. They don’t go into marriage based on fantasy. They are much more realistic and practical. However you’re advice might be needed amongst white and black Americans, I mean, if they are even getting married anymore. I know my friends are not.
As an adoptive mother of an Indian child this reminded me of the same arguments used agaisnt interracial adoption.
Masalamommy, many people of all background have issues with interracial and inter-cultural adoption. Some of the adopted kids, after they are old enough to form their own opinions, don’t agree with it. Especially black kids who get adopt by non-black parents. They want to be “with their own” and in their own culture. They feel culturally confused, rootless even.
I haven’t yet formed a for or against opinion, I see both sides.
Broken Hearted on June 14, 2009 09:58 PM
I absolutely agree. I feel like Asians are all more close-minded than others when it comes to dating outside the race, but I feel like Desis are the worst. Both of my parents are Indian, but my mom still refers to them as an interracial couple. (I think it makes her feel cool and she claims it’s why she accepts her daughters dating non-desis.) They are by no means interracial. They both grew up in Bombay, where 99% of my extended family lives. But their great-grandparents came from other states, Mysore for my mom, and Kutch for my dad. I have never noticed much a difference in their cultures other than language and the fact that my dad’s a vegetarian who likes Bajra rotis. His family still looks down upon their marriage since she is not Kutchi (I think they also see it as interracial.) I’ve seen so many desi women in loving relationships who dump the guy SOLELY because he is not from their village, claiming they had “nothing in common.” If the only way to your marital happiness is race, then you have a serious problem.
This to me says EVERYTHING that’s wrong with the desi community. Everyone thinks their little village is better than the next and no outsider could possibly understand the nuances of their precious culture. Maybe I can’t keep track of the correct word for “father’s sister’s husband,” but calling him “uncle” is not the end of the world. You can have your Bajra, I’ll take my Jerk Chicken any day.
Thanks for posting about Loving Day (I saw it on some other blogs, too).
Regarding marrying “your own kind” or “your own people” it all depends on how you define that group. So if “my people” are other software engineers then I did marry one of my own kind after all. 🙂
On a more serious note, I think I saw some comments here that treated race as a biological fact rather than a social construct. I’m not an expert but I don’t think this is correct. Here’s a link with more information – Ten things everyone should know about race
See item number 9, “Race isn’t biological, but racism is still real.”
masalawalla wrote:
I find this attitude to be incredibly patronizing. It’s the equivalent of a white person saying, “all you brown people look the same.”
Surely you know that the various ethnicities of the Indian subcontinent are separated by thousands of years of history, countless conflicts, and languages that aren’t even remotely similar. Do you really want these groups to forget all that, and embrace each other as if nothing ever happened, all because the master-race-du-jour can’t tell them apart? Do you really want to deny these people the right to define THEIR OWN identities?
?
So TTUSM, would you consider an Italian marrying a Greek to be “inter-racial” or a German marrying a Finlander?
Pardesi Gori, What about a Sicilian and a Norwegian?
“..What about a Sicilian and a Norwegian?”
hey–you’d get Edie Falco (Carmela in the Sopranos.) she’s a Sicilian – Swedish blend, i think i read.
do not rail against the ideology-that-shall-not-be-named.
Ask TTCSUM