Long Relationships

Prompted by Zandria’s insightful post regarding interracial relationships, I mulled over my own marriage of Asian/Caucasian consistency. Does race play a big part in our relationship? How do others perceive us? Do we have any particular hardships?

In our daily lives, I would say that being an interracial couple does not have a significant effect on how we function. I was not raised in an Asian community, so I admit that I am pretty far removed from the cultural aspects, but that doesn’t remove me from the effects of simply looking the part. At times, JG’s students will look at the picture on his desk and realize that I’m not the wife they pictured. Occasionally, I will feel a person’s eyes travel up and down me before making eye contact with JG and shaking hands. Generally, I get the feeling that we trump people’s expectations of who usually marries whom; it’s not that our relationship is wrong, it’s just surprising. Does that offend me? Not really. I probably wouldn’t expect it, either. I am grateful that JG and I don’t need to worry about our neighborhood or workplaces in regard to snide remarks or ignorant comments.

The aspect in which being from different cultural backgrounds most affects us is our families. In addition to differences in the ways we were brought up and widely disparate interests, JG and I have found that we need to teach each other what is expected and what to expect with our families. For example, before I spent my first Thanksgiving with JG’s family, he told me not to be surprised if someone asked me if I spoke Chinese or where I was “originally from.� I was initially put off, but I knew that those questions are well-meaning, if somewhat blunt and uninformed. I had to realize that, in my own blundering way, I might be showing them what Asians were really like.

The realization that we were from two different cultures crystallized most strongly for me when JG spent Christmas with my family at my grandmother’s house in Queens, New York. We were engaged at the time and I had already briefed JG that people would speak English and Chinese interchangeably, my grandmother would rule the roost, and that he would be the only white person. He took it all in stride, but I knew that he was nervous. My grandmother took us out to a restaurant that we frequent and JG was plunged into a new world. I was used to the red brocade on the walls, golden dragon sculptures with lit-up eyes, tanks of live fish toward the kitchen, and circular tables without a fork in sight, but it was all totally new for him. JG became acutely aware that he was the only white person that he could see. Even worse, his 6’3� stature made him easy to spot among a crowd where 5’8� is a tall drink of water. I realized that I was used to being the odd one out, the stares and inquisitive words sliding down my skin instead of puncturing me. But how must it feel to suddenly become the minority, especially among a crowd that might tease you in another language? JG told me later that he was very uncomfortable, but he made it through like a pro. Our experiences with a high Asian population are few and far between, but JG does not relish them and I don’t blame him.

Sometimes I even forget that JG and I aren’t of the same race and then a framed photograph reminds me. I suppose that I have simply accepted being a part of an interracial relationship. What a long term for what we have – it is simply a relationship. I like to think that JG and I have broadened people’s horizons. Being together isn’t a statement or a protest; it’s just what we are and it is stretching us at the same time.

relationship, interracial, cross-cultural, race

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