Comments on: What You Need to Know About Interracial Relationships http://www.mochimag.com/2009/01/what-you-need-to-know-about-interracial-relationships/ Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:41:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Gordon R. Vaughan http://www.mochimag.com/2009/01/what-you-need-to-know-about-interracial-relationships/comment-page-1/#comment-111 Gordon R. Vaughan Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:05:04 +0000 http://mochimag.com/07/?p=88#comment-111 I'm white, my wife is from Taiwan. After going together 28 years & 24 years of marriage, there's a lot I could say about an article like this! I'll try to leave it at just a few points: 1. Parents who immigrate have high aspirations for their kids, this is normal for all races, but what's not realistic is for them to assume the kids won't get Americanized. Rarely do they acknowledge that by immigrating, they also implicitly accepted a 'risk' that their kids might marry outside their own narrow culture. 2. Cultural/ethnic groups are often defined far more narrowly (e.g. Taiwanese vs. generic "Chinese") by those in the groups than most Americans realize. 3. Different cultures bring different expectations, but a lot of times these will be latent until suddenly sprung upon the kids at important moments. It's not worth fighting over everything; immigrant kids have to pick their battles! 4. Occasionally immigrant kids WILL have to fight over something that's important to them, e.g. who they want to marry, what they study in college, etc. There's been some sad outcomes when kids haven't been able to do that. 5. Best advice for dealing with in-laws: Trust your partner's judgment on how to deal with their family (and vice-versa). They probably can't explain why, but your model of how they think (and so what seems reasonable) is probably way off. I’m white, my wife is from Taiwan. After going together 28 years & 24 years of marriage, there’s a lot I could say about an article like this! I’ll try to leave it at just a few points:

1. Parents who immigrate have high aspirations for their kids, this is normal for all races, but what’s not realistic is for them to assume the kids won’t get Americanized. Rarely do they acknowledge that by immigrating, they also implicitly accepted a ‘risk’ that their kids might marry outside their own narrow culture.

2. Cultural/ethnic groups are often defined far more narrowly (e.g. Taiwanese vs. generic “Chinese”) by those in the groups than most Americans realize.

3. Different cultures bring different expectations, but a lot of times these will be latent until suddenly sprung upon the kids at important moments. It’s not worth fighting over everything; immigrant kids have to pick their battles!

4. Occasionally immigrant kids WILL have to fight over something that’s important to them, e.g. who they want to marry, what they study in college, etc. There’s been some sad outcomes when kids haven’t been able to do that.

5. Best advice for dealing with in-laws: Trust your partner’s judgment on how to deal with their family (and vice-versa). They probably can’t explain why, but your model of how they think (and so what seems reasonable) is probably way off.

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