W

hen Sabeena Shah brought Joe Hubbard home to her parents, they knew she was serious. But they had questions. Would Hubbard fit into their Pakistani American extended family? Would he be able to fully embrace Islam? Shah’s father told Hubbard it wouldn’t work.

This was ironic—primarily because, Shah’s mother, a white American, expressed some of the same ambivalence that her father did. “It was definitely a double standard,” says Shah. “After marriage, my mother had adapted herself to my dad’s culture, religion, language. They said that people like my mother were few and far between.” Hubbard’s family were well established Swedish Americans in the Chicago area and very active in the Lutheran church. “His grandmother had always said he should find a nice Lutheran girl for himself,” says Shah.

Sabeena and Joe.

While Shah’s might not be the typical South Asian American family, the reactions to her interracial relationship aren’t that surprising, given that interracial marriage is a fairly new phenomenon. Marrying outside one’s race in the United States was forbidden by miscegenation laws till as recently as 1967, even as furtive interracial marriages had been occurring as early as the late 1600s (Mary Fisher, born to an Indian father and an Irish mother, is considered the first biracial American desi—see the sidebar). Ever since the archaic laws were struck down, one thing seems obvious—interracial marriages have exploded, a fact confirmed by the 2000 U.S. census.

That census was unique in the fact that—for the first time—respondents could choose more than one race to identify themselves with. The results? 11.9 million people consider themselves Asian Americans; 10.2 million of them see themselves as Asian only; but a whopping 1.7 million reported that they are part Asian; that is, mixed. And among all Asians, Chinese, Filipino, Korean and Indian Americans were most likely to consider themselves as having mixed racial origins. Another interesting fact: Among Asians, Indian American males were most likely to marry black women, and Indian American females were most likely to marry within their own race.

Those are the statistics the census reveals; contrast that with how interracial marriage fares in pop culture. Susan Koshy, in her book Sexual Naturalization: Asian Americans and Miscegenation, explores how “Asian woman” equaled “model sexual minority” in both film and literature. A common trope in South Asian American cinema has been the successful pairing of an Asian woman and a white man. Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice and Mistress of Spices (based on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s book of the same name), all exemplify this trend. Compare that to the way Asian men are portrayed: University of Massachusetts’ sociology professor C.N. Le explains, “Asian men are popularly portrayed as weak, effeminate and/or asexual which serves to make them less attractive to both Asian and white women.”

Mohanalakshmi and David.

And anecdotal evidence seems to show that while East Asians value assimilation to a higher extent—leading more women from those cultures to marry outside their own race—the same is not true for women from the Subcontinent. Take the case of Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, who moved to the U.S. as a child. She recalls the subtle ways in which her father would bring up the idea of difference. “He would say, in America, the divorce rates are so high, they have no sense of family. Growing up I saw my friends’ parents—Americans who were married to each other for 20 to 30 years, the same as my parents. I understood what my father was saying, but I still saw the other side of the picture.”

And while her parents were aware of her white American college boyfriend, that relationship didn’t work out. So the parents of then-26 Rajakumar began to panic. They set her up on date after date with Indian men. Eventually, her father even asked if he could put out a matrimonial ad. Laughing, Rajakumar says, “I said if I have to go through it, it better be something I write.” So she wrote her own—even then, nothing quite worked out. When she got a job abroad in the Qatar campus of Georgetown University, she was ready to move beyond the whole marriage scene. That’s when she met David Phongsavan, a Thai American who was also working at the university. This relationship did work out, and Rajakumar remarks that their families were glad that they had both found mates with Asian values such as respect for family, tradition and elders. She adds, “The fact that both families are immigrants makes for common ground and understanding.”

Menaka and Alex.

This commonality was also an important factor for Menaka Sanwal’s family accepting her fiancé Alex Chang. “His family was also extremely happy that their son had met someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. I married a Taiwanese guy who came from a similar background as myself, which is why it was so easy for us.”

Professor Le thinks that many more will join Rajkumar and Sanwal. On his Asian Nation Web site, Le predicts that mixed Asian marriages (Asian married to another Asian outside his/her own endogamous group) will be on the rise in the next few years.

Shabana Mir had always assumed she would marry a desi. But, Mir adds, only half-jokingly, that desi men wouldn’t be able to handle her. Mir met Svend White at an Islamic conference where they were both presenting papers. But in spite of a shared faith, Mir’s family was ambivalent. “They weren’t sure how much he was a Muslim ‘like us’,” she says, though White had been raised Muslim from birth. Ambivalence turned to opposition—but after meeting him, they finally came around.

Racism in South Asian communities also plays a part in opposition. Nisha Kutty, a New York-based fashion photographer, married African American Al-Khabir Richman. And sometimes, when she’s meeting “the more traditional Indians,” she won’t mention that she lives in Brooklyn—or that her husband is black. “Most of the time, their question is why. They’re horrified—they can’t understand why I would have married a black man.”

Shabana, Svend and baby makes three.

But it’s not just American-born desis who marry outside of their race. Hema Ganapathy, an adjunct professor of child psychology at the University of Indiana, has been married to Kevin Coleman since 2004. The couple met in Baltimore, where Coleman was working on his master’s degree; Ganapathy on her doctorate. She had moved to the US a couple of years before with her 4-year-old daughter after separating from her first husband. But “being with Kevin never felt like I was with an American,” says Ganapathy. Coleman had served overseas in the Peace Corps and “was very respectful. He knew not to hug or be over friendly. It progressed very naturally.” Still, their families were concerned—how would never-married Coleman go from being a student to a stepfather? But in some ways, being a divorcée helped Ganapathy: “There is a sense that you can make up the rules as you go along, because they didn’t really work the first time around.”

Interracial couples don’t just have to deal with the pressures that every relationship faces—they also have to deal with how the world perceives them. As Ganapathy explains, more challenges stem “from outside our relationship than frictions between us as a couple. Society is still not conditioned to seeing a white man and an Indian woman. Several times when we go out, people just assume we have come separately. At the grocery store, I might be in the check-out line and Kevin right behind me, but the clerk will try to bill us separately. We have to point out that no, we’re together, it’s one single bill.” Mir states candidly that she is tired of being the poster child for interracial harmony. Like most other couples, Mir and White have their arguments—such as a Ramadan tiff about where to eat.

There are smaller problems, as well: Mir misses the fact that she cannot share her Urdu literary heritage with White. He, on the other hand, gets ornery when dealing with the typical demands and pressures that come bundled with desi relationships. And that’s a sentiment echoed by Nicole Markley Bagchi.

The Ohio high school teacher met husband Gautam Bagchi through her brother. And while race wasn’t a big deal, the concept of family was: “His family is huge. Any adult who happens to be a friend is revered as an aunt or uncle who requires a visit whenever he goes within 100 miles of that person’s house,” jokes Nicole. “My family is simply not that close.” And as Sabeena Shah explains, in Asian cultures, marriage is between families. That need to respect elders’ requests led her and Hubbard to have an additional church ceremony for his grandparents’ sake, almost a year after their nikah.

While interracial marriages among desis are often fraught with unique problems, they don’t seem to be much different from most relationships in general. And then, there are always the perks of being in a blended marriage. “It’s good for me to see the comfort and love a truly loving, accepting family like Gautam’s can provide,” says Bagchi. “They are more affectionate and loving toward me than my own extended family in many cases, and I know when we have children they will grow up with a solid understanding of what family is.”

1. June 18, 2007, 11:52 am M. Bandari

   Nice article. One key aspect of an inter-racial marriage is for the husband and wife to master a technique to handle social pressures, (which are enormous) in such a manner that it does not create a dent in the marital bliss.
2. June 20, 2007, 10:11 am Francis C. Assisi

   For pictures of the descendants of the earliest Desi Americans, see my article in this month’s issue of SPAN from the US Embassy in Delhi.

   Url: http://usembassy.state.gov/posts/in1/wwwfspmayjune076.pdf
3. June 22, 2007, 3:26 pm Nirmala

   thanks for this article. i’ll be marrying a white man myself in september, and though our families are super-supportive, i’ve definitely felt a lot of opposition from my larger south asian community. i think it’s interesting how your article noted that certain similarities between cultures that surpass race and ehtnicity can make parents more accepting of the match. i think that’s definitely true, but my match is definitely one that resounds on a deep individual level. hopefully, all families (desi and non-desi) will get to a point when they can accept a match not just for cultural similarities, but also for the differences.

   i also appreciated the subtle points the article made about how racism can affect one’s relationship. i still find it really sad when so many south asian parents i know openly make racist comments about african americans, and how interracial relationships with african americans are seen as abominable in way that those with whites are not.
4. June 24, 2007, 8:24 pm K Carter

   I agree totally with the previous post. I am married to a wonderful man who has african american descent. My parents finally accepted our marriage after a couple of years but still they are so afraid of the social acceptance of the desi. They are still hiding us as a couple to some of the families. I want to go and visit one day and take my kids to the land of our ancesters but there is one part of me that does not know if this is a good idea. Well time will tell…
5. July 12, 2007, 4:52 pm Irving

   Great article Love is indeed colorless.

   Ya Haqq!
6. August 8, 2007, 11:48 pm Salacious Samosa

   I loved this article. Well done. You have generated so much awareness, for something that needs to be spoken up about. It can be so tough for mixed couples, and your articles just make the struggle a little easier.

   Thank-you!
   S
7. August 29, 2007, 7:49 pm Bliss

   Well written article! I appreciate how the author allowed the couples’ anecdotes and the facts to speak for themselves. As an African American woman in an LTR with an Indian man, we both are extremely aware of the potential challenges we could face if we were to marry (particularly from our families). It definitely makes us think twice about what that means for our future. together I must say I admire those couples who are able to let their love bravely lead them forward.
8. September 6, 2007, 3:07 pm Dahlia

   Hi, I have a question for anyone who’d like to chime in. I’m from a half jewish/half norwegian background and recently got engaged to a Muslim South Asian Man. Although he is not practising, his parents asked us to sign the Nikah before moving in together. This despite the fact that we’re not planning to marry for a couple of years (I’m still in school). I went ahead with it thinking that it was, as my fiancee put it, an “engagement ceremony” indicating our intent to marry. But all I read is that the Nikah is a marriage ceremony. Help! In this hybrid relationship what were we doing by separating the Nikah from the “bigger” wedding ceremony. Am I married?

   Thanks.
9. September 6, 2007, 5:38 pm JG

   I am Indian and my boyfriend is Mexican and when I broke the news to my parents all hell broke loose!! They want me to dump him and find a “nice Indian boy” who is an “engineer or doctor.” I am so sick of the superficiality Indian people assign to love and marriage. My boyfriend and I have SO MUCH in common and we are so happy together…it will be 3 years in December since we got together…but all of that doesn’t matter. What matters, from my parent’s point of view, is what the community will say or think or what other family members will say…I will have totally embarrassed them and ruined their reputation and of course they are threatening to disown me. I admit, all of this is VERY stressful and sometimes I second guess what I am doing…not that I second guess my relationship but what my parents are saying about how it will effect them. The guilt is endless sometimes, and I have so many emotionally breakdowns that I don’t how I am going to go through with this…but at the end of the day I have such an awesome person in my life that I don’t know what I would without him. It has been a bottomless pit of emotions…I am very close to my family and have found some who I want to share the rest of my life with, if only my parents can see the type of person he is…see him as I see him. By “American” standards our parents would love us…both of us are educated and in good careers but according to my family I am a complete failure if I marry him. Is it difficult? Of course! Is it worth it? Hell yeah!! To find someone that loves and respects you is hard to come by these days. Of course sometimes the things you want most in life are the ones worth fighting for and are usually the most difficult to achieve.
10. September 12, 2007, 8:34 pm Vishesh Sharma

    I would like to meet some mixed couple in NY. Please email me pics & info if you would like to meet up and give us an interview for our show.

    vsharma@iatv.tv

    Thank You,
    Vishesh Sharma
11. October 14, 2007, 1:39 pm GSH

    Hi- Great article–much needed!!

    I am desi and my girlfriend is Chinese. Has anyone come across anything like an online community or may a blog etc for communication and support among Indian-Chinese couples? Thanks,

    G
12. October 17, 2007, 5:24 pm IZK

    Message for G
    I am in a similar relationship to you G. I am a muslim south asian woman and in a long term relationship with my chinese boyfriend. He is the most amazing person, who knows and understands me better than i understand myself. He loves me so completly and i do too and we really feel like we are soulmates as cliched as that sounds. But the sad situation is that he will never be accepted by my family under any circumstances, so the burden of choice is on my shoulders….do i pick the love of my life or my family. Does anyone have any experiences of being in this situation?I feel so happy to be in love but at the same time so sad over the decision i will have to make…it breaks my heart….when will the world change?when will people be seen as people?

    IZK
13. October 19, 2007, 1:21 am paul holland

    “when the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power”

    - only then will the world know peace

    -Jimi Hendrix, 1970
14. October 21, 2007, 4:08 pm RB

    Thank you for this article; it gave me hope! I am a white American woman in a serious relationship with an Indian man. Even though I have lived for many years in South Asia, there are still a lot things to learn about our respective cultures. However, one of the things that really attracted to my boyfriend is his family values, strong spirtuality and his pride in his culture. As so many people have pointed out, there is still a long way to go in terms of people’s acceptance. Even here in the U.S., other South Asian people stare at us. We would like to move back to India someday and it worries me if people there will be able to accept/respect me.
15. October 25, 2007, 6:59 pm Ash

    This is a very interesting article and I can relate to it because I am in a similar “mixed” relationship. I wanted to also give my two-cents to those who are contemplating breaking the news to their parents or worrying about the future – Think Hard and Rational! It is very difficult to adjust in families when they are both against the marriage and are not living in the same cities. When families cannot interact with each other before the marriage and when you do not get enough time to experience the other culture first hand before the marriage, it will come as a bitter surprise after the marriage. Everything in my relationship was fine and I loved my boyfriend then and husband now so very much! That was past and today is reality. I ended up hurting my family thinking I am doing the right thing but why did I forget that my parents knew me the best? If you have spent enough time with each other before the marriage and brought your families closer then yes… go ahead but if you think everything will change after marriage trust me it will but only going down-hill. First years or marriage are hard on the couple because the two are beginning to understand each other from a different dimension and once you add the imbalance of family … equilibrium is impossible to achieve.
16. November 4, 2007, 10:40 am 13

    I thought this article was good. But I was a bit disappointed that you did not display pictures of a desi female with a black man or vice versa as I am in a realtionship with a black man.And why just with asian or white men with desi women or vice versa ??? Because its just shows what a big sterotype is with black people and it is very sad and heart-breaking.. I think its unfortunate that such sterotypes exist in this world, but of course that is reality. It is difficult when desi parents just don’t get it….what makes desi immigrants any better than black people….its not like black people were given equal rights and opportunity as the whites in the US. Desi’s came as immigrants….not as slaves….but are of a different race…..one is brown and one is black…..
    I think people, especially desi society make a big deal when it can be not a big deal….they just need to open their eyes and to stop worrying what society/community will say and see one’s happiness I see both sides of the picture…everyones situation is different…..
    Its just sad.
17. November 26, 2007, 8:22 pm Sara

    This message is for Dahlia…

    Dahlia, it’s very common for South Asians, specifically Pakistanis, to do what your in-laws have done. What you have done, the nikkah, is Islamically recognized as a marriage. However, in our culture, there is another thing, called “rukhsati”..that’s hwen the girl leaves her home and goes to her new home, i.e., when the couple begins to live together. A couple can be married Islamically, but not living together, so the families will treat it as if they are engaged. The reason its also known as an “engagement” period is b/c in Islam, there is no such thing as an engagement, in the sense that a couple can freely talk and meet without having any legal binding. So, when parents realize that their child is serious abt their gf/bf, but not necessarily ready to take on the responsibilities of living together, they want to “legalize” it as soon as they can, so they can know each other better in a legal way. So, technically (according to Islam) you may be married, which means you have certain rights legally and religiously, even though you’re not ready to live together yet. I hope this clears it up…..
18. December 3, 2007, 12:20 am Michael

    I am a white guy in a relationship with a pakistani girl. We get along so great and i love her more then anything in the world.
    I have fought my parents for her and they do like her the reason being when i told them why they couldn’t belive how much i felt about her. However i have this problem her father, sister and brother are not accepting of us and tell her that it will never work out because my girlfriends family has said that it can’t work. She is scared to be dishoned. Her parents don’t want to meet me I am well off and well educated and treat her very well better then her sister who had an arranged marriage is treated by her husband.
    Since her parents are trying to hook her up with someone in pakistan we live in canada i know these things happen in indian families. This girl i want to marry!Should i introduce myself to her parents even though they don’t want to see me I reallly want to meet them and would love to be a part of their family. I haven’t met them yet or her family because they don’t want to see me.
    i am a little stumped as to what i can do, she is caught in the middle and doesn’t want to have her parents disown her we have discussed breaking up but i don’t want it she knows it. She doesn’t want it either but doesn’t know how to deal with her parents who are not understanding.

    Can i get some advice or insight how i can handle this.
    Thanks.
    Michael
19. December 17, 2007, 9:55 pm SMughal

    I’m an African American woman married to a Pakistani man. We have been married for alomst 5 years now. At first I was very afraid to meet his parents, but he assured me that they were accepting and loving. When I fianlly met them, it was true, I felt very comfortable and welcomed by them. He had no problems with my family either and I knew he wouldn’t. As for the stares, we get them occasionally, but that doen’t bother us in the least. It’s not as serious as people make it seem. Though i rarely find this kind of union, I love our relationship. I can think of no words to describe how much I love my husband and his race has nothing to do with that. i love him for the person he is. God made us all and I find it extremely difficult to understand how one can think he/she is better than another based on race, religion, nationality, etc. I guess it’s not for me to understand. I see people as people and not what color they are. People here seem to be on the same page as me or else maybe you couldn’t feel love for anyone of a different race. I’m just saying how I feel. This world will never be perfect because there are still too many people who don’t know or believe that God made us all and we are all equals.
20. January 8, 2008, 12:24 pm Lia

    For Alex and Maneka:

    Your story is a great inspiration to me. I am in a similar situation and would like to contact you personally if possible for advice or insight.

    Thank you.
    Lia

    anf516@gmail.com
21. January 18, 2008, 5:03 pm roger dodger

    well to be honest we know the truth, the only way to get ahead in this world is to marry someone outside your race. have you seen a power couple of indian origin in the states of the same indian background not yet. the truth of the matter is that these people knew there careers would get ahead and they also looked down on the own sex counterparts. i think it is a shame that we can’t be happy to marry our own kind and at the same time not be disadvantaged careerwise and socially wise. i am sure if you really look at the matter you get ahead by marrying white when most of corporate culture is dominated by their kind. hell the fobs make it worse careerwise. they ante up the stakes at work and the indo americans start look like they were spoon fed all their lives. well i guess this is the conquer and divide. if you marry indian expect your future generations to end up in the ghetto. if you marry white expect your kids to marry another white person. did they mention anything about the dissolution of our religous heritage by marrying outside. of course oh yeah i remember you probably have great disdain as an indian with that as well.
22. February 8, 2008, 10:19 pm CMP

    I am a white woman and I love my Desi man! Thank you so much for this article.
23. February 11, 2008, 3:33 pm Raj

    About twenty five year ago, at a campus of a midwestern university, a Hindu light skinned-dark skinned Indian couple from Singapore was sitting in the mall during lunch hour. The woman, a Sindi looked like an American white woman with dark hair and her husband, a dark skinned Tamil almost looked African American. A preacher who was as usual giving his sermon in the mall that summer day in 1984. pointed to them and said that God looked down on such marriages. A few days later they started getting death threats and people were yelling insults at them on the street thinking they were a black-white couple. Their daughter was beaten up once. They left the US never to return again. A lot of things have changed since that time. But, some areas of the country dont change. If you are an Asian-white couple in places like Littleton, Colorado, you will have problems.
24. February 21, 2008, 10:57 am Manish

    Interesting feature in the pictures..lighter the Indian he or she is married to a white. Darker the Indian, he or she is married to Chinese or other non-whites.
25. March 3, 2008, 12:33 pm Priya Ramachandran

    Hello all and thanks for your feedback. It was great to read about your individual takes on inter-racial relationships. To clarify something commenter 13 raised - the desi-African American couple interviewed for the story didn’t respond to our requests for photographs. It wasn’t an intentional oversight.
26. March 10, 2008, 2:19 pm Savia Rajagopal

    Hi Priya

    This made such a fabulous read. Kudos for presenting such a sensitive issue so well. I landed here by mistake but you can be sure I’ll be back here by choice
    I’m a fellow journalist from India, now settled in Canada. I’d like to get in touch. Do visit my website for contact info.

    Cheers
    Savia
27. March 28, 2008, 3:03 pm R. Marie

    It was a delight to read this article. I am an African American woman in a committed relationship with a Pakistani-Indian man so it was very interesting to learn that among Asians, East Indian men are more likely to marry a black woman. The media portrays something a lot different…so that fact was quite surprising.