Just outta curiosity. Is it only with Latina and Asian women that you question White guys’ intentions? And is it only White guys or would a Latino man with an Asian woman also raise your suspicions?
Here is the response I wanted to give:
Oso,
I think often times, “white” men fetish-ize Asian and Latina women. There are those who date Asian or Latina women out of the fetish fantasy. There are those who date them in hopes of submissiveness. And then there are the white-peace corps sydrome* men who date minority women because while they can’t be “brown and down” they can say their partner is. I see a lot of this last type of person involved in community organizations and many times have learned a different language in order to try and show they are part of the community.
I think minority men also attempt to use white women as trophies and/or to get into a (majority) community that keeps them out.
This flows in terms of gender. It isn’t only men doing it. I once heard a white woman (who I work with) during a meeting say “I can be Latina, brown babies came out of me.” I’ve meet minority women who will only date white men. And of course White women who date minority men because it is taboo, it is a forbidden fruit.
To answer your second question about do I only get suspicious with White guys the answer is no. For example I think some black guys like Latinas because they are lighter skinned and I think some Latinos date Asian women because of a similar festishization that white men have. However, if I saw a Latino married to an Asian woman I wouldn’t question it. A white man married to an Asian woman I would still question.
[*Peace Corps Syndrome upper-middle class, suburban Whites feeling they are destined to save all the poor brown people of the world" or this kind of person]
Elena, I’d really like to ask a question: Does the suspicion of white people go away when interracial dating levels reflect the population percentages? Or will you always be suspicious? I know that in some asian churches, the college youth groups caution the asian freshmen girls to be on the lookout for “predatory” white guys that join up in the church, mainly because they’re looking for a submissive, demure woman to date, and they figure that a good christian asian girl will fit the bill perfectly. I’d never thought that people actually had to actively guard against this kind of behaviour, since people were always getting on my case for being a reverse racist, but I guess it’s good to know that there’s some awareness about it.
Oooooh, Asian women. I once told my Asian dude friend that I was going to marry me a Chinita. He said, “uh, good luck dude. You’ll have more luck doing Trig.” However – he said it is more likely to see an Asian dude with a Chicanita.
My thoughts are brewing …
To start with – at least from my experience – I would not advise anyone looking for submissiveness to data a Latina.
I dunno … more thoughts will come later I’m sure. I might ask someone else to comment on this.
I think it’s good that you are so aware of what an influence ethnicity is in society and in our personal lives. But I feel sorry for you that you are not also able to cover that awareness at times by returning to the color-blindness we are all born with. And I feel sorry for myself that I will always have to defend why I love the person I do.
Sunwoo,
I am not sure I understand your question. Are you asking if some place like Hawaii I wouldn’t question “interracial dating”. I have no idea. And I hate the term inter-racial it seems so subhuman. I hate it when people call me that.
DT, I think we just need to find you a lady-friend. ;-)
Oso,
I hope you know that I truely believe you love your partner (and I am sure at the same time it doesn’t really matter what I think). You mentioned something that has inspired another blog entry…coming soon, maybe today.
I find Elenamary’s answer sad… someone who stereotypes people by narrowly by race…. actually even more by color than by race which in some ways is more small minded. While some of those stereotypes are certainly true, it is a hostile and suspicious view of the word that if carried through to it’s logical conclusion would not only serve to promote racism (basically the only relationship without some sort of weird imbalance is between people of the same race… and I suppose the same economic status as well). There is much ignorance Elenamary’s statement. How can you group Asians (almost 1/2 the people on earth) or Latinos (spanning 20 countries)? Anyone who knows anything about Koreans or Mexicans or Cubans would never classify them as submissive.
My mother was Irish and poor my father Mexican and middle class. In our family there are Swedish/Mexican, Indian/Mexicans and Lebanese/Mexicans. We come in a range of colors from white skinned to dark black. In fact to be Mexican generally implies you are mixed. Mestizo.
I was one of the light skinned ones, but growing up in small town Texas I experienced more violent racism than my dark skinned cousins in Mexico. My wife is ethnically Korean, and yet she grew up in the ghetto in Philadelphia and feels more affinity to hip hop culture than Korean culture.
Koreans of my wife’s parents generation are often wary of non-Koreans and when her mom found out about her relationship with a non-Korean it was rejected outright. When her family found I was Mexican they warned her darkly that “Mexicans beat their women”. Now after 3 years they want all the kids to “find a good Mexican boy.”
My wife and I fell for each other over a dinner date in 1999 for so many reasons: we both love the arts, we both have experienced deep tragedy, we both have survived childhoods in rough parts of the world, we are the children of immigrant parents, etc. After first our dinner she called her sister and said she met the person she was going to marry. And now we have a son who is a bit of all of us. So to reduce that to a white guy fetishizing an Asian woman or an Asian woman fetishizing a white guy is deeply offensive, yet it happens all the time and from all sides and is sad. We see it in looks and words and in deeds often from the most “liberal” of people.
Happily the world is changing. In our old Silverlake neighborhood in LA virtually every couple on the street was some strange and wonderful mix. A Bangladeshi man with his German wife. A Kenyan woman with her Japanese husband. A pair of Korean lesbians, a Mexican/Japanese couple, and a man from Alabama with a woman from Boston (in some ways the most mismatched couple in the bunch) . Before we moved away we had a big barbecue and watched the all the kids playing in yard in the waning light. My wife was pregnant and beautiful all the couples were telling the stories of how they met. We were drinking wine and telling stories late into the night. Laughs all around. You know not once did someone mention white or brown or black, they were just a bunch of people in love
To Raul,while I agree with your comment,the world is not ideal nor is ls it less than ideal for women versus men.
Did you ever notice that when women marry out of their race or ethnic group that it is usually the men of that sam e group that don’t seem to like it much-i.e. “our women?”
Back to the case in point,a lot of men do fetishize minority women-ever check out the speciality “dating/marriage clubs” or for others more so inclined,the “speciality porn” etc.
Come on ,now,it’s out there and it does happen a lot.As a even bigger mix of Mexican,Apache,French English,Irish,Spanish,Italian,German and Middle eastern to just even begin,my experince with dating white men has been that unfortunately as Elenamary has pointed out and My dad is White and he did marry mom for those reasons as she put-today he is married to another foreign woman who is submissive as he desires;my mom is Mexican and Dad is White American,I’m an olive skinned “mutt” that is a gothic Elvira-yes,I’m an adult of 36 years.
True,it is unfair to say everyone is like that because there are a few who are not,but in all fairness there are still a lot who do whether they are aware of it or not.
Stereotypes usually start out witha small grain of truth but get blown out of proportion by peoples’ biases.
And the world has changed enough yet Raul,good luck to you and your family.I’m looking forward for everybody not just you,and remember you do carry your own biases as well-the only way to begin to change the world is honest,open dialogue with education without the subversive so-called sexual fantasies.Education,willingly,is the beginning.
To Raul,while I agree with your comment,the world is not ideal nor is ls it less than ideal for women versus men.
Did you ever notice that when women marry out of their race or ethnic group that it is usually the men of that sam e group that don’t seem to like it much-i.e. “our women?”
Back to the case in point,a lot of men do fetishize minority women-ever check out the speciality “dating/marriage clubs” or for others more so inclined,the “speciality porn” etc.It’s happened to me a lot,even in “liberal” California.
Come on ,now,it’s out there and it does happen a lot.As a even bigger mix of Mexican,Apache,French English,Irish,Spanish,Italian,German and Middle eastern to just even begin,my experince with dating white men has been that unfortunately as Elenamary has pointed out. My dad is White and he did marry mom for those reasons as she put-today he is married to another foreign woman who is submissive as he desires;my mom is Mexican and Dad is White American,I’m an olive skinned “mutt” that is a gothic Elvira-yes,I’m an adult of 36 years.
True,it is unfair to say everyone is like that because there are a few who are not,but in all fairness there are still a lot who do whether they are aware of it or not.
Stereotypes usually start out witha small grain of truth but get blown out of proportion by peoples’ biases.
And the world has not changed enough yet Raul,good luck to you and your family.I’m looking forward for everybody not just you,and remember you do carry your own biases as well-the only way to begin to change the world is honest,open dialogue with education without the subversive so-called sexual fantasies.Education,willingly,is the beginning.
PS Elenamary,I do agree with you,I hope it gets better out there;I’m still trying.Good luck to you girl!