The Complexities of Interracial Romance

In this day and age, particularly in the West, it’s not at all unusual to see couples of mixed race. Regardless of whether or not you approve of interracial or inter-cultural marriage, it’s common and widely accepted. However, peoples’ understanding of these relationships is generally driven by cultural stereotypes, which is often harmful when they decide to engage in one, themselves. As a white American who has been married to a Chinese woman for nearly three years, I felt I would try to help dispel the myth of the “submissive Asian woman.” Though I met my wife through very conventional circumstances (she was attending University here in the States and we met through a mutual friend), I often find myself confronted by the ignorant social stereotype of the “mail order bride” that seems so popular in America. It isn’t overtly racist, though it does serve to belittle both partners. One is cast as a socially inept loser who finds themselves so lacking for attention in their home territory that they’re forced to search elsewhere for companionship. The other is then seen as a desperate soul seeking to escape poverty or other difficult circumstances, settling for an under socialized loser in a wealthier country in hopes of improving their quality of life. While this situation is certainly not unusual, it is not the measure by which people should judge all intercultural relationships. In point of fact, in order for relationships like these to be successful long-term, I would suggest to the reader that these couples actually need to love each other more than those hailing from the same cultural background.

Being in a serious romantic relationship or marriage with someone who doesn’t share a similar cultural background and/or mother tongue can be alternately rewarding and intensely frustrating…and while I only have experience with marriage to someone from Asia, I’m sure this statement can be made of all intercultural/interracial unions. Though I probably had more knowledge of China than most American men would be able to claim at the time I met my future wife, I am still a product of the country and culture where I was raised. As such, I will admit that I also had a certain stereotype of women from Asian countries knocking around in my head, before she and I began dating. Any preconceptions I might have had were quickly dispelled, however, after dating and meeting her friends. Though the romantic view of many men in the West is that Asian women (Chinese and Japanese in particular) are born of a culture that casts women in a subservient role, it is an antiquated view that should have died decades ago…but somehow lives on. Asian women often have stronger personalities than Western women and they expect that their men will push themselves to do better, in every aspect of their life. One of the first cultural misunderstandings an American man would be likely to encounter is the notion that Asian women are money-grubbing gold diggers.