So, It's Loving Day. . .
It's the 46th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, which ruled anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.
Most of the (U.S.) history I learned in school felt remote -- it was all stories of Great White Men doing Important Things, decades and centuries ago and mostly three thousand miles away from where I was growing up. But there were historical moments that I did connect to, that felt like *mine*, and Loving v. Virginia was one of them.
As I've mentioned before, I am the product of an interracial marriage -- my father is white (I'm pretty sure Italian always counted as white under these sort of laws) and my mother is Japanese. As I've also mentioned before, I'm currently in an interracial relationship -- my partner is black. Now, because I *was* growing up on the west coast, the actual ruling in Loving v. Virginia didn't directly shape my life. Hawai'i, where my parents met and married, never had an anti-miscegenation law, and California, where my parents moved after their marriage, struck down its anti-miscegenation law (which included a ban on white/Asian marriages) in 1948, three years before they were born. The very last anti-miscegenation law on the books in the U.S. (Alabama's, which prohibited only white/black unions) was officially repealed in November 2000, two years before I got together with my current partner. But still, as I *do* identify as an American, and so Loving v. Virginia, decided just two years before my parents met, was always one of those moments that felt simultaneously like a victory and a tragedy. (The tragedy being that it was decided a mere two years before my parents met.)
However, in thinking about Loving v. Virginia today, it occurred to me that this is another place where my erroneous tendency to view myself as white is tripping me up. Because, you see, almost all of the anti-miscegenation laws applied specifically to white/non-white unions, for varying definitions of non-white. That was, in fact, a significant component of the court's decision; anti-miscegenation laws had been upheld, in the past, as not violating the 14th Amendment because both whites and non-whites were punished equally under them; then in Loving v. Virginia the court declared that the law did in fact violate the 14th Amendment because "[t]he fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy." (Emphasis mine.)
So while my parents' marriage certainly would have been a violation of many states' anti-miscegenation laws had they gotten married earlier, my own relationship with my partner. . . wouldn't have, quite. There were a few states that prohibited any interracial relationship -- Arizona was one, and in 1942 its high court took the law to its logical conclusion and ruled that interracial people were legally unable to marry anyone -- but for the most part, my relationship with my partner would have been. . . invisible, to the law. Irrelevant.
Because I'm not white.
Now, as I've also mentioned before, I *look* mostly white, so my partner and I are still subject to the societal prejudice against our relationship. I've never experienced it myself, thankfully, but my mother was paranoid on our behalf when our relationship was new and we engaged in PDA. And if you believe that it doesn't exist any longer, take a gander at the response to an adorable Cheerios commercial featuring a mixed-race family. I attribute my lack of negative experiences to (1) luck, (2) living in Los Angeles, and (3) looking just enough maybe-not-white that the people around me often assume I'm Latina (particularly when I'm surrounded by non-white people), rather than the world actually being some sort of post-racial utopia.
But ultimately, my current relationship *isn't* white/black, it's hapa/black. And realizing that today was. . . weird.
Most of the (U.S.) history I learned in school felt remote -- it was all stories of Great White Men doing Important Things, decades and centuries ago and mostly three thousand miles away from where I was growing up. But there were historical moments that I did connect to, that felt like *mine*, and Loving v. Virginia was one of them.
As I've mentioned before, I am the product of an interracial marriage -- my father is white (I'm pretty sure Italian always counted as white under these sort of laws) and my mother is Japanese. As I've also mentioned before, I'm currently in an interracial relationship -- my partner is black. Now, because I *was* growing up on the west coast, the actual ruling in Loving v. Virginia didn't directly shape my life. Hawai'i, where my parents met and married, never had an anti-miscegenation law, and California, where my parents moved after their marriage, struck down its anti-miscegenation law (which included a ban on white/Asian marriages) in 1948, three years before they were born. The very last anti-miscegenation law on the books in the U.S. (Alabama's, which prohibited only white/black unions) was officially repealed in November 2000, two years before I got together with my current partner. But still, as I *do* identify as an American, and so Loving v. Virginia, decided just two years before my parents met, was always one of those moments that felt simultaneously like a victory and a tragedy. (The tragedy being that it was decided a mere two years before my parents met.)
However, in thinking about Loving v. Virginia today, it occurred to me that this is another place where my erroneous tendency to view myself as white is tripping me up. Because, you see, almost all of the anti-miscegenation laws applied specifically to white/non-white unions, for varying definitions of non-white. That was, in fact, a significant component of the court's decision; anti-miscegenation laws had been upheld, in the past, as not violating the 14th Amendment because both whites and non-whites were punished equally under them; then in Loving v. Virginia the court declared that the law did in fact violate the 14th Amendment because "[t]he fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy." (Emphasis mine.)
So while my parents' marriage certainly would have been a violation of many states' anti-miscegenation laws had they gotten married earlier, my own relationship with my partner. . . wouldn't have, quite. There were a few states that prohibited any interracial relationship -- Arizona was one, and in 1942 its high court took the law to its logical conclusion and ruled that interracial people were legally unable to marry anyone -- but for the most part, my relationship with my partner would have been. . . invisible, to the law. Irrelevant.
Because I'm not white.
Now, as I've also mentioned before, I *look* mostly white, so my partner and I are still subject to the societal prejudice against our relationship. I've never experienced it myself, thankfully, but my mother was paranoid on our behalf when our relationship was new and we engaged in PDA. And if you believe that it doesn't exist any longer, take a gander at the response to an adorable Cheerios commercial featuring a mixed-race family. I attribute my lack of negative experiences to (1) luck, (2) living in Los Angeles, and (3) looking just enough maybe-not-white that the people around me often assume I'm Latina (particularly when I'm surrounded by non-white people), rather than the world actually being some sort of post-racial utopia.
But ultimately, my current relationship *isn't* white/black, it's hapa/black. And realizing that today was. . . weird.