Interracial

Hi! I was pretty happy to come across your site, quite by accident. It’s great to hear
stories that are similar to my own experiences. I’m an Asian-Indian woman, doing a PhD
in Toronto. I’m currently 25. I’ve been dating a Japanese man, 31, for about two and
a half years. He’s nisei - born and raised in Canada. His parents were interned in
work-camps in Canada during the second-world war for being Japanese.

I don’t know if the attitudes are getting better or worse. In Vancouver, where I’m
originally from, there’s a lot of racism brewing towards Asian people, as there was
a huge immigration movement from Hong Kong to Vancouver because of the 1997 handover.
There’s a polarization of whites and Chinese, and you can feel the tension. People think
that my boyfriend is Chinese, so he gets dirty looks from Chinese people and Asian-indian
men. We are constantly stared at, a lot of times out of curiousity. We’re a pretty
unusual combo. It used to be really unnerving to be stared at _all the time_, but now
we joke about it and have fun with it (ie. kissing each other while people are staring).
Our parents and family are very open to our relationship and talk about what our kids
would look like. I think the mix would be very appealing.

I’m not going to wax idealistically about interracial dating or marriages, because I know from
personal experience that they also have the potential to cause grief - relationships are
hard enough as it is. I dated a white guy for 5 years, and it turned into a disaster
precisely because of the cultural difference and worldviews on things like family,
spirituality, historical experience, and so on. In all honesty, if we had had better
communication and the ability to compromise and celbrate difference instead of
trying to ‘win’, things may have worked out. My relationship now is completely opposite -
we talk everything to death and give a lot. We’re totally willing to learn about one
another (food, dress, dance, hi story, etc. etc.) and make each other know that we
identify the other as belonging to a different culture instead of pretending that we’re
all the same. Belonging to two non-dominant cultures in North America, we make sure to
go the extra mile to celebrate what each other is. I wear sarees to formal events like
weddings with him completely proud on my arm, and let him explain to people what
my nose-ring means.

I look forward to spending a life with him.

But I still haven’t gotten used to all of the stares…

I welcome any email from people with similar experiences.

Devina