On Cross-Cultural Relationships

My mother was told to never date an Italian.  Being that she lived in Ohio her entire life, my grandmother was clearly referring to Italian-Americans, so I don't know how broadly applicable this advice was supposed to be.  But, she told my mother, Italians beat their wives.

I don't know where my grandmother got this into her head.  But there it was - rolling around in her upstairs, a piece of advice that my mother heard regularly.

My great-grandmother told my father to never marry a Catholic.  I don't actually know why.  But Catholics were out.

Now, my mother did not marry an Italian and my father did not marry a Catholic, but given their dating histories, neither of them listened to the bigotry that got passed down.

I love my great-grandmother and my grandmother - I was lucky to know both - but there's no other word for their advice. It was bigotry.  Inherited bigotry that they hoped would continue to be inherited.

Thankfully, though, my parents stopped that cycle.* I never got advice to not date someone because of their color, race or religion.  Of course, my parents had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they told me love knows no boundaries; when they told me they'd love me and whoever I brought home "no matter what."

*Special note to TR: I am so lucky that my parents let me be friends with Catholic Italians!

I wonder how many times they have regretted their open-mindedness. 

I know the first time I brought a black boyfriend home, my parents felt the need to tell me that we might not be accepted by society.  I said f--- society.  And then promptly apologized to my mother for using the f-word. My parents said nothing more.

Then there was the time I told them I was in love with someone who lived halfway around the world. Literally, half-way around the world.  My mother was afraid she would never see her grandchildren. I had to promise that wouldn't be true. My father offered to buy my plane ticket to see if it could work.  

That was not how I had imagined that scenario would play out. It's probably not how they imagined I'd live my life.

Then there was the time my mother knew I had feelings for a guy from a country the US is not friendly with. A country I cannot visit safely. A country I won't even identify publicly so as to keep the guy(s) [yes, there ended up being more than one] feeling safe and secure.

I hadn't told her about the guy.  I didn't want to cause my parents unnecessary anxiety and decided they'd hear about it if turned into something serious.  But, my mom knew - the way moms know things they aren't supposed to. In the way mothers do, she would prod in a way that was seemingly not prodding, asking about this guy and then asking about my dating life. Never in the same sentence, but close enough to each other that I knew she knew.  I'm sure she was always slightly hoping I would put the kabash on any insinuation of a relationship.  When I finally did, it was after the relationship was over. 

I've been thinking about my parents' approach to life and love a lot this week.  First, I read this piece by a woman living in Djibouti, thanking her parents for never asking her and her husband not to lead the life they feel called to. (If you're an expat feeling at all homesick, don't read this. Says the girl who sat crying in an airport coffee shop.)

I don't have grandkids for my parents yet, but I could've written it all the same. I know they didn't always want me to leave but they never stopped me from going. At times, they even helped push me out the door when I needed it.

They've been self-sacrificing in their love.

I get a small taste of the pain that must mean each time I leave my nephew and niece.  It is horrible to realize that I can't see them all the time. Just the thought of how long it will be until my next visit is enough to make me tear up.  I feel sick when I realize my nephew may outgrow our favorite game before my next visit.  Or that by then he won't be willing to indulge a thousand versions of "Are you a giraffe?"  (For those wondering, this is where my sister and I ask "Are you a ---" just to hear my nephew go, "No, Aunt Tawa, I am not a --- I'm [insert his name]."  Replaying those games in my head simultaneously makes me laugh out loud (I cannot tell you how many people I've told those stories to this week), and then want to board the first plane out of Heathrow.

I can't imagine what it will be like when they aren't waiting for my return; when it's my brother, sister-in-law and I who watch them leave, pack up for college, head out on their own, go around the world unprotected...

Ugh. 

But that's what my parents do all the time.  Their life is a constant series of "goodbye daughters!" followed by months of emails about the cats and a welcome home sign when we're ready to return.

And if this wasn't enough for me to want to catch the next plane home just to hug my parents one more time, these past few weeks I have had the heartbreak of another relationship ending before it was fully realized because his parents won't accept someone from a different background.

This happens when your life is full of cross-cultural relationships.  When you're taught to love without boundaries, you inevitably fall in love like that.  

The first time this happened, it broke my heart. I didn't recover for a few years - if I ever have.

I'll call him Q because I can't think of a single guy I know whose name starts with that letter.  

At the time, Q was only the second man I had loved. After years of being told I needed to be more submissive, I was too opinionated, too loud, too picky, too everything, he accepted me as I was. I fell for him before I even realized what had happened.

It wasn't just that he accepted me.  He was kind and funny and sweet.  He was smart and driven.  We could talk for hours or sit next to each other and not talk at all. It was the most comfortable I had ever felt in a relationship - perhaps the most comfortable I had ever been in my own skin. 

I remember waking up every day for a week thinking, "I love this man," and then immediately thinking, "No... no, you cannot love Q... it hasn't been long enough." I'd had relationships that lasted for years that didn't feel as right as this one did within a month.  

The day I finally told him I loved him, he told me he loved me, too.  Then he broke up with me.

His parents could never accept me, he explained, and he could never hurt them in this way. Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story romanticize this reality. They also teach young American girls that true love is more important than social identity - and that failing to realize this can have dire consequences.

Unfortunately, those dire consequences remain a reality in some cultures, and no matter how much I tried to get him to change his mind, he couldn't. Or wouldn't.

I thought it was an excuse. I thought he was a coward. I thought he should try. I thought his parents would eventually learn to love me. I thought the cultural norms were outdated and unrealistic and inappropriate. I thought I was worth it. 

I cried. I screamed. I was sarcastic. And quiet. I was rationale. I listened. And ultimately, I 'lawyered' him.

I finally convinced Q to try it out by telling one of our friends. Well, one of his friends who liked me just fine when he thought I was a random friend. Back when our relationship was secretive, I had asked this friend how his parents would react if he brought a white girl home.  "Oh, it would be fine; they wouldn't care of course."  "Would you be willing to tell them - if you fell in love with a white woman?"  "Of course... it wouldn't be a problem.  Not a problem at all."

I thought I had won this argument - without question, without debate.

When Q told him, though, the friend replied, "this isn't how things are done." He had switched to a language I didn't speak.

I got the translation, though, and was shocked.  This was a man raising his children in England.  A man my age.  "What happens if your son comes home with a white girlfriend?" I asked.  His son was about 8 and cute as a button.  There will be many a woman falling over this kid someday.  "That won't happen.  And if it does, I'll pack the entire family up and take them back."

I accepted the inevitable and the relationship ended.

I am sorry, Q, that I'm posting on this so publicly right now, but it's been long enough and few enough people knew about it that I'm not divulging anything that will give away your identity.

We remain friends, though we needed time and space apart before that could be a real thing.  He continues to hold an important place in my heart, and he remains my last, significant, in-person relationship.

Q scarred.

He knows this, so it's not like if he's reading this and learning something new. For a long time, I thought I would never find love again.  It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime moment.  In some ways, it still does.

I moved on.  I've dated.  At times, I've probably dated too much. But the few times it really meant something ... there were impossible challenges. And I mean impossible challenges.  Oppressive regimes; inability to communicate; crazy distance challenges.  Life got in the way, and I've always felt that when that happens - when the road is not just difficult but impassable - there must be a reason.

I kept believing that Q and I were both bound for some other, great, all-encompassing love that would make our past look like a sweet adolescent coming of age movie.

(I know, I know - this isn't a movie, but isn't it awesome??)

That hasn't happened, though... and right now, I'm doubting that this really is all for some greater reason. 

X - also not anything related to his name - has made me revisit all my Q-related feelings.

Like Q, X wasn't supposed to be this special. And when it was clear that it would be, I was on the receiving end of a speech I now know so well I could give it, except that I don't believe it.

It's hard for a WASP-y American girl to accept that cultural differences are a legitimate reason for not pursuing a relationship.  At least a WASP-y girl who grew up in a liberal city in the midwest, who had friends who were the product of interracial relationships, and who rejected society's understanding of a woman's role by the time she was about 8.  But for those kinds of WASP-y women... the notion of culture as a reason for not letting love flourish... it's a hard pill to swallow.

I was looking for a Mindy Kaling gif for this piece, but I couldn't find it.  (I love The Mindy Project and find Kaling's alter ego to be the most relatable character on TV right now.)  I couldn't find what I wanted, but through the spiraly whole that the internet sucked me down, I found this important response to John Mayer's now-infamous quote that he has a "Benneton heart and a f---ing David Duke cock." [for the edit, you're welcome, Mum; for the quote, sorry Stefany.]

In it, Jezebel writer Latoya Peterson notes

We all formulate preferences around what we like and what we don't like. That's part of human nature. But it is disingenuous to pretend that these preferences are not informed by society, and are not informed by racist ideas. Think about it - if our fickle hearts have the capacity to love people who are abusive to us, what makes people think that love is somehow immune to or above racism?

I realize the parents of both of these men think they're being protective. They don't realize that what they are actually doing is embedding racism. If you're not teaching your child to love the person who is speaking to their heart - if you're not teaching them to find those who understand them best, who care for them, encourage them, and support them, because you're too busy teaching them to find someone of their own culture... you are wasting their opportunities. And you are teaching them racism.

My background hasn't been a direct issue for either of them - but neither felt they could tell their parents that the future grandchildren they had always imagined were likey to have a slight change in appearance. Their parents made it clear that a relationship with someone like me - children with someone like me - was worth less than a relationship with someone who looked like them.

What they don't realize is that in embedding this racism into their children's psyche, they are also teaching them to settle for something less... to not dream big, but to dream small... to erase portions of themselves in order to fit a cultural expectation that the children shouldn't be bound by.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me is that I am not actually competing against a person, just an ideal. There's not some "right woman" in mind for their sons; they just can't imagine - without having met me, without having seen us - that I could be better than the hypothetical woman with the "right" cultural identity.

I'm not suggesting I'm the end all be all of women.  I'm not.  I've been in relationships where the problems leading to the end were squarely on me. And there have been men in my life I would have made a terrible partner for. Great friend; horrible for anything more.

For Q and X, though, I was a good match.

I would have loved the opportunity to challenge their parents - to force them to interact with me before rejecting me.  But, I can't.  Circumstances in both cases make it a practical impossibility. So, I'm going to write a note here, and while it will, inevitably, never reach them, it's the catharsis I need.  For Q, it's the letter I should have written years ago; for X, it's almost too fresh to be fair.

Dear parents,

You don't know that I've prayed for your son.  I've cried for him and with him.  I've laughed with him and made him laugh when he didn't want to.  I brought him joy, and would have loved to bring him joy for many more days and months, maybe even years. You don't know that he brought me joy, too.  I love his heart; I admire his brain; I am encouraged by his spirit.

I could hate you for what you're doing to me.  I don't.  You don't know any better because you don't know me.  I can't, however, forgive you for what you've done to your son.  He deserved better. He deserved to know you love him unconditionally.  That you're proud of him for who he is, not for who he falls in love with.  He deserved to know that you would be there, ready to welcome me into your family if he chose to do that.  He deserved to know that some things are irreplaceable and unbreakable, and that family and love are two of those things. He deserved to know that while he had roots, he also had wings, and that you wanted to see him use and honour both fully. 

I will continue to pray for your son.  That he finds someone he can love, who loves him back.  Someone he can fold into late at night, when the world seems to be too big and his faith feels too small.  Someone who will hold his hand and his heart with the precious care he deserves.  

I am just sad for you that you won't know what that looks like unless it comes in the package you - not God, not your son, but you - desire.  And I'm sorry that you have taught him that the package is more important than the gift inside - at least if he is giving it to you. I, however, won't be praying about what culture she comes from. I'll be too busy praying for her heart. 

I know that I can't blame the parents exclusively. I know others whose cultural identities are the same as Q and X.  I know people from these cultures who have said - as I did at 16 - f--- society (and sorry mom for the cursing).  As X said the other night, though, I just chose the wrong guy.  Twice.

Okay, this post deserves another Wonder Years clip.  Because we all know that Kevin gets a happy ending (even if it's not with Winnie).