• Migration is Beautiful

    "Meet powerhouse artist/activist Favianna Rodriguez — a leading voice in the movement of artists raising awareness about U.S. immigration issues."

    - I am OTHER

  • Harvest of Empire

    The Untold Story of Latinos in America “We are all Americans of the New World, and our most dangerous enemies are not each other, but the great wall of ignorance between us.”

    Juan González, Harvest of Empire

Featured Post

Migration is Beautiful | Favianna Rodriguez | I am OTHER

"Meet powerhouse artist/activist Favianna Rodriguez — a leading voice in the movement of artists raising awareness about U.S. ...

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Why do some couples mix while others don't?




I've been trying to figure out why some people choose a spouse of the same ethnicity while others choose a spouse of a different ethnicity.
Speaking for myself (European-American), I choose a spouse of a different ethnicity because:
* I have a preference for pigmentation and dark hair.
* I didn't want someone who looks like my mom or sister.
* I don't feel particularly comfortable around the historical oppressor phenotype.
* I want to move away from "whiteness" (historical oppressor phenotype).
* I like the idea of hybrids.
* I get to think I'm thwarting the system of "racial" categories to avoid future segregation.

As to why some people choose a spouse of the same ethnicity, I would assume.
* They have a preference for the phenotype that happens to match their own.
* They don't have any weird hangups about people who might look like their relative.
* They might be proud of their ethnicity and want to make more of their ethnic type.

For more on the topic see:

2 comments:

  1. Maybe it's simpler than all of that for some of us? For me: I fell in love with someone who fell in love with me :) It was that simple when it came to choosing a spouse, but got more complicated when we thought about having children...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Jen! Yeah. When I was in my twenties I went with my gut feelings to select my spouse. Only in retrospect did I realize the underlying reasons I had my gut feelings.

    ReplyDelete