With globalization and an increasing immigrant population in the United States, the surge in interracial relationships might not be a surprising trend. In fact, the increase in intermarriage and interracial relationships should be a welcome sign in the changing landscape of love, romance, and family, as it fits America’s racial-melting-pot image and atmosphere of steadily greater multiculturalism. However, interracial relationships are still far from the norm. Although many Americans date someone of another race, fewer marriages cross racial lines. Whereas about 92% of all interracial marriages include white partners, only 4% of married whites have non-white spouses (Qian 2005: 34). In fact, many white Americans remain uncomfortable about interracial intimacy and tend to disapprove of their family members’ interracial relationships (Qian 2005: 33). Skin color also greatly influences patterns of interracial marriage. The lighter the skin color, the higher the rate of intermarriage with white Americans (Qian 2005: 31). Hispanics who label themselves as racially “white,” Asian Americans, and American Indians have high rates of marriage with whites compared to those of African Americans. Also, there are distinct gender patterns: 74% of the Black-white couples involve a Black husband and a white wife, and 58% of the Asian American – white couples involve an Asian American wife (Qian 2005: 36).
The increase in interracial relationships gives the impression that racism and discrimination are lessening in our society. However, the types of interracial couples that are deemed acceptable and desirable continue to be shaped by society’s dominant racial and gender beliefs. An increase in dating and marrying across racial lines may not be explained entirely by a decline in racism. Patricia Hill Collins (2004: 250) writes, “Crossing the color line to marry interracially challenges deep-seated American norms, yet such relationships may not be inherently progressive.” By the same token, Henry Giroux (2006: 32) argues that some seemingly oppositional or counter-normative behaviors in fact reveal the logic of domination more than they represent the logic of protest or resistance to the system, much less the logic of liberation. So, what are the dominant images of interracial relationships? What are the ingrained messages in them? In this chapter, I will examine some popular images and interracial relationships and how they express dominant ideologies. Then, drawing on my research on Asian American–white couples, I will explore the racial and gender ideologies that shape these couples and the challenges that are faced by them.
Popular culture daily sells hypersexualized racial images and offers aesthetic consumption of racial differences as if such consumption were synonymous with the end of racism and sexism. The cultural images are ambiguous, blurring the line between oppression and nuanced celebration of racial diversity. The images of interracial romance continue to be shaped by traditional themes of white normalcy, whites’ exoticization of people of color, men’s authority, and distinct differences between masculinity and femininity. In many images, white manhood and womanhood continue to represent the norm, with people of color portrayed alongside in an exoticized way.
Even though the popular media claims that “racial mixing” is an ideal of racial integration, it has also denoted whiteness as a sign of normalcy and ascendancy. In 1993, a multiracial feminine cyborg appeared on the cover of Time magazine as “The New Face of America.” Her image metaphorically characterized a future America as increasingly comprising multiracial individuals and couples. At the same time, this young feminine cyborg represented future multicultural citizenship in a state that would continue to enforce conventional norms of heterosexuality, family values, and white privilege. The “white-enough” appearance of the cyborg, as the face of America, evoked the image of “the future as what will happen when white people intermarry” (Berlant 1997: 207), and insinuated that whiteness would remain central to America’s race relations. Also, by highlighting race within the private realms of “love,” “sex,” and “marriage,” the cover ensured the continuation of heterosexual unions and family love as solutions for the “problems” of race and immigration (Berlant 1997). Almost 15 years later, media portrayals of interracial couples and multiracial families still reflect what the feminine cyborg represented at that time: interracial relationships depicted in terms of their approximation to heterosexual unions and the ideal white middle-class family in which traditional masculine authority figures rule and feminine caretaker figures serve.
Recent images of interracial couples have apparently gained wide media attention not just because these couples transgress racial lines, but also because they express exotic yet traditional versions of femininity and masculinity. Couples in the media often consist of a white partner with a light-skinned partner of color such as Halle Berry or Jennifer Lopez (Childs 2009). Non-white partners often appear to mirror the white fantasy of hypermasculine or hyperfeminine racial minority images. By portraying interracial couples that represent traditional gender and racial messages, these popular images tell us that interracial couples can be acceptable when they embody attractive racialized femininity and masculinity in which men’s authority is embraced, whiteness is retained, and American middle-class ideology is sustained.
In addition, images of interracial romance, while aesthetically and romantically appealing in terms of their potentially positive effect on race relations, can erase realities of racial violence and racial hierarchy. They reduce racial differences to a matter of physical appearances and conventional heterosexual romantic norms. Instead of challenging hierarchies and inequalities, these interracial images re-order signs of race and gender according to traditional ideologies, and perpetuate the display of white manhood and white womanhood as dominant – in other words, white men and women as figures served by men and women of color.
Considering the fact that over 90% of screenwriters are white (Childs 2009: 70), it might not be surprising that images of, and storylines about, interracial relationships in television and film reflect white men’s desires and fantasies. Interracial relationships are also often portrayed as “race-less” in white-dominated settings (Childs 2009), and race is often represented as a matter of superficial physical differences. Such color-blindness or race-less-ness is a unique aspect of American multiculturalism and it often entails the exoticization of racial minorities or white-centered assimilation messages (Perry 2002). Neither approach critically engages the issue of power (Nylund 2006). Also, the analysis of interracial couples in contemporary films (Childs 2009) finds repeated instances of the message that white people are not racist; it is racial minorities and their communities, not whites, who oppose and complain about interracial relationships. In many TV programs and films, interracial romances are represented as doomed to fail, thus perpetuating the safe normalization of white couples and same-race unions. The images are also gendered: interracial relationships that appear in the media reinforce white men’s heroism, with white men depicted as liberal and progressive, certifying their goodness, kindness, and superiority over others (Childs 2009: 87).
Given the dominant hierarchies of race and gender implicit in popular images of interracial relationships, this section looks at how racial and gender ideologies have been historically played out in Asian American/white relationships. Compared to African Americans, a higher number of Asians and Asian Americans marry whites. There are various social factors that could explain the high rate of intermarriage between Asian American women and white men: Asian Americans’ overall high education and income, compared to whites and other racial minorities, may be one. But such factors do not explain why Asian American women have a higher intermarriage rate than Asian American men. Also, although Asian Americans are often seen as a “model minority,” the question of how Asian American men and women fare as intimate or marital partners of whites has not been much discussed.
Racial stereotypes play a critical role in the dynamics of gender in interracial relationships. Like the stereotype of Black men’s hypermasculinity, long-existing stereotypes of Asian women as submissive, subservient, passive, and/or hypersexual may serve as critical components in heterosexual attraction. Also, in a culture that automatically equates long dark hair and a thin body with being “feminine” regardless of race, images of Asian women’s bodies are easily marked as representative of a non-threatening femininity. In contrast, Asian men have been often desexed and feminized, or hypermasculinized as martial artists or oriental villains. As many researchers have discussed (e.g., Espiritu 2000), these stereotypes of hyperfeminine Asian women and desexed Asian men contribute to the maintenance of conventional orders of race and gender centered on the normalcy of whiteness and the dominance of men.
Exotic and hyperfeminine images of Asian American women have long flourished in the United States. Images of Asians and Asian Americans as hyperfeminine have been popular precisely because they complement social and cultural beliefs about American manhood and American family values, in which white men serve as the dominant patriarchal figures and women serve as caretakers of the family. Images of subservient Asian women were repeatedly circulated on military bases in Asian countries during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. When a large number of Asian military brides entered the United States in the post–World War II period, interracial marriage was still banned in many states; the images served to reduce racial anxieties stemming from the large influx of Asian women and facilitated these women’s assimilation. Hyperfeminine and sexual images of Asian women continue to play a critical role in the transaction of desires and fantasies in cross-border marriages (Constable 2003).
In the 1970s, the model minority stereotype took hold. Asian Americans were viewed as educated and upwardly mobile. Asian and Asian American woman, still imagined as submissive, were increasingly viewed as upwardly mobile and therefore as desirable. These women were seen as good substitutes for white women [who were often viewed as challenging] (Koshy 2004). As a result, Asian American women emerged as exemplars of an alternative femininity which could help men regain the confidence they lost after feminism marked white femininity as more independent and masculine (Koshy 2004).
Subservient images of Asian immigrant women have also complemented America’s paternalistic images of nation. That is, these women are welcomed in part because they celebrate America while condemning the patriarchal and non-democratic countries they left. Immigrant women are valued for having the courage to pursue freedom and to escape from their home country’s patriarchal constraints (Berlant 1997: 195). The women, with few distinctions among them with regard to whether they are “immigrants,” “aliens,” “minorities,” “illegal,” or whatever, and who want to “escape” the constraints of their patriarchal families, are seen as suitable markers of model migrant citizens who will be devoted to America (Berlant 1997). Such a gendered immigration discourse has long framed Asian woman/white man sexual relationships, especially in the context of military brides who have entered the United States. Thus, the stereotypes associated with Asian women and the immigration discourse have historically served to validate Asian American woman/white man couples as “acceptable” gendered unions that can sustain the traditional orders of gender, nation, and family in the United States.
In order to understand the impact of race and gender on the dynamics of interracial relationships, I conducted interviews with 42 Asian Americans and whites who were either in interracial relationships at the time of the interview or had previously been involved in such relationships (Nemoto 2009). I explored couples’ race consciousness and social receptions, racialized desires, and gender dynamics. The Asian Americans I interviewed included Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese Americans. The individuals ranged in age from their early twenties to their early fifties, and all were heterosexual.
White men interviewed for the study often viewed Asian American women as ideal partners because of their racialized femininity and model minority traits. The stereotypes of Asian American women as hyperfeminine and subservient were frequent responses I received. Likewise, white women referred to Asian American men as having model minority traits or as being domineering. But there are some interesting differences among the couples consisting of an Asian American woman and a white man, relating to whether the woman was a native-born or foreign-born Asian American. Foreign-born Asian American women who lack class mobility, language skills, and a thorough knowledge of US racism and sexism were more likely to adhere to traditional gender arrangements in their dating or marriages. By contrast, second-generation Asian American women who date white men often have more education and/or a higher socioeconomic status than their white partners. The second- and higher-generation young Asian Americans saw themselves as upwardly mobile and independent, and different from stereotypical Asians. They expressed a preference for white men who possess “egalitarian” traits, which they mentioned were often lacking in Asian American men. Interestingly, many Asian American women, including young second- and higher-generation women who described themselves as being egalitarian and independent, projected highly gendered images onto white men, describing them as being protective breadwinner figures or liberators. Thus, it seems that racial and gender hierarchies have greatly influenced Asian American/white couples. But stereotypes could also be surmounted. For example, Asian American men who possess high class status could repudiate negative stereotypes by exercising power over white women.
In the following section, I discuss some of the findings of my research, with a particular focus on the ways Asian American/white couples were received by family and friends. The Asian American woman/white man couples I interviewed reported little social hostility or familial opposition, especially when compared to Asian American man/white woman couples; in other words, Asian American women coupled with white men seemed to be much more socially accepted than Asian American men with white women. Some men stated that having an Asian wife was not a problem because of their reputation as good wives. Gary, a 58-year-old businessman who is married to a Korean woman, said,
American men like Asian women… . I think there’s a great acceptance of the Caucasian man marrying an Asian woman. In fact, many of my friends, non-Asian friends, actually say that they envy me because they understand that Asian women are very good wives and very nice ladies.
His comment demonstrates the culturally shared notion that Asian women possess the qualities of good wives and also, therefore, reinforce men’s sense of masculinity. Gary said,
I think [Asian women] respect the [traditional] values and they tend to be pretty loyal. They exhibit qualities that a lot of American women don’t seem to have [such as being] family oriented. They are good mothers and good parents.
Some white men noted the Asian American women’s exotic appearance and small physique is part of their attraction. Peter, a 27-year-old, said that he likes dark-skinned women, and Asian women often caught his eye because of their distinct physical features which he described as “more beautiful than those of whites.” Peter associated his second-generation Chinese American girlfriend’s thin body with stylish urban femininity, which he thought suited his lifestyle as a musician who performs underground electronic music. Possessing a young Asian woman was a sign of cultural hipness. Peter added, “If you are dating Asian girls, probably it is cooler than if you are dating Black girls.”
Some men mentioned that, even though they were attracted to Asian women, they were not attracted to other women of color. Patrick, a 28-year-old engineer, had dated a variety of Asian women whom he met in Asian countries when he traveled for work. “I kind of acquired the taste for or the inclination of liking Asian woman,” he said. “Black women and Mexican women are different, too. But for some reason, I’m never attracted [to them].” In all likelihood, he has never been attracted to other women of color because his interest lies not in their color but rather in racialized images of traditional womanhood. Of his Filipino engineer wife, Patrick said, “Her nature is to try to take care of her husband. I don’t think that most American women I’ve met have been that way.” Foreign-born Asian American women were often characterized by their white partners as being family oriented, loyal, and caring. These characteristics apparently played a critical role in some men’s attraction to them. The image of Asian women as enhancing men’s masculinity bolsters their sense of themselves as authority figures and also contributes to the positive social receptions of Asian and Asian American women.
In addition to the stereotype of hyperfemininity, the stereotype of the model minority also adds to the positive image of Asian American women. In my interviews, Asian American women, especially those born in America, associated being Asian with being a disciplined “model minority” and believed this is the reason why they are welcomed by whites. Victoria, a second-generation 26-year-old Chinese American medical student, pointed out that Asian American woman/white man couples are extremely common. She said, “All the Asian girls I know have gone out with white guys, basically … because it’s almost popular for white guys to go out with Asian girls.” Victoria emphasized that Asian women are desirable for white men. “I know my boyfriend’s parents are happy because I’m a lot different from the girls he’s gone out with before… . I don’t think American girls are quite as respectful as far as how [they] treat another person’s family.” Victoria’s comment illustrates that Asian American women are not merely associated with domestic femininity but also are exemplars of disciplined, respectable womanhood. Peter, a 27-year-old white man, said, “A lot of white women are like spoiled brats… . A lot of the white women I dated have had codependency issues. They were just overly demanding.” Peter says his current Chinese American girlfriend is from an intact family and is professionally ambitious and tenacious, qualities that his former white girlfriends lacked. Although these descriptions of model minority traits are well-meant, some of the descriptions, such as “not overly demanding,” “not complaining too much,” or “not sexually promiscuous,” indicate that these men value a conservative, somewhat submissive image of womanhood. They apparently feel that they have more control in their intimate relationships with Asian American women than they would in relationships with white women.
Although the white men I interviewed reported few negative responses from their family and friends with regard to their Asian or Asian American girlfriends, many of them did note that things would have been different if they had brought a Black woman home. Peter, a 27-year-old multimedia designer, said, “No one ever said anything about Vivian [his Asian girlfriend]… . But had I come home with a Black girlfriend, then some … of my uncles or somebody might have said something about not liking it.” Thus, it is not that race does not matter in interracial relationships; it is just that certain racialized femininities, ones that adhere to more traditional gender roles are more acceptable than others.
Many of the Asian American women I interviewed expressed a preference for white men over men of other ethnic and racial groups, including Asian American men. A 58-year-old first-generation Korean woman believed that white American husbands treat women better than Korean husbands do. Similarly, a 38-year-old first generation Filipina American, who is a mother of two biracial children whom she referred to as “white,” talked about her childhood dream to marry a white man. White men, she believed, embody an authentic American middle-class ideal. Considering the fact that whiteness (and its associated Anglo-Saxon middle-class lifestyle) has been circulated globally as a sign of power and an object of desire (Kelsky 2001), foreign-born Asian women’s preference for white men over men of other races might not be a surprising.
However, most second- or higher-generation Asian American women also explicitly expressed their aversion to Asian and Asian American men, sometimes much more strongly than foreign-born Asian women did. Victoria, a 24-year-old medical school student, was adamant that she would never date anyone other than a white man. She said, “I never dated an Asian guy… . I think that Asian guys are not courteous to women.” Grace, a 26-year-old engineer, also never dated Asian men. Grace described them as incapable of dealing with “independent women” like herself.
I am not attracted to Asian guys… . They are not gentlemen… . They are not affectionate. At least the ones I’ve met. I think my personality clashes with a lot of them. Because I think I’m too independent. I’m too outgoing. A lot of Asian guys like Asian women… . Either they are dainty or they are pretty or they are … submissive.
Second- or third-generation Asian American women portrayed white men as being egalitarian, tall, and capable of providing them with what they deserve. Many Asian American women were particularly willing to date or marry white men because they believed these men could provide evidence that they are assimilated, authentic “Americans” who are also independent. Thus, Asian American women’s valuing whiteness and white manhood has promoted a mutual attraction between them and white men, bolstering existing racial stereotypes and gender hierarchies.
In the relationships between Asian American men and white women, some of the more successful couples adhered to very traditional gender arrangements. In many of these cases, the Asian American men possessed professional jobs, class status, or career prospects. When minority men exhibit or possess class privileges, and follow the masculine breadwinner model, they are likely to exercise leverage and power in their relationships with white women, and possibly repudiate the negative racial stereotypes associated with them. However, many negative stereotypes of couples consisting of Asian/Asian American men and white women persist. In contrast with the social acceptance of Asian American woman/white man couples, a few white women dating Asian American men reported negative reactions from their families and friends. Emily, a 38-year-old schoolteacher married to a Cambodian American man, used to invite her friends to their home, but eventually stopped. “We had made friends from work, then tried to invite them to dinner. But there’s always an air of uncomfortableness that we both detect from these people.” Emily has been disowned by her family members since she married her husband; he has rarely met her kin. Karen, a 20-year-old student coupled with a Chinese American man who is studying engineering, remembered her parents mentioning something about their future child. “It wasn’t extremely derogatory, but I didn’t really like it. They said something like, our children may have a hard time because they will be half-white, half Asian.” Karen’s friends also expressed concern about her boyfriend.
I said, you know, I am dating somebody and he is Asian. One of my friends made fun of it, and made an Asian joke. The other one said OK. They didn’t say oh, that’s great. They just said OK. One of them asked me how my parents felt about it.
Tracey, a 26-year-old waitress married to a 29-year-old Japanese man, remembered her friends’ comments. “They asked me if he had a bad temper or drank too much.”
These experiences show that white women coupled with Asian American men encounter less social acceptance than Asian American women with white men. However, this does not mean that Asian American women do not encounter racism. In the same study, most Asian American women described individual encounters with racism, such as name-calling or being dismissed as “foreigners.” But the long-popular stereotypes of subservience combined with the logic of patriarchy, in which white men are imagined as protectors and authority figures, validate Asian American woman/white man couples and provide them with far more social acceptance than is granted to other types of interracial couples. As I mentioned previously, the public presence of white husbands serves as a buffer or reduces general suspicion toward these women, reducing the likelihood that they will be seen as immigrants, foreigners, or racial minorities (Nemoto 2009: 71). Meanwhile, white women with Asian American men are deemed most acceptable when they follow traditional gender arrangements – and even then they might be seen as deviant because they have not adhered to the logic of white masculine authority.
In this chapter, I have argued that the dominant racial and gendered ideologies embedded in images and discourses of interracial relationships make certain couples more socially acceptable than others. Even though the rise of interracial dating and marriage give the impression that racism and sexism are in decline, our images of interracial romance continue to be constructed by traditional ideologies of race and gender. Discourses and the realities of interracial romance do not signify a public welcome for random cross-race relationships. In the case of Asian American/white couples, the high intermarriage rate of Asian American women may largely derive from the dominant stereotype of these women as hyperfeminine and subservient. This stereotype reinforces men’s authority, and traditional norms of marriage and the family. These unions therefore do not contradict the dominant ideologies of whiteness, white privilege, or gender inequality. Seen this way, interracial romances may be a more exotic version of the traditional heterosexual union that sustains white privilege, masculine authority, and traditional norms of heterosexual marriage and family values of America.
Kumiko Nemoto is a professor of management at Senshu University in Tokyo, Japan. Her research focuses on gender, work, organizations, and institutional conditions. She is the author of Too Few Women at the Top: The Persistence of Inequality in Japan (Cornell University Press, 2016) and Racing Romance: Love, Power, and Desire among Asian American/White Couples (Rutgers University Press, 2009). Her recent publications include “Global Production, Local Racialized Masculinities: Profit Pressure and Risk-Taking Acts in a Japanese Auto-Parts Company in the United States” and, with Karen Shire, “The Origins and Transformations of Conservative Gender Regimes in Germany and Japan.”