This weekend is Loving Day, a celebration of the Supreme Court decision outlawing bans against interracial marriage. Our readers have been sharing their stories of how interracial marriage has affected their lives.
I have always known that I was mixed. I can recall sitting in a circle with my elementary school friends saying what our races were and I clearly stated I was half white and half Mexican. I also had a special affinity for the mixed-species Mr. Spock. It didn’t mean that much to me until I entered college at UC Berkeley and became a student activist. After spending several years doing multiracial student organizing I returned home and became active in the multiracial movement through Multiracial Americans of Southern California (MASC). For years I participated in the struggle to change the Census to allow people to mark one or more races: organizing conferences, workshops, letter writing, etc. We were successful in that mission but imagine my surprise when I found they didn’t allow mixed Latino identity. In spite of all my efforts to enable millions to acknowledge all their identities that option was still denied me and likely millions more people.
When it came time to start my own family I chose a Latina friend whom I’ve known since high school. I wouldn’t say I explicitly set out to find a Latina, but rather, when looking for someone with which to spend one’s life, you tend to settle on someone with whom you have something in common. We had a daughter shortly after we married but then five years later chose to adopt a child from LA County. When we heard our son’s story and saw him as a newborn we couldn’t say no. When we made our decision at the time it really didn’t matter much to us what his race was. It wasn’t until we began introducing him to friends and family that we realized the significance of our transracial adoption.
Some like to believe that love is all you need to raise a child. But how do we show our love for our kids? We do what all parents do, we try to prepare them for life on their own. We live in a racist world, and our children, as people of color, will be subject to that racism at some point in their life. In our son’s case it happened before he was even one year old. So many people were curious about his race and one went so far as to comment how “you can’t even tell he’s black.” Why should it matter if you could tell he was mixed black unless you believed for some reason that was shameful? Being multiracial he was very fair skinned to start but has since darkened up somewhat. Today we don’t go out of our way to teach our kids about racial injustice, but we do try to instill in them a sense of pride in all of who they are. They will learn soon enough all the many ways racial discrimination can affect them. For now, we want them to know how their race makes them special.
Thomas Lopez, president of Multiracial Americans of Southern California (MASC)
More stories at latimes.com/loving. Share your story using #myLovingDay.
