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Interracial Dating
I am a Chinese American 23 year old female and was just asked out by a 29 year old Indian American guy friend. I like him a lot but I know my family will disown me if I date/ marry a non-Chinese guy.
Do you know any Chinese Indian couples? Any advice on dealing with interracial relationships?
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I'm not Asian, so take my advice with a grain of salt. I'm kind of the black sheep of the family. I abandoned the family religion because I wasn't being true to myself. Sure, they don't like it, but they understand that people are different and they can't control me anymore. So eventhough they don't like it and sometimes call me an idiot for making life choices that are different than what they would have chosen. But I'm not here on earth to make them happy, I'm here to live my life and if they don't like it, that's their problem. But my parents' love is more powerful than their idealisms. Sure, they may be disappointed in me. But, like I said, they're just trying to control my life and I won't let them.
Now, granted, that might have blown up in my face as I have asked for help from my parents since I rejected their religion. If they shunned me, it would have been much tougher. But also, bending at my parent's will my whole life and not being true to myself would have been worse.
Just like everyone, parents are programmed to think in certain ways and its damn near impossible to get them to see another point of view. They think they are doing what's best for you. I guess even if they have to use threats of exile if you don't comply with their demands.
I would say to test the waters first. Introduce him to them as a friend first and see how they act. Or tell them of a chinese friend that married a white guy or outside of asians and how happy she is. Look at their face and see their reaction. Think of little scenarios to test how they feel about it.
If you KNOW that they will do that. You gotta really think about it. If you are too scared to possibly get shunned by your family, then probably don't do it. But its messed up because what if you don't even like chinese guys and they are forcing you to only date them. Are you ready to only date chinese guys until your parents die? If you're not ready to do that and you are independent from them, then maybe you should. Just make sure you really do like the guy. Perhaps do it in secret for as long as possible to make sure that he is worth you taking that risk.
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I am giving you what I sense just by the words you wrote. I understand that family plays a big role in whether a certain guy is seen as acceptable to marry or not. However that should be on his characteristics, his personality and how he treats you, not based on what race he is.
I also know that in some cultures, it is more important and stressed that you marry in your race. This means they believe tradition very strongly. This may not neccessarily mean that they are racist according to me, its just that they are so strongly tied to their traditions that they haven't even stopped to think about what they are really doing.
I have seen that in many other situation. As a teen first going to church, there were traditions and beliefs that were blindly followed. And when I asked why they do that, or what they believe that, even pastors could not explain and thats because they were following whats always been done before.
I call this : living and thinking inside the box. So anything other than what is approved by tradition is off limts, not allowed, and in church considered heresy and being back slidden in faith simply because one dares to ask and think and make decisions for themselves without blindling following and not questioning a need for change.
The thought of a family disowning you is strong enough to cave in to what they expect of you. However the one and only thing I can think of that might help you is to look at it as their life to live versus your life to live. Perhaps their life was meant to learn from tradition. A parents life lessons to learn are not going to be the exact same ones their children are supposed to learn. I've seen that in my family as the years went on. Some times it seems like no rhyme or reason for what we have to go through.
So if you look at this as you being a young adult with parents trying to control your life, I tell those people that the parents role of parenting ended when you became 18. As an adult you are responsible now for making your own decisions on everything, including who you choose to date and marry. Some kids are told they can't learn to drive, must go to a nearby community college and Mom dictates when you must be home and mostly you aren't allowed to leave home. At least it isn't that full a control. But your family is attempting to control you in a way by using traditions...we only marry in our race.
I don't particularly know of any couple of asian-indian mix but I do know of many that are bi racial.
IT takes a lot of self strength and back bone to know you will have maybe a harder time dating or being married to someone not of your race. Even if the family was okay with it, strangers will give you trouble and say hateful things. SO this is more about how strong you are. If you don't think I know what I am talking about, my sister who is white is married to a man who is black. Pardon me if I don't use African American because we don't say the same for all the other races except Native American. I am not called a German American, my son in law is not called a Welsh, Romany, German American. I am not white like snow either. But I use the designations of white and black because I don't get to designate the countries of my heritage, my only choice on papers is white or I could check off other. See how silly this sound. I have my own opinions and not everyone will agree but I allow them to use whatever description they can connect with best and I will use mine.
Dating him doesn't mean you will both decide to marry one day. However if it is frowned upon and you are told they will disown you if you even date him, then you need to be self reliant, not living at home with the parents for one thing and be willing to not see or hear from them for a long time if ever. Some of the people we find to be the closest people to us that my husband and I call family have no blood or marriage relation to us. Sometimes the family you are given are not perfect but they are family. This is actually a type of black mail, saying if you go ahead and do this, then we will retaliate by doing this. Only you can know if you are strong enough to stand up to and possibly lose them. YOu'd have his family, whoever your husband ends up being and any people who become like family to you. My middle daughter has two other women she has met as an adult who are very special to her and she calls them Mom too. ONes a neighbor, one she works with and goes to church with. I have met both and feel no issue with the fact that someone else is treating her as lovingly as I would.
There is always a possibility that sometime after you've made your decision that family might change their minds.
I was with my sister at her church and her pastor liked to talk to her as she seemed good at problem solving. I was there and heard him say that his daughter is now dating a man who is not a Christian, he was from some middle eastern country. He said he told her not to get serious with this man and stop seeing him as the man was not of the same faith.
I was surprised to hear my sister bring up something I didn't know about. She asked the pastor how the previous boyfriend treated her 'Badly, and thats why they are not together any longer." And how does this non Christian treat her? "She says he treats her so well, she feels like he's the best guy on the planet." And the last guy was white and supposedly a Christian but he didn't treat her well. So what is it you really want for your daughter? The pastor said, "I only want her to be happy and treated right by the man she is with." And you said this middle eastern man who isn't Christian is treating her right. If that all you wanted and she's happy as she said with him, then whats the problem? When posed with that question, from that perspective, I watched his face transform and realization dawned. "Oh, I guess the difference is faith is not the biggest issue. Whats more important is how he treats her and I have witnessed that he does indeed treat her well. Okay, I can live with that. he said.
I come from Christian faith and I know how adamant all christians are about you marrying within your faith so even dating out of your faith is useless when the end result is a big no. This girls dad ran a church, he was adamant at first until he saw it from a different perspective. ITs always possible. Its up to you to choose to life your life the way you believe will make you happiest, whether your family comes around like this pastor or not.
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