Some musings on race in America while riding an Amtrak train....
I’m riding Amtrak from Washington in late September 2010 and am sharing a café car table with a couple that is clearly enjoying each other’s company, with affectionate comments, touches and caresses. This is not remarkable in and of itself, as I have witnessed as a frequent rail mileage passenger on Amtrak between Washington, DC and New York City. What is remarkable is that the couple, a young 20-something duo, is multi-racial…she an African-American and he a Euro-American. Clearly what is so remarkable is not that they are together, but that they are so together as a loving couple, but also in commonality with the hundreds of others in the café car tonight (it’s a crowded Sunday evening crowd returning to NYC).
Looking at their obvious comfort and joy, my thoughts go back to 1967 when I was friends with and then a husband to a woman with whom I did not share a common racial ancestry. She was Japanese-American and I, like my café tablemate, had roots in Europe. Dating and being seen as a couple in Seattle in those days was comfortable, with its rather large Asian-American community. The sixties were a time at the University of Washington of social and political activism—even to the point that she and I volunteered for an organization that had us pose as the acceptable couple testing realtors who had just told an African-American couple that no apartments were available. Sadly, we were usually shown an apartment immediately.
But, it was not all roses. We both had relatives who refused to accept that two individuals who loved each other could be tolerated (much less respected) if they looked different. We were told by these relatives on both sides that we would never darken their doorstep if we were to marry. My aunt even went so far as to refuse to speak to my mother (her own close sister) for 10 years after we subsequently did marry because my mother had not stopped the marriage.
Needless to say, Washington State was not familial paradise for us. So when employment for my wife at AT&T and graduate school at Columbia University emerged at the same time in the early 1970s, we immediately jumped a United Airlines flight to New York City. In addition to career paths that were seemingly leading to the metropolis, we felt that the diversity of the city (and distance from family members) would also free us from the hassles of others looking at us as being different.
We were to be disappointed. It seems that couples of Asian and European ancestries were not common. New Yorkers with ethnic roots in China seemed to stay in (or were channeled to) certain neighborhoods. Others with Asian ancestry were generally expatriate business people (this was before the huge immigration waves from South Korea, Southeast Asia and elsewhere in Asia) from Japan who did not mingle much with other New Yorkers from Europe, Africa and Latin America. As a result, we received stares and negative vibes when we were seen holding hands walking down Broadway—even on the Upper Westside, the incredibly liberal and diverse community that has continued to attract both of us 40 years later. She was consistently asked if she spoke English and where are you from?
Clearly, we did not suffer the humiliation and racial persecution of those who preceded us in the 1950s and before. My heart is heavy knowing what they went through. In 2010, It’s hard to remember or believe that it was illegal to marry or have sexual relations with a person of another race in 16 states as late as 1967, the year I met my future wife, when the Supreme Court ruled the state laws unconstitutional. This is not ancient history we’re dealing with. It’s within my lifetime. Yet, I still marvel at and rejoice in the comfort of the couple in front of me and in how absolutely “normal” the relationship seems to be to them, me and everyone else in this diverse Amtrak café car. I’m celebrating tonight.
Ed
