While a number of problems can arise from having two or more cultures operating in the same house, today’s focus is on the unadulterated good things that come from sharing a culture. The things that will remain perfect in my mind forever. Even if Aditya were to run off the squirrel that hangs out near the bedroom window (they were eying each other this morning) and break my heart, or declare a hatred for IKEA (and break my heart), I will appreciate our time together because of these three things:

Thums Up, as you can tell from the picture, is a cola. But it is not any cola – no, it is the pinnacle of colas. On first sip, a Coca-Cola drinker will just notice a slightly “off” taste – sort of like store-brand coke. But then the spiciness hits. Not spicy in terms of hotness, but zing, pizzazz, oomph. As the brand’s slogan goes, “thums up… taste the thunder!” It’s utterly addictive, particularly when consumed with food that has its own pizzazz. Or, you know, delicious rum – or so I’m told. Thums Up can be found in some South Asian groceries, although we still haven’t located a place in the DC area that sells it. (It’s been a sad, fruitless search – cue the world’s smallest violin.) There are plenty of Indian groceries in California that carry it, and some in New York as well.

Maggi is actually a brand name, not a particular product. But in our household “Maggi” always refers to the delicious, ramen-esque noodles that is a healthy (or so the packet says) meal any time of the day. It’s the seasoning packets that really take it beyond any other bag of noodles – the best flavors are curry and masala. Preparation also matters – so much so, in fact, that I’ll be posting on how to properly make Maggi in a day or two. (Also, most packets you can find in the US only have directions in Hindi or Bengali.) Luckily for Americans nation-wide, it seems every South Asian grocery carries an endless stock of Maggi. True, they completely rip you off – $1 or more per packet, when it costs maybe ten cents in India. It’s still a small price to pay for true love.

Lastly, we have Coffy Bite. Ah, Coffy Bite – a piece of candy combining the tastes of coffee and toffee into a wondrous whole. Everyone I’ve shared this treat with has loved it, yet the candy remains so unknown in the Western world that there is no wikipedia entry for it. This is a tragedy. Also tragic: we are down to two coffy bites in the house. TWO! We started with a 500g bag in January, and have been rationing carefully since, only offering it to true bosom friends. Aditya’s parents will resupply us when they visit the US this summer, but May is a long way off, and you just can’t find Coffy Bite in the US. I’ve tried. A lot.

I love this candy so much that when Aditya proposed to me he gave me a ring and a bag of Coffy Bite that he had kept hidden as a package deal – if I wanted one, I had to accept the other. I believe this was his way of insuring against a rejected suit. He’s a smart boy like that.

We’re starting off the ICR resource reviews with Love’s revolution: interracial marriage – not because I think it’s the best book on ICRs ever published, but because it’s the book I’ve most recently read. That’s not to say that the book isn’t good; there’s a lot of valuable material here, at least for anyone in an interracial relationship. The author, Dr. Maria P.P. Root, is a practicing clinical psychologist with a strong research focus on multiracial families and children. Love’s revolution is only one of several books on multiracial issues produced by Root, although the others focus on multiracial people – i.e. the children of ICRs.

Love’s revolution aims to be a scholarly overview of interracial marriages in America, and it pretty much hits the mark (this means that this review is going to long, ’cause there’s a lot to cover). While the tone is academic, the book is still accessible to a layperson. Excerpts and stories from interviews with individuals in interracial marriages, as well as their families, are found on nearly every page, and help to connect Root’s theories to actual practices. The book’s emphasis on both the couples & family members’ reactions makes it particularly well suited to individuals who’ve had trouble getting their families to accept their relationship with someone who’s “just a little too different.”

Under the cut is a detailed review of Love’s revolution, chapter by chapter, as well some advice on whether it’s worth your time to read it.

Flipping through Love’s revolution

Chapter 1 – Love and Revolution

Love’s Revolution opens with a series of anecdotes that display the wide variety of ways families react to interracial marriages. Most of these stories – as well as the ones throughout the rest of the book – are from white/black couples, although there is a decent sprinkling of relationships featuring Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans as well. The chapter continues by revealing some of the broad trends in interracial marriages in America. None of these are particularly surprising: young people are more open to interracial marriages than older people, for instance. I will admit that I don’t quite understand how “woman intermarry more than their male counterparts” works out statistically – I would think that there’s exactly one man who intermarries for every woman who intermarries. Do we have a lot of interracial lesbian couples marrying in Massachusetts, or something?

The chapter ends with Root’s own overview, as well as an explanation of her research methods and intentions. As she states, “The questions behind this study were , ‘What enables some families to expand their embrace to include a new member and their family? Why do some other families refuse to do this?’” Efforts were made to pose these questions to diverse group of respondents: many different geographical locations, ethnicities, ages, and religions are represented in the roughly 175 families interviewed for the book.

Chapter 2 – Love and Fear

The focus here is on the predjuce that many people have historically felt – and still do feel – towards the mixing of races. The first two sections, Race & Pseudo-Science and Legalizing Opposition to Interracial Marriage discuss various historical efforts made by white folk to keep the races separate. I imagine that most Americans are aware of the “scientific” efforts made in the last couple of centuries to brand non-white races as separate species from – or at least genetically inferior to – Caucasians. Fewer Americans know about the history of laws against interracial marriage; it was not until 1967, when the Supreme Court heard Loving v. Virginia that these laws were ruled unconstitutional.

In the next section of this chapter, Class versus Caste, Root discusses the rigidity of the boundaries between the races: if a race is constructed as a different “caste” intermarriage will gain great social disapproval, while if a race is just a different “class” intermarriage will be seen as, well, not kosher, but not evil either. The last bits of the chapter argue on how gender is related to this class/caste distinction, and how most caste distinctions are fading with time, although class still lingers.

Chapter 3 – Sex, Race, and Love

Frankly, this chapter didn’t do a lot for me. It’s mostly disjointed theory covering a variety of topics related to interracial marriage and the gender of each partner:

• Endogamous marriages (in-group) versus exogamous marriages (“marriages with someone from an out-group, as defined on the basis of race, gender, religion, nationality, or class.
• Hypergamy (marrying into a higher class) versus hypogamy (marrying down)
• Psychological and “folk” theories about who would choose interracial marriages (sadly, not as interesting as it sounds)
• Assimilation of one spouse into the other’s group – how it works and how it doesn’t
• The sex ratio theory – how the ratio of the sexes of a particular race affect the number of intermarriages from that race (answer: exactly as you would expect)

The theory gets quite tiring, although Root does throw out an interesting anecdotes from time to time to relieve the monotony.

Chapter 4 – The Business of Families

The book hits its stride in this chapter with the analogy of families as businesses. It sounds a little quirky at first, and I doubt my synopsis will do it justice, but Root uses the analogy effectively to probe into how families react to interracial marriages. Here’s a few questions to be answered:

• What’s the family’s product? If children are seen as the major purpose of a family, then an interracial marriage may result in a “non-standard” product – i.e. a child that looks different from its family, or grows up with different cultural values.
• What is the family mission statement? A mission statement will include the things that are most important or encouraged in a family; if maintaining cultural or racial characteristics are very important, intermarriages will likely be frowned upon.
• Who is a member of the business? When a couple marries do their two families expect a “merger,” where both clans are “integrally and intimately” tied together? Or is a young couple simply a franchise of the parent companies – loosely associated but independently operated? Or is one of the interracial partners – typically the female – “acquired” by one of the families?
• How is the company run?Is there one CEO who makes all the required decisions – including whether to accept the interracial marriage as valid? Is it a monarchy of sorts, with the oldest member in charge? Or is there a council or board on which everyone has a say?

These questions might let you take a step back when you’re frustrated with your family’s reactions to your ICR and consider their underlying beliefs about how a family ought to be.

Chapter 5 – Open and Closed Families

In another chapter on understanding family reactions to interracial marriages, Root develops a framework of four types of families. Open families are accepting of intermarriage, encouraging the growth and independence of family members. They’re typically “franchise businesses” with mission statements that don’t emphasize race. Closed families are just the opposite, with little tolerance of individual deviation and strict boundaries between in-group and out-group. Pseudo-open families appear accepting of interracial friendships or friendships, or even dating, but draw the line at marriage, while pseudo-closed families are extremely reluctant to accept out-group individuals as family, but become accepting after time – particularly with the birth of a child to the interracial pair or the death of an older family member who opposed the marriage.

Chapter 6 – The Life Cycle and Interracial Marriage

Root breaks up the life cycle of an interracial marriage into five parts: meeting, love & commitment, introductions to the family, blending with the family, and a death in the family. Obviously, these parts needn’t occur in the order listed above. The strength of this chapter is in the latter three sections, which apply the theories and analogies developed earlier in the book to a plethora of anecdotes from Dr. Root’s interviews. It was this part of the book that really sold me on the ideas presented in Chapters 4 & 5.

Chapter 7 – Parents, Children, and Race

Here Root argues that interracial children raise a number of issues that childless couples or same-race couples typically don’t need to grapple with. First, there are the concerns that come from outside of the couple – for example, extended family members now have a “different-race blood kin” whether they like it or not. There are also issues for the immediate family – one parent may feel “outnumbered” if all the children take after the other parent, or be unprepared for the reactions of strangers who cannot neatly peg the family as one race or another. The rest of this chapter discusses the strategies families can adopt to help their multiracial child navigate through the often troubled waters that is race in America.

Chapter 8 – Ten Truths of Interracial Marriages

In this chapter Root attempts to draw together the various strands of thought, as well as her hundreds of hours of interviews to develop common traits across interracial marriages. Without further ado, they are:

1. The civil rights movement and developing racial desegregation has allowed for greater interaction between races and thus greater interracial marriage.
2. The development of women’s increased financial independence has allowed them more freedom to chose mates as they will.
3. Love, shared vision, and common values compel an interracial couple to marry, just as they do other couples.
4. Interracial marriages typically aren’t due to rebellion or an attempt to “make a statement.”
5. Families that reject interracial marriages value race over love, integrity, and commitment.
6. If families are hostile, an interracial couple may have to replace estranged blood kin with a family of friends.
7. Conflicts in interracial marriages arise from cultural, gender, class, social, and personal differences more often than racial ones.
8. Irreconcilable differences within interracial marriages are similar to those within same-race marriages.
9. The rate of divorce for interracial marriages is only slightly higher than for same-race marriages, and closing fast.
10. Interracial couples can and do produce healthy, well-adjusted children.

I leave it to you to decide how much of that list you agree with – I have a few minor quibbles, but nothing major.

Should I get Love’s revolution?

This book has two main strengths: it’s an excellent overview of interracial issues in America, and it discusses extended family dynamics well.

If you’re in an ICR (of any type – not just an interracial one) and have been having trouble with either or both of your families because of the relationship, then I highly recommend this book. It’ll give you the tools to understand your family’s issues, and, hopefully, solve them. And if not, the stories from the interviews will at least let you know you’re not alone. If you’re in an interracial relationship in the US, particularly one where one partner is black and the other is white, this book will serve as a valuable introduction to the history of interracial marriage in the US, as well as provide plenty of current information on interracial marriages today.

If you don’t fall into either of the two categories above – your families are generally supportive and race isn’t really an issue, then the book isn’t a must-read. However, I don’t fall into either of those two categories – Aditya’s family and mine are both pretty easy-going, and we’ve never been hassled for being an interracial couple – and I still got quite a bit out of the book. The anecdotes alone make Love’s revolution a worthwhile read, while the theory provides a useful framework to think about intercultural issues. So the bottom line is that anyone in an intercultural relationship will likely find this book useful. It doesn’t have to be at the top of the list, but consider giving it a try if you have the free time.

A free excerpt of the first twenty pages of the book in pdf format is available at the publisher’s webpage, so you can check it out to see if the writing style works for you.