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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!kpno!ut-sally!riddle
From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Confessions of an Interracial Dater (gasp!)
Message-ID: <5@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Sep-83 19:01:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.5
Posted: Sun Sep 25 19:01:53 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Sep-83 02:55:19 EDT
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 75


     Actually, I'm not sure whether I'm an Interracial Dater or not.  You
tell me.

     My girlfriend hails from India but was raised primarily in Texas, is
and American citizen and considers herself to be more of a Texan than an
Indian.  She has the features and medium brown complexion typical of North
India.

     Although there is a growing Indian population in Texas, most people in
these parts couldn't identify an Indian if they saw one.  (In case those of
you reading this have any doubts, Indians are a recognizable group.  I
never knew it until my friend and I had been together for a few months.
Now I can spot an Indian, male or female and regardless of dress, with an
accuracy I would estimate in excess of 90%.  For these purposes, of course,
Pakistanis and other residents of the subcontinent count as Indians.)

     This can have some rather strange consequences.  Some people try to
assign my friend to the only racial class that occurs to them and assume
that she's a Mexican.  (This is compounded by the fact that her last
name is easily interpreted as the Spanish word for "frog".)  There have
been a couple of occasions when we ran into a bit of hostility that may
have been due to people taking us as a mixed Anglo-Hispanic couple.
(It's hard to pin down.  Once we were nearly run off the road by a couple
of young Chicanos in a pick-up truck.  Were they picking on us or just
out for a little fun?)

     Much more obnoxious are the people who take her for an Ay-rab or an
Eye-ray-nian.  She's been called names and pelted with eggs on more than
one occasion while walking around the fraternity area near campus.  (Just
good red-blooded American boys defending our nation's honor against OPEC
and the Ayatollah.)  This has happened to us much less often as a couple,
however.

     The only people who seem to hold our relationship against us once
they know that she's an Indian are, sadly, other Indians.  She is having
a long and difficult time trying to get her family reconciled to the fact
that she's involved with an American.  (They, like a lot of Indians living
abroad, took up a new life in the West without considering that their
children wouldn't grow up as Indians.)  We also get disapproving stares
from middle-aged Indians on the street.  It is a standing joke of mine
that I now know what it feels like to be a member of an inferior race.

     It first started entering  o u r  minds that we were doing "inter-
racial dating" when we spent a few days in London.  There, of course, the
Indian population is large and forms a perceived ethnic minority.  We
were at first a bit apprehensive, having heard much, like a lot of Ameri-
cans, about British racial tensions.  Luckily our fears seemed to be exag-
gerated.  We never ran into any hostility.  But we did notice the curious
fact that, although we constantly saw racially mixed groups of schoolchil-
dren, officeworkers, and so on, we saw  v e r y  few mixed couples.  We
mostly thought: how sad!

     That leads to an interesting question.  Now, as I said, the Indian
population in this part of the country is so small that Indians don't form
a perceived ethnic group.  But it is growing very fast.  There are thirty
thousand Indians in Texas now, mostly in Dallas and Houston.  Supposedly
there are entire city blocks in certain parts of Houston composed entirely
of Indians.  It seems to be the case (in this country, at least) that ethnic
minorities only face serious prejudice when they are large enough to be
a noticeable group.  Chinese, say, run into problems on the two coasts but
not in Texas;  Mexican-Americans have trouble here but not much in the
North.  Will the time come a few years from now when every white racist
in these parts (a) knows an Indian when he sees one and (b) reacts accor-
dingly?  Speaking for my girlfriend and any children we may have, (a) would
be kind of nice, but not at the expense of (b).

     So what do you think?  Am I an Interracial Dater?  If I'm not now,
will I be one in a few years?   I'd be pleased either by discussion in
this newsgroup or answers via mail.

                                    -- Prentiss Riddle
                                       {ihnp4,ut-ngp}!ut-sally!riddle
                                       riddle@ut-sally.UUCP