Normative Ideals, “Alternative” Realities: Perceptions of Interracial Dating among Professional Latinas and Black Women
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Hegemonic Family Formation as Theory
3. Literature Review
3.1. Intersections of Race and Gender in Romantic Partnerships
3.2. Normative Family Expectations and Alternative Realities
4. Methods
5. Findings
5.1. Favoring Same-Race Partners: “Sticking Together Because He Gets It”
“It really comes back to the family. I think it all comes back to those family values. In my last relationship things that I had to explain about family I wouldn’t have to explain to someone from the same culture. It’s just a given. Of course my loud mom and my aunts and my sisters and their friends are welcome (in our home). Of course we’re going to go to the birthday party.”
“I don’t want to lose the cultural identity that I grew up with. For me being Hispanic is very important. I don’t want to have children who look Hispanic but don’t subscribe to Hispanic cultural norms. I find that embarrassing. I understand that you’re American, but you’re not just American, you’re a special mix. For me it’s very important to replicate the upbringing that I had.”
“I would date a Latino guy because I kind of feel that that’s a Black guy. We’ve had the same struggles. When I see a white man, I know he doesn’t know my struggle. You don’t know what it’s like to be called a nigger. You don’t know what it’s like to be thought of as low-class and ghetto. You can empathize but you don’t really get it because you walk around with white privilege”.
“I’m attracted to white men; but I think it also has to do with having an Obama complex. If you’re Black; I expect you to be like Obama or you’re nothing. I think I expect more out of Black men than humanly possible. I feel like maybe I’m just not willing to work as hard for a Black man. I expect them to work for me. When I date Black men, it feels like I have to do the planning and pursuing; but the white men take initiative, they set everything up. I love Black men; I love Black love; but I want to be treated like a lady.”
5.2. “Plan B”: Interracial Dating and White Men
“There’s a lack of educated Black men, for whatever reason, either they’re lazy or getting caught up in the system, meaning incarcerated, so they always have some story for why they haven’t gotten it together. There’s a lot more professional Black women, that’s just how I feel. I don’t know if it’s a gender thing, a race thing, or both. Black men have all these other things going on that create setbacks and challenges for them.”
“Yep, I would be married with kids, most definitely (if I were a white woman). A woman of color is already set to have a different aura about her. I’m sure you’ve heard the cliché about her attitude, her expectations, kind of uppity and thinks she’s all that, even if she just has the basic high school education and job. That’s how we’re looked at: hair, nails, clothes, off the bat, that’s just how it is. So you already have that going against you. Now you add on the education, now you add on the career, then it’s (assumption of being ‘uppity’) magnified to the tenth power. So he could deal with the attitude if you take away the education and career because they’re on the same level, he can tolerate that. But if you add the other two, he may feel a little intimidated.”
“My friends and I never say, ‘Oh, I want a white man!’ What we’re saying is, ‘These Black men out here aren’t doing it, I’m going to have to get with a white guy’. It’s kind of like a backup plan, Plan B. We talk about the men that are in LA. We don’t think that there are very (high) quality men out here. I’m African American so I would love to marry a Black man. I’m not racist or anything, but when I think about marriage, I see him being the same race as me. We would love to marry Black men, but in HBCU’s in the South, they have more Black men in school. If I were in the South, I’d be married already.”
“I just don’t find them (white men) attractive. Our cultures are so different and the way of living is so different. I just can’t picture bringing a white guy to Boyle Heights, I just can’t. He’s going to think we live in a shack! That’s a big thing, culture clash”.
“The similarities in culture, the fact that because I’m fluent in English and Spanish, sometimes the Spanish comes out—the Mexican comes out—and just having that comfort with them. Being able to communicate with my family is important to me, that there’s no language barrier.”
“It makes sense to me that people who share similar values and ideas would fall in love, even if they might come from different cultures or racial backgrounds. I personally don’t have an issue with Latinas or Latino men dating outside their race.”
5.3. “What Does That Say about Your Women?” Interracial Dating among Men of Color
“I don’t really want him (Black men) dating any other races and the reason being is Black women are doing so well for themselves. It’s not hard to find those Black women, but when you try to find those (successful) Black men, it’s cricket, cricket, cricket (alluding to silence). So when I see a Black man going to look for Becky—I like to call her Becky—I think, “Why”? The black men I like—the ones that are educated and have it together—they treat Becky like if she were a Rolex. But what does that say about your Black women?”
“At the end of the day, I look at it like disrespect to your mother. To me it’s the equivalent of saying that your mother is not good enough. Anybody of an ethnic group knows this: there’s certain things that each group faces that the other can’t necessarily sympathize with. To marry someone who has no clue of what you go through on a daily basis doesn’t make sense.”
“I think it’s a good idea for Latino men to do interracial dating even if it’s not for a long-term relationship. Interracial dating would allow them to be more open minded about others experiences and perspectives. I do not feel any ownership over Latino men so I have no problem with Latino men dating women of other racial backgrounds.”
“When they (Latinos) date or marry white women, it feels like a slap in the face a little bit. There are so few educated men of color, and we Latinas want to marry someone of the same culture, education level, etc. and if the few that are around go elsewhere, where does that leave us? White men don’t tend to go for Latinas, so if they don’t want us and our own men don’t want us—who does?”
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Garcia, R. Normative Ideals, “Alternative” Realities: Perceptions of Interracial Dating among Professional Latinas and Black Women. Societies 2015, 5, 807-830. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc5040807
Garcia R. Normative Ideals, “Alternative” Realities: Perceptions of Interracial Dating among Professional Latinas and Black Women. Societies. 2015; 5(4):807-830. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc5040807
Chicago/Turabian StyleGarcia, Rocio. 2015. "Normative Ideals, “Alternative” Realities: Perceptions of Interracial Dating among Professional Latinas and Black Women" Societies 5, no. 4: 807-830. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc5040807