My ONE LOVE life

When I lived in the Caribbean I was often approached by strangers when I went to town. They would walk right up to me and start having a conversation with me as if they knew me. It wouldn’t take me long to figure out that they thought I was Katie.

One of the benefits of living on a small island is that you get to know a lot of people. And Katie was a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, so I knew her and people consistently mixed the two of us up. She shared the same experience, people often approached her as if she was me.

This week my daughter made a new friend at camp. When I came to pick her up she introduced her to new friend to me and said, “don’t we look alike?”

I was pretty thrown by this and said, “Yes, you both have brown skin.”

They really looked nothing alike.

They bonded instantly. The camp director said that my daughter came up to her as soon as she arrived, threw her arm around her and said, “Come on, I’ll show you how we do things here.”

It’s great how quickly the connection was made.

The funny thing to me is that it reminded me so much of the joke my husband and I had with each other while I lived in the Caribbean. Whenever someone confused me with Katie, or any other white person, we’d turn to each other and quietly say, “What’s up with that? Do all white people look the same?”

Is my daughter suffering from an “all black people look the same” syndrome by growing up in a primarily white and Latino community? It’s hard to say. She goes to a school with a lot of mixed race children, but there are not any darker than her.

A reader writes:

“I’d love to hear about the early days of your marriage. What weren’t you expecting?”

My husband and I fell in love almost instantly and moved in together within the first six months of dating. This was the first time either of us had ever lived with a significant other. We were trying to be practical, since we had meet in the beginning of my second year in the Peace Corps and we knew our time was limited. We decided to test the strength of our relationship with cohabitation.

As it turned out, my work was going well and easily justified an extension of my two-year commitment. So I stayed a third year.

Living together was more fun than I ever could have imagined. My husband was thoughtful, which brought out the best in me. I often came home to find my things put away, my laundry washed and dinner cooked. We enjoyed spending hours talking and getting to know each other, playing scrabble, and taking long walks in the land behind our house, where we gathered fruit from the banana, mango, cocoa, and nutmeg trees. We had no television to distract us, no neighbor within shouting distance, and no shortage of time to stare into each other’s eyes. Our life was idyllic.

At the end of the third year, though we loved each other, we were scared of the next chapter. As a result, my soon-to-be husband displayed a few sabotaging behaviors that drove a wedge between us. By the end of the third year, I decided to leave the island without him. I spent five months soul searching, (which I posted about a few weeks ago).

We married in the Caribbean and ran into problems entering the US. He had a common tourist visa to enter, but needed to amend it to a “resident alien” visa after we were married. As a result of the visa problems and my acceptance of another overseas job, we spent 4 of the first 6 months of our first year of marriage apart. And, he ended up living at my parents house, without me, for 2 of those months. Those months were difficult, but I think especially for him.

Coming from a small island his knowledge of the world was somewhat limited. Though he had lived and worked on a cruise ship for a year he really hadn’t spent much time outside of the Caribbean. For example, he did not know how to navigate around the city utilizing street addresses or even know how to drive a car. When he spoke, though it was English, people just could not understand him. Big places were overwhelming, even for me, after being in such a small place for so long. We avoided chain grocery stores (still do).

When he did finally reach Micronesia, where I was working, he didn’t seem like himself, in my words, he seemed depressed and a little lonely, and he couldn’t, or didn’t want to, articulate how he was feeling.

We were both in a new place. Neither of us spoke the language or knew the customs and traditions of the culture. Of course he had an edge because it was a tropical island with similar foods and resources to his own island. But it was most challenging that he had very little to do with all of his spare time. His mood, and the stress from my difficult job, drove a wedge between us. I found myself being sexually attracted to a work colleague.

After several months of wrangling with the local government, my husband was able to attend the local community college. He was even able to get a few free-lance jobs, and meet people. He was developing a social network-doing lots of fishing on the weekends. But the wedge was pushing its way between us and I was growing more unhappy with the unexpected turn in our relationship.

I reached out to some friends in the U.S. via email. Through their kind and thoughtful advice they helped me confess to my husband, the attraction I was having to the work colleague. Though surprised, my husband was totally open to having the discussion about the nature of my attraction and how my needs were not being met. This brought greater intimacy to our relationship and deepened our weakening trust.

We reached a point where we were able to joke about the attraction and he grew less threatened by my desires to fulfill some of my emotional and intellectual needs outside of the relationship. Simultaneously he grew happier as he found more things to do and adjusted to life on the island. Our commitment deepened and our relationship grew solid and more predicible.

I expected out first year to be bliss and joy, much like our dating past. I was surprised by the challenges and though we have had little bumps in the road over the last ten years, nothing compares to our first year of marriage.

I started thinking about the idea that my children are not going to benefit from the white privilege I am privy to now and while growing up. It struck me hard yesterday when I was reading the question posed in the comments on another blog. The question read something like this, “Do you think that white men, raising black children, feel bad about not being able to pass on their privilege? Do you think it affects how they raise them?” For some reason seeing it in black and white shook me beyond my Pollyanna core.

It’s hard to even go there in my mind, imagining my daughters without every advantage afforded to me and what I always thought was for everyone. You know, “the land of the free” and all that.

I wonder, how will my daughter be talked about when she applies for a job? What if someone doesn’t want to hire her simply because she has a non-Anglo name? Or if she gets a job, can we be sure it’s because of her credentials and not because she’s the token “black woman”?

What happens if she makes a bad choice? If police are involved, can I be certain that she will be treated with the fairness I take for granted? Or will others attribute her bad choices with the “bad behavior” and poverty of her apparent race?

The idea that my children stand for something that is beyond themselves; something that can be perceived as negative without being given the opportunity to present their true selves is really beyond my inner knowing. If this is a free country and life is truly what you make of it, is that true for my precious daughters?

In sharing my concerns with my husband he offered his thoughts. He thinks that being foreign born affords him a certain level of privilege. He doesn’t see the US, or the American experience, as one of racial separation and discrimination. He sees opportunity, wealth, and lots of choices. And his view of the US seems to attract opportunity, wealth, and lots of choices.

His experience, while limited to only 5 years of living in the US, has not included discrimination or racial inequity perpetrated against him. While he knows it exists, and that there are acts of heinous racism; he believes that it will show up if he goes out looking for it. He chooses not to and seems to be a lot happier for it.

My observation of him is that he is perceived as different, not only by his dark complexion and his accent, but by the energy for which he presents the world. He walks around open to possibilities, and he makes friends. When people talk to him there is openness, and everyone seems relaxed. Sometimes I can hear the sense of relief when white people are meeting him for the first time. Maybe because he is foreign born there is not an assumption or fear of “what’s coming next” floating around the conversation. People often tell me, “your husband is such a nice guy.” They almost seem relieved by this – a tone I don’t miss. But I digress…

When I sit back and attempt to look at the big picture, my mind wanders to Michelle Obama. I imagine that she spends little time, if any, thinking about how unfair or inequitable life is or has been for her. I doubt that she and her soon-to-be President husband teach their children to be wary of people out to get them. I would bet there are few conversations around their dinner table about all of the missed opportunities and disadvantages in their lives. So I am left feeling both sad and hopeful, knowing that so many wonderful African Americans have paved the way for a more equitable and free society for my girls. Where privilege will one day be afforded to those who choose take advantage of it.

I was a little surprised Saturday afternoon when I found a young, good looking twenty-something woman at our door asking, “Is your um, your husban, uh there was a guy here earlier, he’s um err aaaffrriiccan aammerican. Is he home?” She was clearly uncomfortable even saying the words, “African American”. Perhaps she was uncomfortable because my husband is not African American, and somewhere inside she could not find the words to call him anything else.

Upon moving to America just 5 years ago my husband began to notice that he was a part of a club he didn’t sign up to join. He noticed that other black people were befriending him everywhere he went. It didn’t take him long to notice the imbalance. He asked me about it. I explained to him that I understood this to be normal behavior among African Americans and I thought it was nice. But he seemed to be offended.

On Saturday when I told him how the young woman had asked for him, stumbling over her words, he asked, “Did you tell her I am not African American?”

Over the years I have noticed that he ebbs and flows with his opinion and behavior around all of the unsolicited attention. Sometimes he might say to me, “why did that woman say hi to me and not you?” On other occasions he has averted the gaze of others. And sometimes he has been friendly, responding with a nod or a word.

My husband does not like it when people equate him with being African American. He identifies as “West Indian” and/or “black”. But overall I noticed he doesn’t much care for labels of any sort. Maybe this is because he didn’t really know he was black until he came to America. He was always like everyone else, he grew up in the majority, something African Americans have not have the privilege of experiencing.

So we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary this weekend. We’ve been together for more than a decade now! It feels like it’s just flown by. The great thing is that I am more in love with my husband than ever. I don’t think I ever expected to reach this point with him.

Honestly we were in love when we married but I don’t think we were actually ready. We were living in his country when we got together and when my visa ran out I went back home. He had proposed early in the relationship and I felt like he was the one, I had no doubt about my feelings. But my head was in the way and I was trying to rationalize how we’d make it work, since I thought we were so different.

I went home and pondered my future with and without my potential husband in it. In the process I read a book called, Inter-cultural Marriage, Third Edition: Promises and Pitfalls by Dugan Romano. The book was great and really helped me see the benefits and strengths of an inter-cultural marriage.

During the five months at home I received a phone call from my father’s friend asking me to “consider what I was doing to (my) family by marrying an uneducated [black] man”.. I was aghast. I didn’t even know how to react. – And what was my father saying to his friends to think it was OK to make such a call?

So I went back to the Caribbean to marry my husband, without my family. My parents did not openly oppose the marriage, but I felt the weight of the fact that they envisioned my partner to be someone different. I wasn’t exactly on the path they had laid out for me.

We planned our wedding in a week and wed in the middle of the rain forest. For my husband’s family, the minister and most of my friends it was the first time they had attended a wedding that wasn’t in a church. It was a beautiful day which showered us with a drizzle of good luck.

Our first year of marriage was spent in a country that neither of us had ever even visited, an island in Micronesia.  We were set to learn together the customs and languages of a totally unique place while learning about each other in a deeper more committed way.The experience allowed us to define ourselves without assumptions. We co-created our relationship and found a language and way of relating that is uniquely ours. It was a tough first year, a really tough first year. But we made it and each year has gotten easier and more comfortable.

I started a page to celebrate inter-cultural differences. I hope you add to it! Thanks for reading and making the world a smaller place.

There was an interesting discussion this week on Anti-racist Parent.com. It started with a white woman who wrote in to ask, “How can white people join the anti-racist discussion?”

It’s hard for me not to feel frustrated by this sort of question. It feels a bit like an inappropriate pity party. Like someone declaring, “I have black friends, so can I join your club?” My perception is that when white people make statements like this they are seeking some sort of permission to not feel guilty for having white privilege, seeking a “get out of jail free” card. It’s not that easy.

I am not saying this because I declare myself THE anti-racist, it’s just that it bugs me that people think there is some sort of easy way through this journey of understanding. That somehow just by saying it, the problem will disappear and all will be well. The reality of racism is that it exists because we are all a part of it. No one should be seeking permission to join, no one should be silent, we all need to actively work toward “be(ing) the change (we) wish to see in the world”.

In 1996 I left the US to live in the Caribbean. I was transplanted to a village in the interior of the island where only 2 other white people (also American) lived. We were all there to work. I went there feeling much like this woman described in her letter on anti-racist parent.com. I was on the outside for several reasons, 1) I was of course white, the minority, 2) I was from an entirely different culture (my frame of reference askew), 3) While they did speak English, we were not speaking the same language. But mainly I was on the outside because I put myself there.

I came to this island with the inner knowing that I was not a racist. I had after all black friends, black ex-boyfriends, etc., blah, blah, blah. But when I looked inside at what I knew about black people, black culture and being black, it was all so superficial, based mostly on assumptions because I was afraid to just be with myself. AND, that is who I was; whether I declared it allowed or kept silent, that’s the energy I presented to the world.

In the Caribbean I lost my sense for how I presented myself. I moved into a house that had few furnishings, which also meant I had no mirror. I lost all objectivity and a sense of who I was, both physically and psychologically. It was as if I had landed on mars. I was forced to drop my assumptions, abandon my ‘knowing’ that I wasn’t a racist and embrace this experience.

I chose to avoid the other white people in my village. I got very sick. It started with a cold, which turned into an ear infection and then bronchitis. I was lost.

Five months into my stay I moved into a different house and bought a mirror for the wall. One morning when I was getting ready to go to work I looked beyond how my outfit appeared and began studying my face. My nose seemed so narrow, my lips so thin. I looked strange and out of place. My eye color looked as the kids in my village declared, like the color of a lizard. I was an alien living in a foreign land, and this foreign land was my own reality. But as my reality shifted and changed, so did I. I began to embrace my alien features, and as I saw myself for who I was, I was better able to embrace others. When I took a look beyond my old lens of knowing into a new world or accepting myself, and actually appreciating myself, my color and my culture, I was making space to be a part of the movement of change.

For me the experience of becoming an anti-racist person is so not about declaring what I am, or what I stand for, or asking permission to be something that I am not. It’s about being the change, and being the person I want to befriend.

And while sometimes I say stupid things, and people certainly say stupid things to me, I feel a sense of responsibility to embrace myself for the wrongs that I have committed and have been committed against me. This for me is the beginning of the journey of understanding, the intersection on the road that leads down the path of declaring myself an anti-racist.

It’s easy to see where my husband and I differ in our parenting styles. He believes that in order to be a good parent he must be and be perceived as being in charge; he is authority.

For me, I parent from the viewpoint that we are ultimately our own source of authority and my children know what’s best for them. In theory, my husband agrees. Which means he nods, “yes” but when it gets down to it, he asserts his power in our house a lot. (Let’s just pretend it means something )

So how does this play out on a practical front? He lays down the law; I lay out the choices…

To me these styles are culture-centric. My husband comes from a culture of authoritarian rule, corporal punishment, “spare the rod, spoil the child”, etc. I am of course from a white-centric culture in California, where children are given free reign to grow their creative spirits!

But just because I disagree with his approach doesn’t make him wrong. There is something to be said for preparing our children for both worlds. While it would be nice to think that we live in a world that welcomes all of our choices, the fact is we don’t.

As I watch our kids grow older I see how easily they adapt. How they know which parent to go to for which need and how they respond to other adults. By making way for my husbands authoritarian style of parenting I think we are preserving an important part of our family’s culture and preparing them for all aspects of authority within our culture and beyond.

How do you negotiate the parenting in your family?