Canadians’ Perspective on Chinese-Canadian Interracial Relationship During the Late 1980s

Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed below represent the opinions of the article’s author. The following work does not necessarily represent the views of the Synergy: Journal of Contemporary Asian Studies.

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to convey my findings from my case study of mainstream or “white” Canadians’ perspectives of their family members’ interracial relationship with a Chinese man from 1986 to their marriage in 1988. I sought to conduct this case study after learning about institutional racism towards Chinese-Canadians between the 1880s and the 1940s, and societal discrimination towards this group throughout Canada’s history. In addition, I saw a unique opportunity to contribute to Chinese-Canadian scholarship on this topic as the daughter of a mixed Chinese-white union, garnering unique access to such a relationship.

Through my case study, I found that this union was premised upon the race-blind mentality of both parties. The “Mainstream Canadian” group of the “Savard’s”: my mother, Susan; her sister, Denise; and her mother, Peggy; all noted throughout their interviews that growing up in Windsor, Ontario, they had very little interaction with racial minorities. In fact, Susan and Denise did not encounter racial minorities until they moved to Toronto in the early 1980s. Despite, or perhaps because of, this racial homogeneity, they had no racial biases at all growing up. Their own family values instilled by Peggy emphasized judging an individual based on one’s own characteristics. In addition, Susan’s husband, Jay, did not see himself as above or subordinate to any race, despite being a visible minority in Canada. Reasons for Susan and Jay’s race-blindness warrant further examination and are outside the scope of this study, but their union nonetheless corroborate Jacobson and Heaton’s findings that interracial relationships positively correlate with relevant encouraging opportunity structures and third-party influences.

Despite the Mainstream Canadian group’s unbiased convictions, there is still some evidence of an “othering” mindset, defined in the sociological realm as labeling another as belonging to another subordinate or alien social class.^[1] For example, when asked about first impressions of Jay, despite claiming to have very little interaction with Chinese-Canadians, all of my interviewees described initial observations that labeled Jay as unique from other Chinese. For instance, their impressions of Jay’s height marked him as unique, or not acting very “Chinese.”

 

Historical Context

One of the most significant markers of Canada’s institutional racism began with the Chinese head tax, implemented in 1885. Under this tax, Chinese individuals who wished to immigrate to Canada were forced to pay a tax of $50.^[2] By 1900, this tax was raised to $100,^[3] then again to $500 in 1903.^[4] Racist sentiments towards Chinese-Canadians, as well as the Canadian government’s goal of a “White Canada,” led to the Chinese Immigration (Exclusion) Act of 1923, which barred Chinese individuals from settling in Canada.^[5]

Throughout this Exclusion period, Chinese individuals already living in Canada were mostly men, labouring to send remittances back to their villages and families in China. They were not allowed to bring their families, including their wives, to join them in Canada during this 24-year period. This fragmentation of nuclear families resulted in a significant gender imbalance in Canada. Chan notes that in Toronto in 1911, there was a ratio of 280 Chinese men to one Chinese woman; and by 1931, 124 Chinese men to one Chinese woman.^[6]

Meanwhile, interracial relationships were highly taboo, both for Chinese and Canadian people. Non-Chinese “viewed the commingling of women of white and men of Chinese heritage as sexually and morally dangerous and socially deviant,”^[7] and Chinese males were generally seen as “an amoral and evil influence”^[8] on white women. Chenier describes the consequences of breaking the miscegenation taboo in one infamous interracial relationship: “while [Velma Damerson] was eating breakfast with [her partner, Harry Yip] in May 1939, her father and two Toronto policemen burst into their apartment and took her into custody.”^[9] The alleged crime was Velma’s shared residence with a Chinese man, despite being unmarried. Moreover, Canadian laws during the Exclusion era assumed that women would take the nationality of their husbands. With only 6% of Chinese living in Canada considered Canadian citizens, a white woman who decided to marry her Chinese partner during this period would most likely be stripped of her citizenship, denying her legal birthright and socially ostracizing her. ^{[10] [11]}

The Chinese Immigration Act was repealed in 1947. However, even without this piece of legislation, there were still significant restrictions on Chinese immigration until the infamous race-blind Points system was implemented in 1967. Nonetheless, the 1970s and 80s witnessed the implementation of several pro-multiculturalism policies in Canada. Such actions include the introduction of a national policy on multiculturalism in 1971, its enshrinement as the Multiculturalism Act of 1988, and Section 27 in the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.^[12] In contrast to Canada’s history of institutionalized racism, Canada is currently hailed as one of the most tolerant and multicultural countries in the world. It is during this era of multicultural tolerance and awareness in the late 1980s that Jay and Susan formed their relationship.

 

Purpose and Hypothesis

It is critical to examine Chinese-Canadian interracial relationships in Canada. Although interracial relationships today are often seen as almost banal or indeed positive, it was only four short decades before my parents got married that their union would have likely deemed my mother a non-citizen of Canada. Alternatively, their relationship could have been deemed as justification for or constitutive of a crime. Negative attitudes towards interracial relationships founded upon such explicit racism thus strike a personal intimate chord. In addition, official or unofficial anti-Chinese sentiments have been too frequently omitted from lessons about Canada’s history. The objective of this paper is to better understand whether there were barriers to an interracial relationship even thirty years ago, and if certain support structures were or are necessary for an interracial relationship to form.

The purpose of my case study is to investigate perceptions surrounding my parents’ interracial marriage and courtship from Susan’s mainstream Canadian family between 1986-1988 in Toronto. Due to linguistic and accessibility barriers, I was not able to interview Jay’s side of the family. I hypothesize that I will find perceptions about Chinese-White interracial relationships during this previous era more race-cognizant or discriminatory than they are today.

 

Literature Review

As previously mentioned, the ushering in of the Points System and various pro-multiculturalism acts and policies between the 1960s-80s reflected significant change in the Canadian government’s stance towards the Chinese. With this change, interracial relationships in Canada have become less taboo over the decades. Recent literature has examined trends, factors, and perceptions regarding interracial relationships amongst Chinese-Canadians.

Tzeng, author of “Ethnically Heterogamous Marriages: The Case of Asian Canadians,” studies the patterns of intermarriage among Asians in Canada between 1981 to 1991, focusing on the effects of the couples’ individual characteristics and socioeconomic status on marriage. She finds that overall, official language attainment, higher educational attainment, and younger age have positive correlations with the likelihood of interracial marriage.^[13] Meanwhile, Lou, Lalonde and Wong examine whether culture – specifically Chinese versus “mainstream Canadian” culture – affects openness towards interracial relationships. They cite previous studies that argued a culturally “mainstream Canadian” may be more supportive of interracial relationships than an individual of Chinese heritage, due to the former’s greater emphasis on interpersonal openness and ethnic diversity.^[14] In “Comparative Patterns of Interracial Marriage,” Jacobson and Heaton investigate factors that may be influential to affecting homogamy (inter-group marriage) across six regions with an assortment of multicultural makeups, citing Kalmij as a theoretical framework for their analysis. Kalmij categorizes factors that may preclude or exclude one from partaking in homogamy into two categories: “opportunity structures,” such as geographical isolation or integration of different racial groups, and “third-party influences,” such as taboos against inter-group marriage. Jacobson and Heaton found that the highest rates of exogamy (outer-group marriage) occurred in areas with the most “structural opportunities” for interracial relationships, such as locations with an ethnically-varied population such as Hawaii. Exogamy is least likely to take place where third-party influences generate sanctions against the practice, for example, in post-Apartheid South Africa.^[15] Jacobson and Heaton’s piece suggests that historical and political factors are likely influential in fostering or discouraging interracial unions.

Academic literature has provided meaningful contributions to one’s understanding of interracial Chinese-Canadian unions. However, it should be noted that there is a significant dearth of study on interracial relationships, especially compared to the greater attention and resources allocated to studying them south of the border.

 

Research Method

As a part of this case study, I conducted four interviews: my mother, Susan; my father, Jay; my mother’s sister, Denise; and my mother’s mother, Peggy. The interviews were semi-structured, with a focus on qualitative personal histories and societal observations where applicable. I used Script A for Jay and Susan, and script B for Peggy and Denise (see Appendices). If the interviews deviated into a slightly off-topic conversation, I encouraged the discussion to be nonetheless frank and productive.

Peggy was my first interviewee. After a few minutes of questioning, I realized that relaying to her the historical context of Chinese racial relations in Canada might be beneficial for her to understand what type of information I was seeking. I thus relayed a summary of institutional racism to Peggy, using language very similar to the “Historical Context” section above. This process was also included in my conversations with the other interviewees thereafter, prior to asking them any interview questions. It is worthwhile to note that Peggy, Susan and Jay all had no knowledge about Canada’s institutional racism towards Chinese communities prior to this discussion.

As I conducted the interviews in succession, I incorporated additional questions that were inspired by previous interviews. In each section that follows, I give a brief, relevant biography of my interviewees. After the interview summaries, I will present an analysis of my findings.

 

Interview Summaries

Peggy

Peggy was born in 1932 in Windsor, Ontario. She was 86 years old at the time of the interview. Despite being an octogenarian, Peggy speaks with articulateness and mental clarity as if she were half her age. She is ethnically of half German and half Irish descent. Physically and culturally, she is of a white/mainstream Canadian background. Windsor has been her primary location of residence for her entire life. She is Susan’s mother.

My first question for Peggy was whether she was exposed to different ethnicities other than her own growing up, to which she responded, “no.” When asked if she had any preconceived notions about races different than her own, she also replied “no,” stating that she was never prejudicial. She stated that she was nonetheless “surprised” to learn that Sue was bringing Jay home, partly because Sue merely said he was a “good friend from school,” as opposed to her boyfriend, when she brought Jay to meet her parents for the first time in Windsor in 1986.

Despite articulating later in the interview that Peggy had never met a Chinese person nor had any thoughts about Chinese individuals prior to meeting Jay, her initial impression of him was “my goodness, for a Chinese, he’s very tall. We thought they were short. […] And he’s very good-looking.” When further prompted about what she thought of Jay and Susan’s interracial relationship, Peggy revealed that she thought the relationship was “different.”

Notably, Peggy described how growing up, her own family had positive and supportive relationships with the few racial minorities that lived in her neighborhood. For example, Peggy noted how she knew only one racial minority growing up, a black woman. Her mother helped this woman and her children, demonstrating an example of neutral if not positive race relations. When asked to summarize her thoughts about Susan and Jay’s relationship, Peggy mentioned that her reactions were overwhelmingly positive. Peggy saw the interracial marriage as a net benefit, and as an opportunity to learn about a culture other than her own.

 

Denise

Denise was born in 1957 in Windsor, Ontario. She is ethnically half French-Canadian, one quarter German, and one quarter Irish. She also looks physically white/mainstream Canadian. She moved to Toronto in 1980, when she was 23 years old, and lived with her sister Susan for about 3 years between 1984-88 while Susan was dating Jay.

I began my interview with Denise by asking her about her initial reactions when she first moved to Toronto. She posits that there were a lot more “non-Canadian looking people: black people, Chinese people, Vietnamese people, African,” implying that “Canadian” to her meant “white.” Indeed, Denise used “Canadian” synonymously with people of white ethnicity or mainstream Canadian throughout the interview. She noted how she experienced a culture shock upon moving to the city of Toronto. When prompted about her thoughts about racial relations in Toronto at the time, she recalled specifically seeing prejudice towards black individuals and non-English speaking Chinese people, as well as implicit discrimination by white “Canadians” towards minorities. Denise conveyed how she was not raised with any of these prejudices, and she herself was not at any point prejudiced or discriminatory, including during her time in Toronto.

I asked Denise what her first thoughts were when she met Jay. She immediately recounts his poor English skills, which she contrasts with how she knew Sue was “very intelligent.” When asked if Denise thought Susan and Jay’s relationship would be any less serious due to their racial differences, her response was “not necessarily, […] but I did think it would be more difficult.” Even in the 1980s, she thought that the pair might endure some prejudice, particularly regarding Jay’s employment prospects or career advancement.

When prompted about her initial and later thoughts about Jay outside of the aforementioned characteristics, Denise recounts that she initially did not think Jay was very Chinese, because he had “a lot of Jewish friends.” Throughout the interview, Denise did not recall any negative race-based generalizations she thought of when she first met Jay. Denise stated that she even found some of his Chinese characteristics somewhat amusing, as she recounted that he was “overly” formal in her opinion, and not as affectionate as a mainstream Canadian courter, at which she chuckled during our interview and provided lively depictions and examples. The rest of her depiction is not racialized and very individual-focused. The individual traits Denise mentioned about Jay were very positive, observing how much Jay cared about Susan, how hard he worked despite his language barrier, how very courteous and gentleman he was, and how he held a strong sense of family and duty, much to Denise’s admiration. Denise also notes how she concluded early on that Jay was “different” – not because he was Chinese, but because his positive qualities displayed genuine and honest intentions in his relationship with Susan.

 

Susan

Susan was born in 1958. She has the same ethnic background as her sister, Denise. Susan moved from her hometown of Windsor to Ottawa when she was 17, and then to Toronto in 1980 when she was 22. She moved to Toronto to pursue an undergraduate degree in Economics at York University. She met Jay in 1982 at York University, where they had several classes together.

Echoing Peggy and Denise’s responses, Susan said that she had zero conception of the Chinese community in Canada before meeting her soon-to-be husband, Jay, in 1986. She mentioned that this was because she “didn’t consider them anything special or different at all.” Susan says that she would consider herself race-blind when it comes to relationships. She “didn’t see Chinese as anything different,” and reiterates this throughout her interview. According to Susan, there were a lot of foreign students in the 1980s at York University, specifically recalling substantial Asian and Arab populations.

When I asked Susan about her first impressions of Jay, she echoes Denise’s observation of not initially seeing Jay as Chinese. The first reason she cites is her observation of Jay’s many Jewish friends, specifically noting that he had almost no Chinese friends. In addition, her first impression of him was that he was “tall,” echoing Peggy’s and Denise’s first impressions and implying that they thought of Chinese individuals as not typically tall. Lastly, Susan said, “he did all the English things.” I ask Susan if she thought she did not realize Jay was Chinese at first because she thought he was more assimilated into Canadian society, to which she replied “yes.”

The moment Susan realized Jay was Chinese was when she met his Chinese-Canadian relatives at a restaurant in Scarborough, a few months after they started dating. At this point, Susan realized Jay was “very” Chinese. She seems to have been somewhat overwhelmed by all his relatives speaking Chinese, “looking Chinese,” using chopsticks, bowing, and acting in a very formal and respectful way towards each other. I asked Susan why Jay’s language, which Denise mentioned in her interview as being “terrible,” was not initially identified as a marker of his “Chineseness.” Susan replied that despite agreeing with Denise that Jay’s English was “terrible,” it did not really “jump out” at her because her own father had poor English skills, coming from a French-Canadian linguistic background.

When I probed Susan on more general societal reactions towards her and Jay’s relationship, she responded with her belief that being in the multicultural community of Toronto made her relationship more acceptable, as she did not seem to recall any experiences of discrimination in the city. However, when she brought Jay to Windsor, she remembered “everyone would be staring at him,” because there were so few racial minorities in Windsor at the time. Susan thus credits the racially diverse city of Toronto for the lack of discrimination her and Jay experienced, and muses that if they had moved to significantly-whiter Windsor, or even Ottawa, they may have experienced more race-based biases.

The only distinctly negative societal interaction Susan cites during her interview, ironically, was with the government of Canada when she was applying to change Jay’s citizenship for their marriage license. She recalls:

“There were a lot of hoops there, we had a lot of meetings, I was always [hoping] they accept my Chinese husband […] because we were going through a government system and they had all their radars on, […] they had labelled that you’re a Chinese immigrant, you’re not a Canadian citizen, you’re asking to come to this country.”

Susan stated that this was a serious “eye-opener” for her, and her voice became significantly more sombre when recalling this event.

 

Jay

Jay was born in 1956 outside of Taiwan’s capital city of Taipei. He came to Canada in 1980 and enrolled in a Bachelors in Business Administration at York University in 1982 at the age of 26. During his time in Canada, he stayed with his cousins in Scarborough, Ontario, who were Canadian citizens of Chinese ethnicity.

My first question was to ask Jay what his thoughts were on “mainstream” Canadians before he met Susan. His immediate reaction was that he did not have those thoughts. Instead, his mindset was, “I don’t discriminate you, you don’t discriminate me.” Signing on to a trend of seeing Jay’s height as a significant marker, he stated: “I think it helps I’m big, I don’t get bullied,” later relaying his belief that his stature allowed him to avoid discrimination for fear of physical retaliation on the part of the provocateur.

Jay then segues into his search for a girlfriend when he first came to Canada in 1980. Initially, his girlfriends were Asian. He dated girls from Hong Kong, but found them arrogant and money-oriented, lamenting that there were not many Taiwanese girls in Canada, which almost motivated him to move to the United States instead. However, when he was “hit on” by a white Canadian girl in a university class, Jay admits that this was a catalyst to becoming more open-minded about dating different races and ethnicities in Canada. Jay thus conveys that, like Sue, he was race-blind when it came to dating. However, as a part of his Chinese tradition and in order for his partner to be accepted by his parents, having a strong sense of family values were absolutely essential.

 As Jay’s assimilation, or non-Chinese identity, came up in different interviews, I asked Jay if he felt “mainstream”. He replied,

“No, it took a long time to feel like a Canadian […] initially you have your culture, Chinese culture, […] once you open your eyes, you have Ukrainians, you have Italians here, everybody living in this piece of land holds onto their culture as a Canadian. That’s the beauty of Canada—it’s not a melting pot. Once you realize that, you [become] proud of it, and you say yes, I’m living on this piece of land with my heritage, instead of [losing] it […] you suddenly realize, yeah, I’m a Chinese-Canadian because I am Chinese but I am Canadian living in this piece of land with all great people from all over the world.”

Jay thus iterates that while it took him a long time to feel like a Canadian, realizing that everyone else was in the same situation (ie. coming from a different country and bringing their own culture, but simultaneously living on Canadian land) helped him realize that he was indeed Canadian. Jay’s notion of “Canadianness” thus seems to encompass different characteristics than that of Denise’s. For Jay, being Canadian stems from a shared sense of hyphenated identity and appreciation for being afforded this ability. Meanwhile, Denise’s sense of being a “Canadian” is synonymous with being white. Thus, Denise’s sense of being “Canadian” encompasses more barriers, and is narrower than Jay’s.

Mirroring Susan’s reaction to meeting Jay’s family for the first time, Jay says that he did not see Susan’s race until he met her family. Specifically, Jay notes his first encounter with Susan’s father, who was French Canadian and spoke English with a presumably heavy French accent. Similar to Peggy’s experience, Jay said that his view of mingling with different ethnicities and cultures is a net positive experience. By getting to know his British friend, for example, and accepting an offer of British tea, Jay gained the opportunity to experience a part of his friend’s culture that he would not have otherwise had if he was not as open-minded. Jay mentioned that his views of interracial relationships mirror this example.

Jay did not mention any significant experiences of discrimination in Canada, either through his relationship with Susan or during his time in Canada in general.

 

Interview Analysis

Interviewers have preconceived notions and subjectivities when creating or asking their questions. Growing up in an extremely multicultural city myself, I experienced this first-hand during my interviews, when I assumed Peggy would have had similar multicultural experiences as I did. Instead, I was taken aback to learn after five questions that Jay was the first Chinese man Peggy had ever met.

Admittedly born into an era of relative poverty and a strongly-bonded community of relative racial homogeneity in a Windsor, Ontario, Peggy’s interview response demonstrates a strong personal value orientation of evaluating everyone based on who they are as individuals, as opposed to generalized demographic characteristics. This seems to have transferred to Peggy’s daughters, Susan and Denise. This transferral holds great significance, since an open-minded value system was perhaps relevant and pre-emptive to Susan’s attitude towards interracial dating.

Despite Denise’s implicit association of “Canadianness” with “white” or “mainstream” ethnicity, Denise also holds non-discriminatory attitudes towards race, as demonstrated by her explicit vocalization of this view and her open-minded attitude towards her sister interracially dating. Denise also seems to have been more cognizant of, or at least better able to recount her observations of discriminatory behaviour in Toronto during her young adulthood, further relating this to Jay than Susan. Denise, for example, mentions her concern that Jay might not be able to provide for Susan as well as if, presumably, he was white.

Another interesting finding from Denise’s interview is how she contrasted Jay’s poor English skills with Susan’s intelligence. This statement conveyed an association of poor English skills with lower intelligence, or lower perceived intelligence. This observation from Denise upholds her concerns that Jay might be discriminated against in the job market due to his poor English skills. Indeed, Tzeng notes how language attainment positively correlates with interracial relationships. Despite Jay’s English being poor, he was able to communicate with Susan, who thus seems to have been an exception to Tzeng’s rule, likely because her experience with her father’s poor English skills meant that Jay’s English level did not bother her.

Peggy, Denise and Susan all mentioned how they did not realize Jay was Chinese, citing him as being, explicitly or implicitly, more “mainstream Canadian” or “not Chinese.” For example, all three Savards seemed surprised that Jay was tall, perhaps believing that tallness is not a typical Chinese characteristic. In addition, Susan explicitly notes how she believed that Jay was more assimilated, recounting his Jewish friends, height, and the fact that “he did all the English things.” The fact that Jay was more culturally assimilated supports Lou, Lalonde and Wong’s findings that “Mainstream Canadian” culture, as opposed to Chinese heritage, has a positive effect on openness to interracial relationships.^[16]

Susan most potently credits Toronto as the reason for her success in an interracial relationship. She noted that she did not see race, including when it came to romantic relationships, because she was so accustomed to being in such a multicultural city. Susan accredits multicultural Toronto with the success of her and Jay’s relationship, a statement that supports Jacobson and Heaton’s findings in “Comparative Patterns of Interracial Marriage.” Jacobson and Heaton posit that “opportunity structures” such as the geographical integration of different racial groups and encouraging “third-party influences,” such as open-minded support structures, correlate positively with incidences of interracial relationships. Susan and Jay notably experienced both of these two factors, facing a positive “opportunity structure” in multicultural and diverse Toronto, supportive friends and family, as well as a racially tolerant society at large. These “opportunity structures” and “third-party influences” likely had a supportive and foundational effect on Jay and Susan’s relationship, as Jacobson and Heaton suggest.

Meanwhile, Jay did not seem to see himself as an individual of any subordinate race or class when he came to Canada. Jay never “othered” himself or considered any race above or below his own. A prospective partner’s individual values were significantly more important to both Jay and Susan, in comparison to generalized characteristics such as race. Even though Jay comes from a distinct Chinese culture, he values certain elements of his culture, such as a strong sense of family, even if his partner did not necessary share the same racial or cultural membership.

Conclusion

My original hypothesis was incorrect. I have found that the Savard family’s attitudes towards an interracial couple were not any more or less discriminatory or race-cognizant than they are today, with the exception of perhaps Peggy’s inexperience encountering and interacting with visible minorities. It is difficult to draw general conclusions based on Jay and Susan’s relationship and apply it to a broader group, because this case study is just one example of a nuclear family. It is even more difficult to infer the significance of Jay and Susan’s relationship for interracial relationships in general, without conducting a broader study on multiethnic partners. However, all the scholars mentioned in the literature review hold views applicable to the formation of Jay and Susan’s relationship. Specifically, this case study strongly confirms Jacobson and Heaton’s findings regarding the likelihood of exogamy with relevant support structures. Although this may seem obvious, Jay, Susan, and Denise all accredited Toronto as a reason why they lived in such a multicultural area that enabled the intermingling of races. Taking into account the lack of discrimination Jay and Susan faced, except for Susan’s experience applying for Jay’s citizenship, it may be concluded that positive views of multiculturalism may have been already been embedded into the structural makeup of Toronto by the late 1980s. This structural composition likely permeated Susan and Denise’s values in the context of the nuclear family, further influencing Peggy’s own mindset and the values instilled in her family.

Jacobson and Heaton posit that inter-group marriage is the last barrier to racial integration, and conclude that “patterns of intermarriage thus provide an assessment of the strength of barriers against inter-group intimate contact.”^[17] While my research has identified one example of tolerance in the late 1980s, in that Jay and Susan’s interracial relationship had few barriers, a broader analysis is needed to explore whether this would hold true for more individuals in Canada or in more homogenous communities outside Toronto. Although a poll in 2013 found that 92% of Canadians support the concept of mixed unions, this degree of acceptance of interracial relationships is certainly not the case worldwide.^[18] For example, Jacobson and Heaton posit that there remain significant structural barriers and taboos associated with interracial coupling between whites and blacks in South Africa or among individuals of different ethno-religious backgrounds in Xinjiang, China.^[19]

While it is unfortunate that racism in Canada historically pervaded the most intimate areas of Canadians’ lives, it is evident from Jay and Susan’s story in Toronto in the 1980s that there were minimal barriers to inter-group intimate contact during this era, in at least some instances aided by relevant opportunities and support structures for interracial relationships. However, many societies and communities around the world are “behind the times” on racial tolerance. I am hopeful that racial barriers and prejudices will eventually be dismantled globally, required by ever-increasing global immigration and aided by a growing awareness of human and group rights.

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Tracy Wang is a Political Science Specialist studying at Trinity College, University of Toronto.

 

Bibliography

Chan, Arlene. The Chinese in Toronto from 1878: From Outside to Inside the Circle. Toronto, Ontario: Dunderun Natural Heritage, 2005. E-Book.

Chenier, Elise. “Sex, Intimacy, and Desire among Men of Chinese Heritage and Women of Non-Asian Heritage in Toronto, 1910–1950.” Urban History Review42, no. 2 (2014): 29. Accessed November 2, 2018. doi:10.7202/1025698ar.

Jacobson, Cardell K., and Tim B. Heaton. “Comparative Patterns of Interracial Marriage: Structural Opportunities, Third-party Factors, and Temporal Change in Immigrant Societies.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies: 129-49. Accessed October 2, 2018.

Lee, Sharon M., and Monica Boyd. “Marrying Out: Comparing the Marital and Social Integration of Asians in the US and Canada.” Social Science Research37, no. 1 (2008): 311-29. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2007.01.002.

Lim, Audrea. “The Alt-Right’s Asian Fetish.” The New York Times. January 06, 2018. Accessed October 02, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/alt-right-asian-fetish.html.

Lou, Evelina, Richard N. Lalonde, and Jane Y. T. Wong. “Acculturation, Gender, and Views on Interracial Relationships among Chinese Canadians.” Personal Relationships22, no. 4 (2015): 621-34. doi:10.1111/pere.12099.

Papamarko, Sofi. “Why Black Women and Asian Men Are at a Disadvantage When It Comes to Online Dating.” Thestar.com. March 21, 2017. Accessed October 02, 2018. https://www.thestar.com/life/2017/03/21/racism-and-matchmaking.html.

Todd, Douglas. “Mixed Marriage in Canada: Forces for and against.” Vancouver Sun. September 21, 2013. Accessed October 02, 2018. https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/mixed-marriage-in-canada-forces-for-and-against.

Tzeng, Jessie M. “Ethnically Heterogamous Marriages.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 1996, 321-37. Accessed October 2, 2018.

 

Appendices

Script A: Interview for Jay and Susan, partners in an interracial union:

1. When did you get married?
2. How long did you date for?
   1. [Susan] What was your knowledge of the Chinese in Canada before you knew Jay?
      1. [Susan] Had you dated before you met Jay?
   2. [Susan] What was their background/culture?
      1. [Jay] What was your knowledge of mainstream/Caucasians in Canada before you knew Susan?
         1. [Jay] Had you dated before?
      2. [Jay] What was their background/culture?
      3. Would you have, and do you still consider yourself race-blind when it comes to romantic relationships?
      4. Would you have preferred to be romantically involved with a [woman/man] from your same cultural background?
         1. Why/why not?
      5. [Jay] Do you think the fact that the Chinese were a minority in Canada at the time you arrived in Canada (mid-1980s) affected how you considered dating?
      6. [Susan] When you were thinking of bringing Jay to meet your family, what was going through your head?
      7. [Jay] When you were about to meet Susan’s family, what was going through your head?
      8. What about each set of your friends at the time—did they have any opinions about your being an interracial couple?
      9. Were there societal reactions to your being an interracial couple?
         1. Do you believe these societal reactions, if any, have changed throughout your time together?
         2. Have your family’s reactions to interracial couples changed?
      10. Is there anything else you would like to share you think is relevant?

 

 

Script B: Interviews for Peggy and Denise, support structures to an interracial union:

1. Growing up, were you exposed to people of different ethnicities to your own?
   1. Did that affect how you perceived race?
   2. Did that affect how you conceived of a potential partner?
2. Were there any racial biases in your household? Please feel free to be candid.
3. What was your understanding of people of Chinese heritage [Canadian caucasian heritage] before you met Jay [Susan]?
   1. How or where did you think you may have acquired these perceptions?
4. What was your first thought when you heard Sue [/Jay] was in an interracial union?
5. Did you ever think because of his [her] race, their relationship would be any less serious?
6. Do you think there are stereotypes with respect to people of Chinese heritage [Caucasian heritage] in terms of relationships?
   1. Did these stereotypes influence you at all?
7. Did any pre-existing understanding of individuals from Asian heritage [mainstream Canadian culture] change throughout knowing Jay [Susan]?
   1. Are there any stories you’d like to share of that experience?
8. What did you think of when they announced they were going to get married?
9. Did you have any thoughts about biracial-ness with respect to Susan having children?

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^[1] Zuleyka Zevallos, “What Is Otherness?” The Other Sociologist, June 17, 2018, , accessed December 20, 2018, https://othersociologist.com/otherness-resources/.

^[2] Arlene Chan, The Chinese in Toronto from 1878: From Outside to Inside the Circle (Toronto, Ontario: Dunderun Natural Heritage, 2005), E-Book, 38.

^[3] Arlene Chan, The Chinese in Toronto from 1878, 40.

^[4] Ibid., 42.

^[5] Ibid., 33.

^[6] Ibid., 112.

^[7] Elise Chenier, “Sex, Intimacy, and Desire among Men of Chinese Heritage and Women of Non-Asian Heritage in Toronto, 1910–1950,” Urban History Review 42, no. 2 (2014): 32, accessed December 20, 2018, doi:10.7202/1025698ar.

^[8] Arlene Chan, The Chinese in Toronto from 1878, 133.

^[9] Ibid., 134.

^[10] Ibid., 158.

^[11] Elise Chenier, “Sex, Intimacy, and Desire,” 135.

^[12] Arlene Chan, The Chinese in Toronto from 1878, 204.

^[13] Jessie M. Tzeng, “Ethnically Heterogamous Marriages,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 1996, 329, accessed October 2, 2018.

^[14] Evelina Lou, Richard N. Lalonde, and Jane Y. T. Wong, “Acculturation, Gender, and Views on Interracial Relationships among Chinese Canadians,” Personal Relationships 22, no. 4 (2015): 629.

^[15] Jacobson, Cardell K., and Tim B. Heaton, “Comparative Patterns of Interracial Marriage: Structural Opportunities, Third-party Factors, and Temporal Change in Immigrant Societies,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies: 129-49, 146, Accessed October 2, 2018.

^[16] Evelina Lou, Richard N. Lalonde, and Jane Y. T. Wong, “Acculturation, Gender, and Views on Interracial Relationships among Chinese Canadians,” Personal Relationships 22, no. 4 (2015): 629.

 

^[17] Ibid, 130.

^[18] Douglas Todd, “Mixed Marriage in Canada: Forces for and against,” Vancouver Sun, September 21, 2013, accessed October 02, 2018, https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/mixed-marriage-in-canada-forces-for-and-against.

^[19] Jacobson, Cardell K., and Tim B. Heaton, “Comparative Patterns of Interracial Marriage,” 146.