raangoli - I think I am going to try attempt to speak it with my parents more often, my parents speak a mix of English/Tamil to myself and my sister now but we both 100% respond in English.
H really enjoyed it, we were mostly in the south (Tamil Nadu/Chennai) but spent a few days in Kerala as well. H kind of pictured India stereotypically (so just fields and nothing) so he was super shocked to be in a huge city. He loved Kerala (Kochi) because it was a much slower/quieter pace. I was disappointed we didn't get to go to the north. H and I were only there for 2 weeks (between India and Sri Lanka) and since my parents had done the north the previous year on there trip they skipped it this time. I know parts of Chennai and other regions had a huge flood recently so the city was still a bit messy (lots of trash everywhere) but our family there was saying that it's not usually like that and it is taking longer to clean up. The last time I had been there was 15 or so years ago so it had been awhile for me too.
He LOVED the food, and loved being able to eat with his hands everywhere lol.
He decided to venture out by himself in Sri Lanka and take a rickshaw ride, I guess he stands out at as the obvious tourist (super tall white guy) and the rickshaw driver tried to charge him the equivalent of $40 for a drive down the road. My cousin later told us that it shouldn't cost us only a few rupees. He ended up opening his wallet to show the guy he didn't have as much as he wanted and the guy say the blue Canadian $5 and said he'd give him a small tour for that.
I was a bit bummed that we didn't get a chance to go out and do/see more. A lot of the trip was going to see family and introducing H to various family members. I hope to be able to go back sometime in the near future with H and just travel/see more/experience more.
pandora89 My parents and I are the same way. In fact, I don't really realize what language they are speaking to me in often, but I do answer them in English.
I'm glad you H enjoyed the trip! I'm impressed that he ventured out on his own for a bit. I love that he already knew how to haggle and to do the wallet trick
Post by rootbeerfloat on Sept 8, 2016 14:47:12 GMT -5
I'm Hawaiian/Korean/Chinese/Scottish/English, and H is white. I identify as Hawaiian (it's understood, at least here in Hawaii, that the majority of Native Hawaiians are mixed with other ethnicities), but describe my kids as hapa.
Yes, there are cultural differences, which he has mostly adapted to. Living in Hawaii (he's from the Midwest originally) has been eye-opening for him in terms of white people not being the majority, and sometimes I'm not especially sympathetic lol.
Neither of us is particularly religious, and both our families are politically liberal. My MIL is a new age hippie who follows (studies with?) a Native American healer, so she's always asking me about native cultural practices, which is awkward.
Well I'm half Iraqi (Assyrian), and Ossetian, I also have a bit of Chinese in me from a great grandfather. DH is half Iraqi and half Lebanese, also he was born in Kuwait. We are both raised Catholic and Eastern Orthodox(although I'm a recent athiest) our only divide is the religion he feels so so strongly about it and I just meh...
I was born here but my parents are from India. My husband was born in India and came here when he was five. Our families are both from the same part of India so they speak the same language. Dumb me in my 20s thought that all people of our background, basically my parents friends that I grew up with, were all good people. So when I met my husband, I saw that he had a "good family, a good job, a good education," he was living on his own and paying his own bills and not a mama's boy, what more did I need? He had to be a good person. Stupid naïve me did not know at the time that assholes transcend all cultures. This dumb decision I made in my 20s to marry this person has now come to haunt me and makes me question how I will raise DD to understand how to find a future partner.
You are being way too hard on yourself. The person you are in your 20s isn't necessarily the same person in you are in your 30s, 40s, etc. People change and what they are willing to deal with at one point in life they may not be willing to deal with at another point in their life.
Also, trust me I understand the whole generalization of everyone is good in the culture. Freshman year of college changed that perception for me, and it took me years to rebound from it.
PDQ b/c I don't know what's a safe place and all that jazz.
I definitely tried to distance myself from it a lot growing up to, I was always super embarrassed about anything related to my culture. I grew up wishing I was white. I am glad your daughter wants to embrace your culture so much, that is amazing. We don't have children but I worry that when we do, they will have no relation to my culture because I rarely embrace it myself.
I have a super long answer to this question, but I basically came in to say that it's fucking hard navigating this stuff with a spouse/partner of a different ethnicity/upbringing. This morning was an absolute shit show as I ranted to DH about everything happening on the boards, cataloged every microaggression made by white liberal women I know IRL and basically broke down on the sofa about how shitty it feels to move through a world in which I never know what someone is really thinking and how I'm continuously frustrated by my own disappointment in people instead of just accepting that people suck. How I'm still unpacking all of this coded language people use around me to voice their biases in a polite, socially-acceptable way, like saying, "I really want junior to get into the gifted and talented program" instead of "I really don't want junior to have to go to school with too many brown children." But regardless of how they say it, they still mean the latter!
DH is from the deep south. As has been pointed out in the epic thread going on in MMM right now (in discussions of North v. South), he's used to people wearing their shitty, racist opinions on their sleeve. He lived with Governor Wallace until the age of 10. He's had people tell him to his face that their parents didn't want them to play with him because he's Jewish or that he didn't qualify for certain opportunities because his parents weren't members of xyz church. He is now such a deeply entrenched cynic that there isn't much he can say to me that helps. He just left for work at almost 10 am because he didn't want to just leave me crying on the sofa, but he also keeps saying that he doesn't understand why I am "wasting my time" when "you know people are like this." This doesn't help. I don't want to just accept shitty behavior as par for the course. I want people to change, I want conversations to move forward, I want people to take their heads out of their asses.
ETA: to respond to some of the comments above, I will say that while I am extremely frustrated with DH at this particular moment, he is a rock star at going along with my Caribbean family's expectations of financial support. An uncle of mine in Cuba is in a real bind and all DH asked was exactly how much he needs to resolve the issue.
Post by lovelyshoes on Sept 9, 2016 9:15:52 GMT -5
anna7602 I am a lot like your h and you. At this point I just assume that most people will be shitty if not from the start, then from when they hear my name. Sometimes I get surprised and at other times it inevitably comes out and I think to myself when will I learn? Why am I surprised that it turned out like this yet again? I want to believe in the good in people and that they can learn and change, or at least listen. I don't know. My h is a lot like yours, he grew up in a tough environment and he just gives no fucks. Not to generalize, but men at least in my family deal in facts, not so much in emotions. It really sucks.
Post by picksthemusic on Sept 9, 2016 14:07:43 GMT -5
DH is third generation Mexican-American, and I am as white as they come. There are a lot of cultural differences that have affected our marriage, namely how involved his family is with ours, and my discomfort with so much togetherness. Growing up, my family was very hands off, you're on your own at 18, and pretty much left each other alone except at holidays and birthdays. I grew up Lutheran, and DH was raised Catholic. I did convert to Catholicism before we got married so we could have a united religion for our future family. To me, being Catholic wasn't all that different from being Lutheran, so it felt like a good decision. I still feel very Lutheran most of the time, however.
DH's family is allllll up in our business all the time. Part of that is because DH is best friends with his mom. He gets cranky if he hasn't talked to her in days, and we go see them/they come see us at least every other week, if not more often. I try to tell DH that I need more space and time away from his family so we can focus on US, but he always excuses it one way or another by saying how helpful they are (which, he's right - they are very generous with their time and money), so I feel trapped and ungrateful if I complain about their presence. DH also has two Deaf younger brothers, so once I was DH's girlfriend, I was learning both Spanish and SEE/ASL (Signing Exact English/American Sign Language). For a while, I felt like they (DH and MIL) would make fun of me if I tried speaking Spanish more, and it was really uncomfortable because I would do my best to say things correctly, and then they'd start giggling like it was funny. And then I'd remind them that hey, I'm trying here, and then they'd backpedal and say no, you sound good! It took a few CTJ meetings with DH for him to understand that I was trying my best, but it didn't help that they would laugh every time I spoke Spanish. It's much better now, but they still speak Spanish to each other knowing I don't fully understand what they're saying, and most of the time I try to not ask what they're saying, because I don't want to sound whiny or like I don't trust them, but they definitely use it when we're out and about to talk about other people, which I find distasteful to say the least.
Are you guys ready for this mixed bag? My mom is 1/2 Irish 1/2 PR and my dad is 1/2 Irish 1/2 DR..so I don't know what that makes me except 1 million percent catholic. I sort of look white but carry very Hispanic features, light skin, dark everything else/eyes/hair. The hair, (I am not becky) hence my name, my sister always called me her chia pet. My (ex) husband is white and my kids look so different we get it from all over. I have 5, two kids have blue eyes, and look very white and the other three look very Hispanic. You can't imagine the comments we get when we are out. I speak very little Spanish because even though my parents both speak Spanish, they did not want any of us to speak bc they did not see it as a good thing. I understand a lot.
I am from Jersey, I didn't give it a second thought about being all mixed up and whatnot until I joined the service, tbh, then it seemed to matter to everyone. My ex-h is from the south and is white and Baptist.
My H is 2nd generation Lithuanian Jew on both sides of his family. I'm first generation Mexican-American on my mom's side (she was born and raised in Michoacan) and 3rd generation Mexican-American (from Nuevo Leon) and white European (Austrian and French) midwesterner on my dad's side.
We're all Jewish except my dad's mom. She's Catholic.
We're both Nigerians. Born and raised there and moved to the US for college. We're both Christian as well. I don't think our families are that similar though. I have extended family across the States and UK mostly. Each wedding is always a reunion. All his family is pretty much in Nigeria. My parents are there as well as my older sister and her family who moved back in January. My remaining 2 siblings are in the US. We do monthly standing donations to help with my parents upkeep (plus travel and health check ups).
Post by Wines Not Whines on Sept 12, 2016 8:28:45 GMT -5
I'm first-generation Persian (Iranian) and my husband is white, Eastern European (his grandparents immigrated from Poland and the former Czechoslovakia).
I'm first-generation Persian (Iranian) and my husband is white, Eastern European (his grandparents immigrated from Poland and the former Czechoslovakia).
You mean you aren't white as well? After all "Iran" means the land of Aryans!!!
I'm first-generation Persian (Iranian) and my husband is white, Eastern European (his grandparents immigrated from Poland and the former Czechoslovakia).
You mean you aren't white as well? After all "Iran" means the land of Aryans!!!
Feel free to ask me why I said that
Ha, well I'm definitely on the tan end of the spectrum.
H and I are both regular black Americans. We grew up in relatively the same area. Went to sister/ brother Catholic schools at the same time, but did not meet each other until our jobs. While we grew up in the same SES, our childhood was very different. Both of my parents worked for the government and both of his parents are self-employed. His parents were very spendy and not financially savvy. My parents were MUCH more conservative. So culturally we are very similar but financially we were very different. His mom expected him to supplement their spending for the rest of their lives and him marrying me ruined that for her. We are more on the same page now.
We both come from large over involved families but I do a lot more with mine. But there was no need for adjustment there.
Both of our parents are very religious, but his parents and my dad are Baptist and my mom is Catholic. My parents do not attend the same church though they are both involved in the churches they do attend. We are also religious, but I did not want to be like my parents and attend different churches. So after much searching we attend an AME church. It is very good mix of Catholicism and Baptist.
Where we do differ is H is not woke. I do not get that as a black male. Both of us were sheltered from things growing up but college and adulthood have really opened my eyes. I am trying with him. Even yesterday he made a comment that made me roll my eyes. He can also be bootstrappy and has participated in some victim blaming and it is frustrating. I keep trying though.
We're both black, Nigerian, and Muslim. But I was born and raised in the USA and he was born and raised in Nigeria. We have a lot of cultural differences despite our similar backgrounds because we were raised very differently and he's an immigrant and I'm a child of immigrants.
It's a bit trippy because I find myself having the same discussions with him that I had with my parents growing up and while I can get his perspective, it makes me realize how different we are.
Post by liveintheville on Sept 12, 2016 12:12:58 GMT -5
I am Vietnamese and my H is Jewish. The only time it's been a problem was when we were deciding whether of not to circumsize. He's hardly a devout Jew. But in the end he really wanted the kids to know his culture. We still argued until the last minute.
What we've ended up doing is raising them Jewish in the religion sense. Not very well. They don't even go the temple or hebrew school. But H explains all the holidays and other instances from the bible to them. They do know their asian. Not Vietnamese but asian at least.
I am Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian (2nd gen on both sides) while H is white. White white. He was raised strict Mormon (not religious now) and I wasn't raised with religion.
I grew up with my PR side but don't speak Spanish. My mom had a lot of issues growing up and trying to assimilate so when I came along when she was 16 she decided to raise me without the language. I was around Spanish enough of my life to pick up on it so I can understand it especially when my family is speaking. Both parents are fluent.
I grew up with identity issues because I am fair skinned and green eyed. My dad is brown and my mom is fair skinned so I take after her in that regard but think I take after the PR side as far as features. Growing up I never was Hispanic enough for my Mexican friends and I didn't have white friends because I couldn't identify with them at all. I live in SoCal and Mexican is the predominant Hispanic culture. Throw in that I am PR and Ecuadorian and kids just didn't get it. Even the adults would comment on my color and it really really hurt because I just didn't fit in anywhere.
H grew up strict Mormon and grew up in a diverse area but still lived in his Mormon bubble. All his friends are white and he has never had anything but white Mormon friends. I am the token Hispanic nonreligious person. H's family is white and I have seen only one WOC married in aside from me and his family is huge!
It was rocky at first trying to navigate each others cultures. He is still stuck in his white bubble and I really try to bring him out of it but it's been rough. I'm still working on it but he doesn't get it.
ETA: I did the Ancestry DNA test and the results were fascinating!! I knew there would be a little mix based on what I've learned about my family's history but was in shock by what else popped up on the results.
Post by goldiehaze on Sept 13, 2016 10:56:04 GMT -5
Is your H/SO the same race/religion/nationality as you? I'm a average black girl - from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. DH is white, raised Orthodox Jewish. I was raised primarily Baptist. We're both atheist now.
Do you feel like it brings up different challenges?
Definitely. DH is from Berkeley, where they convince themselves that they're too enlightened and liberal to be racists. So of course I have issues with MIL, and DH is slowly starting to wake up. Not fast enough for my taste, but he is taking steps in the right direction, like insisting that our son join an all black flag football league.
Post by childofhiphop on Sept 13, 2016 14:12:22 GMT -5
See self care post for thoughts on my conflicting thoughts on taking an aging parent in.
Both bi-racial. Me: African American & German DH: African American & Irish
We grew up together in a way, have known each other since we were 10 so same cartoons, cereal and old-school references. Like others who have posted, our differences were economic growing up. He was raised as the only son by a disabled single parent and lower income - but they are snotty about some weird things and not very close. I was raised in a super LARGE family with both parents in a more affluent neighborhood, participated in Jack & Jill and Links, etc. He seems to have embraced my loud family more than his. He didn't go to college and college is where I was embedded firmly in the "Free Mandela" campaigns and actively protested injustices and loved some hip-hop (see screen name). He can't understand why anyone would not see me as black - though I could easily pass for white.
Religion - same. Very devoted.
Challenges? None except his cuckoo Dr.Oz-ite mother - but I'll save that for the in-law thread.
I am Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian (2nd gen on both sides) while H is white. White white. He was raised strict Mormon (not religious now) and I wasn't raised with religion.
I grew up with my PR side but don't speak Spanish. My mom had a lot of issues growing up and trying to assimilate so when I came along when she was 16 she decided to raise me without the language. I was around Spanish enough of my life to pick up on it so I can understand it especially when my family is speaking. Both parents are fluent.
I grew up with identity issues because I am fair skinned and green eyed. My dad is brown and my mom is fair skinned so I take after her in that regard but think I take after the PR side as far as features. Growing up I never was Hispanic enough for my Mexican friends and I didn't have white friends because I couldn't identify with them at all. I live in SoCal and Mexican is the predominant Hispanic culture. Throw in that I am PR and Ecuadorian and kids just didn't get it. Even the adults would comment on my color and it really really hurt because I just didn't fit in anywhere.
H grew up strict Mormon and grew up in a diverse area but still lived in his Mormon bubble. All his friends are white and he has never had anything but white Mormon friends. I am the token Hispanic nonreligious person. H's family is white and I have seen only one WOC married in aside from me and his family is huge!
It was rocky at first trying to navigate each others cultures. He is still stuck in his white bubble and I really try to bring him out of it but it's been rough. I'm still working on it but he doesn't get it.
ETA: I did the Ancestry DNA test and the results were fascinating!! I knew there would be a little mix based on what I've learned about my family's history but was in shock by what else popped up on the results.
DesertMoon the results were shocking. Well some of it was but it definitely confirmed I'm mostly of Spanish origins with some other things thrown in that make complete sense for the regions more recent relatives are from. Then there were the results I didn't expect. It was crazy and I was spinning tales on how this all came to be.
DesertMoon the results were shocking. Well some of it was but it definitely confirmed I'm mostly of Spanish origins with some other things thrown in that make complete sense for the regions more recent relatives are from. Then there were the results I didn't expect. It was crazy and I was spinning tales on how this all came to be.
It's like $200 though right? I heart last X as it was only 100, wonder if they'll do that again this year
DesertMoon the results were shocking. Well some of it was but it definitely confirmed I'm mostly of Spanish origins with some other things thrown in that make complete sense for the regions more recent relatives are from. Then there were the results I didn't expect. It was crazy and I was spinning tales on how this all came to be.
It's like $200 though right? I heart last X as it was only 100, wonder if they'll do that again this year
I did the Ancestry. com one and it was about $100. There was a code out there for a discount or you can get a referral to get 10% off.
H and I are both tamil. He is from Kerala though, so we have a few differences but anytime there are two ways to celebrate some festival, I just celebrate both ways, haha. We are both Hindus, not too into the religion but definitely spiritual. Now that we have a child, I try my best to follow the right customs and procedures. Our biggest challenge is going to be raising our child as an only child of immigrants. I worry a lot about that. She is going to be an outsider in the US and in India. I feel so bad for doing that to her
My relationship with my ILs used to be rocky. We had a love marriage and that always creates so much stress in families. My family was a lot more accepting of it. But now, after 7 years of marriage, everything's settled down for the most part. I think they trust and respect me now, They are also over the moon about their first grandchild, so I bet that helps.
pandora89, you can talk to me in tamil if you want. I'm always glad to have people to talk tamil to, lol.