As a Latina and now a Jew, I write for both audiences. But a case of writer’s block has gotten me nowhere on an article I was supposed to be writing about interracial dating for a Latino audience weeks ago. I just don’t know where to start.
This is coming from the girl whose mother had a white boy fetish. Whose father had a black girl fetish. Whose parents came together with their fetishes and made her. I mean, well, me.
But since my mother was a virulent racist (even going as far as to throw out my dark-skinned Cabbage dolls because they were brown—as she was–and screening my friends by color), I know my willingness to date people lighter and darker than my own skin tone comes from my Dad.
The last time I visited him, I noticed something about his girlfriends (yes, plural):
Girlfriend #1 was white.
Girlfriend #2 was black.
Girlfriend #3 was yellow.
My Dad apparently takes being an equal opportunity lover very seriously.
When I talked to my sister about interracial dating, she said she wasn’t sure she’d date someone black. I said that was probably best since she was married and her husband wouldn’t want her dating. When she added that she preferred white boys, I said that was a good thing since she was married to one.
But I had to ask: “Ahem, what about those Hispanic boys you dated?”
And she said, “Oh yeah, I forgot about those.”
When I dated my first (and thankfully last) gay boyfriend who was originally from Bangladesh, my grandmother asked me if he smelled. I responded, “He’s Catholic.” She looked confused. I figured it was good for her. Plus, I had no idea what I’d meant.
When I fell in love with my first Jewish boy, my aunt held an intervention. My grandmother cried. My aunt yelled. No matter, I didn’t learn my lesson and by my next Jewish boyfriend, you could tell they had just accepted the inevitable.
He was my first straight boyfriend…yeah, I said my first STRAIGHT boyfriend…this next Jewish guy. He broke up with me because I wasn’t Jewish. I took the breakup hard but my mother’s sister took it harder. After we broke up, she said wistfully, “He was such a nice boy, even though he was Jewish.”
The first time my grandmother met my Jewish husband she kept saying “I can’t believe he married you.” When she repeatedly said, “They only marry their own kind,” I don’t know if she meant white people, Jewish people or sane people. I mean, I’d already told her I converted to Judaism but I think my grandmother on this subject is in a very dark deep place of denial where she might be binge eating on communion wafers to cope.
My other aunt was a tougher cookie to crack. When she said she didn’t want me bringing my husband because he was white and Jewish, it was because she was terrified of both. The scariest thing…he didn’t speak Spanish! But he actually knew more Spanish than the Puerto Rican boy I’d dated before.
When my aunt eventually warmed up to my husband, as all my relatives did, it was because I explained he made really good rice and beans (a staple of the Dominican diet). While I make the gefilte fish, it’s my husband who makes the rice and beans and often, plantains.
The other day I heard my husband on the phone with his father catching up after a recent visit saying, “I can’t believe we didn’t eat beans all summer in LA!” He even angled the phone so he could slurp up some of the beans he was cooking and said, “Wow, I can’t live without beans. Beans are so good.”
By this point, my father-in-law was probably thinking, “What the heck did she do to my son?” And that’s when my husband added: “It’s so good to be back in New York embracing my Dominicanness.”
Because if there’s any moral to this story, it is this: if you’re going to date outside your race, religion and culture, make sure he’s willing to cook and convert (to Dominicanism, of course).
Aliza Hausman is a Dominican-American Latina and Orthodox Jewish convert (Jewminicana for short!), freelance writer, blogger (at “Memoirs of a Jewminicana”) and speaker.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
This is funnier than most of what Heshy has been posting recently.
“My Dad apparently takes being an equal opportunity lover very seriously.”
ROFLMAO!
nice.
Yasher koach bubble
I dated outside race and religion. Of the two religion was more difficult except for a very sweet Black girl I was with. She got hell from her mother and sisters for dating a White guy. I got not quite as bad from my mother who said “Your grandfather would roll over in his grave if he knew he was going to have polka-dotted great-grandchildren.”
Eventually I not-dated and then married an Afro-Asian Gentile. Realizing that my parents were my past but she was my future was one of the most important lessons I ever learned.
That’s a good story!
i enjoyed this a lot
Heshy,
You need to put more lolcat / loldog pics up for your posts.
Nice post. I once dated a foreigner and it just feels right all the time.
Having dated white, black, hispanic and asian women I can say one thing for sure: they are all equally crazy once a month. (ducks) All kidding aside, I think the skin color has nothing to do with a good relationship, its shared values more than anything else that make things work. My wife of 13 years is Japanese (and Jewish).
Marriage and breeding outside your local group is a great thing, not only do you get lots of instant conversation starters when you meet new people but you get a little refresh of the gene pool as well. Virtually zero chances of recessive genetic issues caused by generations of inbreeding.
I have an ex-girlfriend who was adopted from China and converted to Judaism when she was 2. Though she dresses totally Jewish and acts like it too, I was always slightly self-conscious in public with her because she doesn’t look like most Jews. I wouldn’t interdate, but that relationship made me realize that not all Jews look like me and that interracial dating is ok as long as its not interfaith.
You were self conscious of dating an Asian chick?!
Freak!
I wonder if she was self conscious about dating a gweilo…heh…
great post – quite funny!