Interracial Marriages Slowing Among Asian Americans

While interracial marriages are increasing in the U.S. overall, the rate of Asian Americans born in the U.S. marrying foreign-born Asians rose 20%. According to the AP article, 40% of U.S. born-Asian Americans marry whites, a figure that’s stayed the same since 1980. The article points to continual immigration that allows minorities to marry those from the same ethnicity. Cornell professor Daniel Lichter also cites growing feelings of anti-immigration since 9/11, the Arizona immigration law highlighting further racial tension.

While I’m all for interracial marriages, I can see why one would want to marry within their race — choosing someone who shares the same food, language, and culture. Yet as the article illustrates in the story of Hai, a Vietnamese American woman who divorced her Vietnamese husband because of the expectation that she “always have fresh food on the table”, I don’t think I would be able to deal with a spouse who carries all the values of a traditional Asian culture.

Link to AP article: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_INTERRACIAL_MARRIAGE?SITE=AP