Boundaries of Love: Interracial Marriage and the Meaning of Race

293 Pages·2018·1.957 MB·English

by  Chinyere K. Osuji

Boundaries of Love

Boundaries of Love
Interracial Marriage and the Meaning of Race
Chinyere K. Osuji
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
www .nyupress .org
©2019 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Osuji, Chinyere K., author.
Title: Boundaries of love : interracial marriage and the meaning of race / Chinyere K. Osuji.
Description: New York : New York University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical refer-
ences and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2018026990 | ISBN 9781479878611 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479831456
(pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Interracial marriage—United States—Case studies. | Interracial marriage—
Brazil—Case studies. | Racially mixed families—United States—Case studies. | Racially
mixed families—Brazil—Case studies.
Classifcation: LCC HQ1031 .O79 2019 | DDC 306.84/50973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026990
New York University Press books are printed on acid- free paper, and their binding materials
are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppli-
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Manufactured in the United States of America
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Also available as an ebook
To Ndidi and Kemdi Joshua Osuji,
I love and cherish you both

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction: Race Mixing and Ethnoracial Boundaries 1
1. Preferences and the Romantic Career 28
2. Boundaries of Blackness: Groupness and Linked Fate 62
3. Boundaries of Whiteness: Flexibility and Shifting Meanings 95
4. Black, White, Mixed or Biracial: Identifying the Children 131
5. “A Fly in the Buttermilk”: Black Spouses in White Families 157
6. Policing the Boundary: Interacting with Strangers in Public 181
Conclusion: “Can Interracial Love Save Us?” 205
Acknowledgments 217
Appendix A: Tables 221
Appendix B: Methods and Fieldwork 225
Notes 231
References 255
Index 271
vii

Preface
Amid the swirl of lawsuits challenging affirmative action policy in uni-
versities in the United States in the early 2000s, Brazilian universities
had decided to implement a quota system for Brazilians who were poor
or who were Afro-B razilian. Why was the United States dismantling
policies to increase diversity in higher education at the same time that
Brazil was creating them?
I had never been to Brazil. I spoke Spanish fluently and knew a
smidgen of French and Catalan but no Portuguese. Many questioned
why I wanted to look south instead of eastward to study black people
since my parents emigrated from Nigeria. However, I was interested in
the African diaspora. Since Brazil received thirteen times more enslaved
Africans than the United States, it became the obvious site for develop-
ing this research interest. A year later, I moved to Los Angeles to work
under Edward Telles at UCLA. Moving from Chicago, I was surprised
by the number of interracial couples that I saw in West Los Angeles. I
noticed a gender imbalance with many black men who seemed to exclu-
sively date nonblack women and several white men doing the same with
Asian women. My black girlfriends and I commented on how rare it
was to see black– black couples or black women paired of with anyone
in Los Angeles. We joked that Los Angeles was a city where if you were
a black woman, it was BYOM: Bring Your Own Man. A friend who was
originally from Los Angeles mentioned that to see couples involving
both black men and women, I had to go to South Los Angeles or other
neighborhoods far from the west side, where UCLA was located.
I did an exchange with the US- Brazil Consortium in which I spent
two months in Brazil doing an internship with the Geledés Institute of
the Black Woman (Instituto da Mulher Negra), a black feminist NGO
(nongovernmental organization). Coming from Los Angeles, I was
struck by the homogeneity of the couples in São Paulo. Given Brazil’s
status as a society where race mixture was prevalent, I had expected a
ix