How to maintain a healthy interracial relationship

0:00You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, it's Marielle. When Devon Loeb was growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey in the late 90s, early 2000s, he rarely saw black and brown people other than his own family members. I was one of the only kids of color in class within the whole school. And I often felt like I didn't belong. And then sometimes I wasn't invited to sleepovers. I couldn't go out and play with the other kids. Devon is mixed race. His mom is black with roots in Alabama. and his dad is white, Jewish, and from Long Island. And as he became a teenager, Devon found that dating was especially fraught.

0:42The girls in school either didn't want to date him because of his race, or if they did date him, it felt like kind of a performance. It was like, let me try to put this hat on. Like, I'm going to date a black guy. But then when I met Jenny, like, being black was just part of it, but it wasn't, like, why she fell in love with me. Devon met Jenny in his late 20s, and she saw him for who he was. And fell in love with me, not because of the color of my skin. And she made me feel loved, made me feel complete. My partner, my Jenny, made me feel like I was the most perfect human being. Jenny is white, Irish and Italian, so she and Devon are in an interracial marriage.

1:29And that adds another complication to something that is already hard. joining your life together with another person, compromising over what you want and what they want for your home, for your shared time, for your kids. When you come from different backgrounds, you'll have different cultural traditions, different stereotypes that are put on you, maybe different religions, and of course, different experiences of walking through the world. It's a lot to navigate. We've had tough discussions about being black and white, about how to raise our multiracial kids. But managing these issues made everyday issues seem like cake.

2:07Devon is a writer and the author of a beautiful memoir called The In-Betweens. It's about being a biracial boy and becoming a man. On this episode of Life Kit, he's going to lay out a plan for building, growing, and maintaining healthy interracial relationships. He talks with a therapist, a negotiator, and others about what partners of different races can do to support each other and to build their own family culture.

2:48within interracial relationships even with a lot of love and intention there can be conflicts you might not be expecting cultural misunderstandings family members who say hurtful things disagreements over values or communication styles, not to mention very real power imbalances in play. Being in love is simply not enough. No matter what kind of relationship you find yourself in, it all starts with intention. So takeaway one is to talk about your differences. Don't shy away from them. Kalru Oguro is a therapist and licensed clinical social worker who specializes in working with interracial couples.

3:30We talk a lot about the cultural differences, how power dynamic affects the relationship, how a race plays a role in the interracial relationship. We can't avoid that. We can't avoid to acknowledge the differences or the power differential. Kaoru is in an interracial marriage herself. She's Japanese and her partner is white American. A lot of interracial couples she counsels are of similar racial backgrounds. Kaoru helps these couples navigate their cultural and socialized differences. In Asian populations, it is common to be taught not to speak up. And especially in heterosexual relationships.

4:10Having me on their side really helps them empower to speak up in counseling or in the interracial relationship with a non-Asia person or white partner. Kavru says that couples can ask each other questions like this. What are some memories you have around this tradition? Why do you do that thing? Why is this custom important to you? And can you teach me more? Also, tell me about what traditions you want to keep. Which do you want to let go? Tell me how you envision our family. Karu says coming together as an interracial couple isn't about having one culture prevail. It's about saying, hey, we do come from different backgrounds.

4:55Now, how do we want to move forward together? As a couple, you are creating a new unit or family or partnership. So you can create your own original culture that's unique to you and your partner. So what does it look like? What do you want for your relationship to have? You can blend culture. You can blend traditions. It doesn't have to look like traditional culture. You can co-create that with your partner. And that's takeaway two. After naming your differences, you can celebrate what you love about you and your partner's backgrounds. Find ways to blend them that help you both feel understood and respected.

5:40Make your own family culture. Nina Sharma is South Asian and her husband, Quincy, is Black. She found that she never saw relationships like theirs represented in pop culture. I'm a big fan of like the American rom-com. But in the rom-com, who are we? Who is the black or brown character in the American rom-com? They're rarely the lead. We're usually still to this day like the marginalized character, the quirky best friend, the silent fuddy-duddy office worker or something. And that's neither Quincy nor I. When they first got engaged, she tried a targeted Google search in a moment of wedding planning stress.

6:21I googled Afro-Asian wedding stress, and nothing came up. And, you know, I did also do some other kind of research. Like, I tried to look for anything like me on, like, a wedding board, like Wedding Bee and all these things that were around then when I got married in 2011. Even long before her wedding, Nina hadn't seen a marriage like hers represented anywhere, really. She wanted to change that. I wanted to tell a love story of a different sort, where brown and black people are centered in their fullness and their full humanity. Nina writes about her and Quincy's love and journey forging their family culture in her book, The Way You Make Me Feel, Love and Black and Brown.

7:07These stories are about having conversations about race and racism that are ongoing, that are imperfect. And I think if you can open yourself up to doing that in ways that are both ordinary and extraordinary, that is an enduring connection across cultures. Enduring connections across cultures can mean making new culture in your relationship. To start, have conversations about each other's cultures and decide which parts you want to celebrate. Here are some ideas. Alternate ethnic dinners throughout the week, homemade or takeout. If you have young children alternate reading books about your race and culture, speak more than one language at home.

7:52Attend cultural and religious events as a couple or as a family. Tie in cultural and religious traditions from your upbringing to new traditions you agree on together. Kauru has seen it in her patients before. I had a couple. One partner grew up with Christianity and the other partner grew up with Jewish. And so do we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas together? Can we do that? To that couple, I'm not saying to all the couples, but to the couple, that was totally fine for them to celebrate both cultures, both holidays.

8:31My wife and I bring our differences into our marriage by teaching our children about all of their mixed heritage. Learning about Black history through books about icons like Macy Jameson, NASA astronaut and first African-American woman to travel into space. Eating Mum Mum's homemade Italian dinner on Sundays. Sending our children to a Jewish summer camp. These examples started as racial and cultural differences at first, but led us to creating a culture in our home. Just the act of being open to talking about one another's cultures, both sharing and asking. Sometimes you'll have different cultural or spiritual practices and will need to decide what that means for the family you've created together.

9:18For instance, if your partner fasts during Ramadan or Yom Kippur or avoids meat on Fridays during Lent, do they expect you to join them? Are you willing to? If you have kids, will your partner want them to join you as well? How do you feel about that? It sounds like this. I understand we have this difference. I recognize it makes you feel this way. I can hear you. And I feel for you. And I want us to figure this out together. A thought exercise to try. What might your new culture look and feel like to the senses? Maybe it sounds like speaking your heritage languages or listening to both Puerto Rican music and Indian music at your family parties.

10:01Maybe it smells like whiffs of curry, cumin, and chili in the same kitchen where red sauce is churning and garlic is sizzling, or the earthy fragrance of incense or sage burning. Maybe it's what it tastes like, the tang of kimchi, the zest of cilantro-lime tacos, the lemon-peppery crunch of fried fish. Maybe it's what it feels like, cocoa butter, coconut oil, or whatever your families of origin used. Creating new culture is no easy task. It first takes a whole lot of talking and compromising. You have to decide how to compromise on the issues that are most important to you and your partner. Because our race and culture are part of our identities.

10:46And it may be very difficult to navigate how you do this. It may take some negotiation. One of the largest differences I guess Quincy and I deal with as an interracial couple is the kind of the differences put upon us. Historical stereotypes put upon us. So negotiating the model minority and the problem minority stereotype, like the harms that we cause each other within subscribing to those stereotypes. So how do you handle those challenges when they arise? I think it's important to take a step back and essentially negotiate how we negotiate. Let's have a conversation about how we're going to have these conversations.

11:25That was Kwame Christian, the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Kwame says, to be clear, a negotiation isn't an argument. If you've entered into an argument, you've already lost. So how do you negotiate? We'll find out from Kwame after the break.

11:56our third takeaway is all about conflict when disagreements come up aim to negotiate these conflicts are opportunities it's not about the fact that there is conflict it is about our approach to conflict and how we comport ourselves and care for our partners through it and if we can adopt this mentality now we can start to see every one of these conflicts as opportunities. These conversations will lead to opportunities in your relationship to learn and grow from each other. Would you feel more confident having the conversation, a tough conversation when you've actually scheduled it and you're not at odds and not as emotional?

12:32You have to get in front of these issues before they become bigger issues by being intentional with when and how you talk about them. Kwame has a three-step mental model, using the first step to explore how to really listen to each other. The first is going to sound familiar. We've talked about it already in this episode. Step one is acknowledging and validating the emotions, labeling the emotions, listening and validating empathetically. After that, you move to step two. Which is getting curious with compassion, asking open-ended questions with a compassionate tone, gathering information so you can learn about the other side and show empathy and respect and build rapport.

13:09You can't compromise on how to celebrate holidays if you're not compassionate to your partner. if you're not asking questions, if you're not curious about their perspective, then there's step three. Using joint problem solving. So it's not me versus you, it's you and me versus the problem. We're working together, focusing on the future, trying to figure out what works for both of us so we can make the situation better together. Compromise is not easy for anyone, but in an interracial relationship, what, when, and why we compromise is even more fraught because of our different backgrounds. You don't want one partner to have to abandon their culture just because they married someone outside of it.

13:50And if you win at the expense of your partner, then you breed resentment that will destroy the relationship. And so that's why we have to approach it in the spirit of negotiation where we're trying to get to a win-win outcome. We're trying to work together. It is you and me versus the problem, not me versus you. Let's play it out. It's the holidays. One partner wants to celebrate Passover, while the other wants to celebrate Easter. Let's say this year, they fall on the same day. Both of your families want you at their events. What will you do? Therapist Kairu Ogoro suggests this. For each partner to know what's important to them, not to their family first.

14:33Let's say your family is telling you something to do. Is it important to you also? Is it only important to your family or parents or siblings? How do you decide? Listen to your inner voice. If you prioritize your family's voice, does it feel right to you? Does it feel like that's also your voice? Then talk about it together. A lot of times we're talking about this at times where something is specifically at issue and there might be some time crunch. In other words, bring this stuff up early if you can. If your gut is saying you all don't want to drive two hours for Easter brunch with one family and then go to a Seder in the same day, talk about how you're going to tell your families early.

15:17Next, negotiate the compromise. It's not my way or the highway. It's not this is just how my family always did it or how your race and culture always did something. It's our way. And now we can build off of our collective strength. That's powerful. That's really, really powerful. And so I think if we change our mindset about it and de-stigmatize these conversations, then I think we're all going to benefit from a stronger society. And each individual person within interracial relationships, they're going to benefit as well. Talking through your differences, finding compromises, tailoring your family's culture, all of this can deepen the love in your relationship.

15:57You're co-creating something built on understanding, trust. But you might find even greater conflicts coming from outside your relationship. In-laws, well-meaning friends, strangers walking by you on the street. You can't always control what you and your partner encounter or how your relationship is received by others. and you'll want to talk about those hard moments together as well. Takeaway four, figure out how you and your partner can support each other and your family and community spaces. One in 10 Americans say that they would oppose a close relative marrying someone of a different race or ethnicity.

16:35You may have that one person in your family or larger community who does feel that way. And even if a family member doesn't oppose your marriage on principle, they may still have biases about people of your partner's race, ethnicity, or religion. And this is what I'm saying, like, solidarity is like an ongoing practice. I was like, oh, we're out of the woods with so much of the racism, so much of the anti-Blackness that we've experienced in our early years of marriage. But then I was like, oh, I'm trying to make us into like a white madman couple. What is going on? Like, the pain of that did not outweigh whatever kind of perceived benefits that we had to find another way.

17:14Through that, we were able to name a more kind of like liberated path of marriage that we wanted. Nina realized that even though she and Quincy had successfully navigated a lot of early conversations about race with family and beyond, she was still dealing with larger systemic pressures on her relationship, which she thought her relationship had to be. There's a power dynamic at play when you've experienced racism and your partner has not. How do couples navigate this? How do you still support your partner? Imagine a racial difference like this one. Your uncle is a Vietnam War veteran, and he harbors racism towards people of Vietnamese descent.

17:54Your partner is Vietnamese. He makes a racist comment about Vietnamese people at a family gathering. If you don't address it in the moment, it might make your partner feel unsupported. Kwame says, if you know these kinds of tensions are likely to happen, make a plan ahead of time. Pledge to speak up in the moment and say, hey, that's not okay to say. The next time my uncle says that thing, you want me to step aside and have that conversation because you already feel othered in this situation and you feel like I don't have your back. To understand what your partner needs, you have to talk to each other.

18:28Maybe they don't actually want you to step in during the family barbecue. Maybe they'd like you to pull your uncle aside privately. Maybe they just want permission to skip the barbecues he's at. Now, one common power dynamic in interracial relationships comes when one partner has experienced racism and the other hasn't. Kairou shared a conversation she had with her husband around 2020 when there was a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans. We were all scared to go on the streets and subway. And that was a unique experience to me because my husband is white American. and as much as he tried to understand my experiences, it was very hard.

19:11Kalru wanted to bring this up to her husband, even though it was tough. So I definitely expressed how I felt with the experiences being Asian woman, but also I expressed how unheard, I not understood that I felt from him. That's a very vulnerable conversation that I had to have with my husband.

19:41And it is devastating that I cannot, not only can I not help you with that, but I can't even fully sit with you in that. And so for them, it can be very disempowering. And I think we have to take the time in these conversations to acknowledge the emotionality that's on both sides of the conversation. Don't shy away from being uncomfortable, especially with your partner. Avoiding uncomfortable conversations like the ones about your partner's race will potentially create more conflict later. So we should have that explicit conversation. Great negotiators, great communicators are willing to state the obvious.

20:20And I think for some reason there's the elephant in the room, but nobody wants to acknowledge it. And when in doubt, when you don't know where to start, Kwame says, just ask. So how best can I support you in this? How can I show you respect? How can I show you that I'm here for you, I love you, and I care for you? And just having that conversation and asking with specificity what it is that they can do, now you actually have a blueprint. This likely won't just be one conversation either. You might have to unpack very heavy experiences over many conversations, with time in between to recover and care for each other.

20:55Supporting each other does not mean you need all the answers. And sometimes they don't have the language to ask about your partner's cultural, racial experiences that is different from yours. If you find yourself getting stuck in these conversations, ask for help. That could be the time to see a couple's therapist together.

21:22This is a labor of love. It can not only lead to solid partnership, but one based on even greater solidarity. Even though Nina felt like she wasn't represented as an Indian woman marrying a Black man, her wedding and life with Quincy led to what she calls Afro-Asian solidarity. I think of solidarity as something that's alive. And it's something that you want to just continue to have stamina around, continue to parse and unpack and grow with. We're all on this journey together of doing that work. Solidarity is how we grow as interracial couples and how we continue to undo the systemic harms that stop us from being together in the first place.

22:09So yes, with some intention, racial and cultural differences can make couples stronger. Okay, it's time for a recap.

22:23Takeaway one, don't ignore your racial and cultural differences. Have conversations about them. Takeaway two, make your own family culture. Find ways to blend your and your partner's backgrounds that help you both feel respected and valued. Takeaway three, aim to negotiate. When conflict comes up, be curious and ask questions. It's not my way or your way, but our way. Takeaway four, figure out how you and your partner can support each other in your family and community spaces.

23:01That was writer Devon Loeb, author of The In-Betweens, a lyrical memoir. By the way, did you know that LifeKit has its own newsletter? We have so many smart, supportive listeners that send us amazing tips, and they're often featured in that newsletter. If you want to be part of that community, subscribe at npr.org slash LifeKit newsletter. This episode of LifeKit was produced by Margaret Serino. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malika Garib. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor, and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tegel, Claire Marie Schneider, and Sylvie Douglas.

23:41Engineering support comes from J-Ciz. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening. Thank you.