Anthropology > Increase in Interracial Marriages Between Asian Females and Caucasian Males

In the twentieth century there was a significant increase in interracial marriages. Based on the 2000 Census, this increase was particularly noticeable among Asian women and White men. Unfortunately, Asian men are negatively affected by this specific increase in interracial marriage. Due to the One-Child policy, military interference, damaging stereotypes, and a demanding culture, Asian men find it difficult to marry whether it is within or outside of their own race.

The gender imbalance caused by the One-Child Policy in China has made interracial marriage more of a threat to Chinese men. In the twentieth century China was faced with a population that was growing too quickly. As a result the One-Child Policy was enacted in 1979. The One-Child Policy made it a law that Chinese families were limited to one child. To enforce the law the government would sterilize women or make them use an intrauterine device as birth control (Sughrue). Ultrasound machines were distributed to check the women and make sure they were following the law. The women discovered that the ultrasound machines could be used to determine the baby’s gender before birth.

In China boys are traditionally more desirable because they can inherit land and take care of their parents in old age. As a result, “by conservative estimates, more than 8 million girls were aborted in the first 20 years of the One-Child Policy” (Sughrue). That means that today in China there are many more men than women. “The One-Child Policy is 25 years old, so the first generation is just now reaching marriage age, and for China that’s a big problem because it is estimated that as many as 40 million of its young men could spend their lives as bachelors” (Sughrue).

Chinese girls are being adopted at record rates by non-Chinese parents, especially by white American families. This is one cause for the increase in interracial marriages between Chinese women and White men. Combined with the wife shortage already existing in China, Chinese men feel threatened by interracial marriage. In fact, Asian men had been fighting the loss of their potential wives for decades.

In 1947 The War Brides Act increased the number of interracial marriages between Asian women and White men in the United States, and their children became the first significant group of multiracial Asian Americans.

Interracial marriages are more likely to occur within the military than outside it because the military services create an opportunity for interaction among groups in foreign countries and members of various racial and ethnic backgrounds (C. N. Le).

In the United States until the mid-1960s, anti-miscegenation laws forcefully decreased the presence of multiracial Asian Americans with one exception, the “War Bride Act of 1947 that allowed American GIs to marry and bring over wives from Japan, China, the Philippines, and Korea” (C. N. Le). Because of this act, large numbers of Asian women immigrated to the United States and it lead to an increase in interracial marriage between Asian women and White Americans males. Children born out of such a marriage were the first significant multiracial Asian American group.

During the Vietnam War thousands of American men stationed abroad began relationships with Asian women. As a result it became socially acceptable for white men to marry Asian women, and many disenfranchised Asian women sought opportunity by marrying American men. During the war, a new generation of children, Amerasians, were born to the white soldiers and Vietnamese women. At the end of the war in 1975 all American personnel was evacuated from Vietnam, and their women and children were abandoned to endure the discrimination of their Vietnamese countrymen (C.N. Le). The Amerasians were viewed as unwanted reminders of the war and occupation of American troops. As a result of the increasing hostility, the Vietnamese Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1988 was enacted in order to allow “approximately 25,000 Amerasians and their immediate relatives to immigrate to the U.S” (C.N. Le). This was yet another blow to Asian men, who were once again losing their marriage pool and being forced to witness a new generation of children who were likely to marry outside their own race.

Asian men do not have the same success as Asian women when it comes to interracial marriage. Due to unfair stereotypes and physical differences, Asian men are often viewed as inferior to men of other races. Society often stereotypes Asian men as small, weak and nerdy. This can be harmful for Asian men because they can develop an inferiority complex that affects their self-perception and stops them from approaching white women.

According to an article in the Feb. 21 issue of Newsweek titled “Asian Guys on a Roll” writer, Esther Pan discusses two possible reasons for why Asian men do not date outside their culture as much as Asian women do. “One reason may be that many Asian men born in America face strong family pressure to be dutiful sons by marrying appropriate (same race, good family) women,” she writes. “Assimilation was often considered a bad thing. At the same time the message Asian men were getting from society was: you are not the masculine ideal”.

Steve Sailer in his article “Is Love Colorblind?” talks about the fact that intermarriage does not treat every sex/race combination equally and that it has offered new opportunities to Asian women for finding mates among whites, while exposing Asian men to new competition from whites. He also points out that the average physical differences among the races in height, hair length and muscularity tend to discriminate against Asian men, while increasing the appeal of Asian women, another reason for the increase in interracial marriages between Asian women and white men.

Sailer discusses the idea that opposites attract each other and that certain race/sex pairings are drawn to their most opposite counterpart, in this case Asian women and white men. He thinks that the forces that drive these imbalanced husband-wife proportions are the differences in sexual attractiveness. He compares Asian men to White men and Asian women to White women on average, and states that Asian men are slightly less masculine than White men, while Asian women are typically seen as slightly more feminine than white women. As a result, interracial marriages between white men and Asian women, are pairings of the most stereotypical gender roles.

Assimilation and hypergamy, the act of marrying to achieve social status, also play a role in the increase of interracial marriages between Asian women and white men. Sociologists and psychologists analyzed the high rates of interracial marriages between Asian females and White males. According to C. N. Le who wrote about “Interracial Dating and Marriage” the studies show that observers have two theories that can explain these increasing numbers.

The first theory is assimilation. “One theory emphasizes that marrying a White person is the ultimate form of assimilation and signifies full acceptance by White society” (Le). This theory points out that Asians may marry Whites because they want to be fully accepted in White society.

The second theory Le writes about is the theory of hypergamy, which would also propose that Asians marry Whites to increase their social status, since Whites generally occupy the highest socio-cultural position in America’s racial hierarchy. Combined with the gender appeal of an interracial marriage, and the immigration of Asian women to the United States, these theories account for the increase of marriages between white men and Asian women.

Interracial relationships between white males and Asian females have increased over the years, and the trend looks to continue. Due to the effects of the Chinese One-Child policy, the American military interference in Asian countries, the damaging stereotypes by society, and their demanding culture Asian males are negatively affected by the increase of interracial marriage. All these effects cause more problems to Asian men when they are looking for their polite, submissive, loyal and family-orientated housewife. I think relationships should be based on mutual attraction and not by traditions and rules to live by, maybe that is how Asian women think when they marry a white man.

 

Works Cited:

Le, C. N. Interracial Dating & Marriage. 2006. Asian-Nation. 30 April 2006
<http://www.asian-nation.org/interracial2.shtm>l.

Le, C. N. Multiracial / Hapa Asian Americans. 2006. Asian-Nation. 30 April 2006
<http://www.asian-nation.org/multiracial.shtm>l.

Pan, Esther. Asian-American men were told for many years by their own community to be dutiful sons. 21 February 2000. Newsweek, Inc. 30 April 2006
<http://modelminority.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=110>.

Sailer, Steve. Is Love Colorblind? 14 July 1997. Human Biodiversity Institute. 12 April 2006
<http://www.isteve.com/IsLoveColorblind.htm>.

Sughrue, Karen. China: Too Many Men. 16 April 2006. CBS Worldwide Inc. 26 April 2006 <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/13/60minutes/printable1496589.shtml>.

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