Comparative and Global Perspectives on Interracial Relationships

Guest Blogger

For the Balkinization Symposium on Solangel Maldonado, The Architecture of Desire: How the Law Shapes Interracial Intimacy and Perpetuates Inequality (New York University Press, 2024).

Solangel Maldonado

In this post, I engage with scholars who provide a comparative perspective and consider how global forces might impact intimacy patterns and racial inequality.

As I describe in the book, discriminatory immigration laws hindered interracial intimacy until the enactment of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. Although current immigration patterns continue to influence opportunities for intimate relationships, both same-race and interracial, Rachel Moran’s post asks us consider the ways that climate change might affect intimacy patterns.  Moran observes that disruptions brought about by climate change, specifically climate-driven migration, could affect interracial intimacy patterns as the racial backgrounds of climate migrants entering the U.S. may alter the nation’s demographic profile.  She notes that this increase in immigration could lead to higher rates of interracial marriage but could instead trigger a “backlash marked by nationalism and xenophobia” that might result in lower rates of interracial intimacy.

We are in a period of extreme hostility to immigrants and backlash against racial equity so rates of interracial intimacy are unlikely to increase in the near future.  More importantly, hostility to migrants even in progressive parts of the country, along with the backlash to racial equity, creates obstacles to interracial friendships and integrated neighborhoods.  As Moran explains, “climate change could alter . . . the human capacity for intimacy” and asks whether strong “ties would develop across racial or ethnic lines” when societies experience “global pandemics, extreme weather, and food and water shortages.” Fear of the unknown is an obstacle to interracial interactions.  My proposals seek to facilitate development of meaningful interracial friendships at school, in our neighborhoods, and at work.  My hope is that if “individuals cling more closely to friends and loved ones as a buffer against adversity,” as Moran suggests, they would include individuals of all different backgrounds in their close circle of friends and family.  

Linda McClain’s post illustrates the challenges faced by interracial friendships. While we may be tempted to dismiss the blatant racism in A Passage to India, published 100 years ago, as completely foreign to race relations in the U.S. today, I agree with McClain that we can glean lessons about social distance and racial equality by looking at works of fiction from another time and place. As a child, I loved history (and still keep in touch with my junior high school history teacher Mr. Swarthé), but I probably learned more about racial injustice from works of fiction that raised these issues. Unfortunately, many of these books have been banned in schools across the country precisely because they raise children’s consciousness about injustice.

Tanya Katerí Hernández’s post is a reminder that we can learn important lessons from other countries’ experiences with interracial relationships. She observes that some individuals, both in the U.S. and abroad, erroneously assume that interracial intimacy is evidence “that race relations have improved” and that “racial mixture will, in and of itself, destroy racism.”  Of course this view is Pollyannish and possibly willfully blind to the racial discrimination around us as recently summarized by the White House.  Even as norms of female beauty have broadened to include “ethnically ambiguous women,” preferences for lighter-complexioned individuals remain. When the Washington Post recently asked three leading AI image generators to show a beautiful woman, “only nine percent had dark skin tone” and almost none had wide noses.  When it asked them to show “normal women,” 98 percent of the images produced by one tool had light skin tone.

As Hernández points out, widespread racism in Latin America, despite the prevalence of racial mixture, demonstrates that interracial intimacy will not eradicate racism or racial hierarchy.  Individuals in Latin American share Americans’ preferences for lighter-complexioned partners and denigrate loved ones of African descent, as Hernández illustrates in her study of racial subordination in Latin America.  Dismantling racial hierarchy requires eliminating inequality in housing, education, and the workplace. As a new Harvard study reveals, we can improve opportunities by increasing “connections between communities (e.g., through policies to reduce segregation or foster cross-class and race interaction in schools and neighborhoods).”  The reforms I propose would address structural inequality, not just discrimination in the dating market. 

My next and final post will address Reginald Oh’s, Ed Stein’s, and Russell Robinson’s comments. 

Solangel Maldonado is the Eleanor Bontecou Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law. She may be reached at Solangel.Maldonado@shu.edu.