‘What the Heck, At Least He's an Oriental’: What Asian American Intermarriage Might Teach Us About Gay Marriage

Notes

• Interview with Allen Mock by Jean Wong (December 13, 1980) Box 47, Interviews Southern California Chinese American Oral History Collection (SCCAOC) (Collection 1688) Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
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• As recently as March 2005, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer made the 1948 California Supreme Court ruling in favor of mixed-race couples central to his argument that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. Bob Egelko, “Judge Strikes Down Ban on Same Sex Marriage,” San Francisco Chronicle (March 15, 2005). In their brief in support of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, historians cited changes in marital laws and customs since the 18th century. Amicus curiae brief of Professors of History, Marriage, Families and Law filed in Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Hilary and Julie Goodridge v. Department of Public Health 798N.E. 2n941 (November 8, 2002). The final ruling on the case was issued on November 18, 2003; Nancy Cott's comprehensive work traced the shifting shape of marriage in the United States. Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000): 3–5.
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• As intermarriages involving Asian ethnics have become more common in recent decades, scholars have increasingly analyzed the patterns and significance. Yen Espiritu, Asian American Panthethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992); Zhenchao Qian, Sampson Lee Blair, Stacey Ruf, “American Interethnic and Interracial Marriages: Differences by Education and Nativity,” International Migration Review (2000): 557–586; Larry Shinagawa and Gin Yong, “Asian American Panethnicity and Intermarriage,” Amerasia Journal (1996): 127–152.
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• On the ethno-racial views Chinese and Japanese immigrants brought with them, see, for example Frank Dikotter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (London: Hurst and Company, 1992): 90, 131–136; Michael Weiner, “The Invention of Identity: Race and Nation in Pre-War Japan” in Frank Dikotter, ed., Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan: Historical Contemporary Perspectives,; Paul Spickard, Mixed Blood, Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in Twentieth Century America (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989); Interviews Southern California Chinese American Oral History Collection (SCCAOC) (Collection 1688) Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
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• “150,000 Japanese Girls Will Be Married Off,” Hawaii Chinese Journal, (June 3, 1943); “Matrimony by Bribery,” The New Korea (April 10, 1941).
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• “Some Aspects of Economic Losses Suffered by Japanese Evacuees,” Pacific Citizen (January 28, 1943). “Growers-Shippers Will Stop Buying Crops from Japanese Farmers,” Philippines Mail (January 31, 1942).
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• Judy Young, Unbound Feet: The Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995): 161.
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• Interview with Chizu Sanada by Charles Kikuchi (September 1944) Reel 78, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records (JAERR) BANC MSS 67/14c, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
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• John Fante, “Mary Osaka, I Love You,” Good Housekeeping (October 1942).
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• Phoenix Gazette (May 9, 1944), Press Releases, Series 64, War Relocation Authority Records, Record Group 210, National Archives Building, Washington, DC.
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• “Statement of JACL, (September 15, 1949) Box 74 John Anson Ford Collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California; Helen Elizabeth Whitney, “Care of Homeless Children of Japanese Ancestry during Evacuation and Relocation,” (M.A. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1948): 22; Daisuke Kitagawa, Issei and Nisei: The Internment Years (NY: The Seabury Press, 1967): 60–61.
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• “Nisei Girl Postpones Wedding to Chinese Until End of War,” Pacific Citizen (July 16, 1942). Letter to Ralph Merritt from T.G. Ishimaru (February 1, 1943) and Memorandum to William Ball from Paul Vernier (June 5, 1945) Children's Village Materials, Compiled by Art Hansen, Oral History Program, California State University, Fullerton.
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• Interview with Tamie Ihara by Charles Kikuchi (July 1943) Reel 74 JAERR; “WCLA Plays Cupid to Chinese-Japanese Pair,” Pacific Citizen (1942).
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• Jeanne Wakatsuki, Farewell To Manzanar (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973): 35; Ellen Levine, A Fence Away from Freedom: Japanese Americans and World War II (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1995): 7, 65, 119.
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• Statement to the Commission of Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (undated) Box 3 Elaine Black Yoneda Papers, Labor Archives, San Francisco State University; Interview with Kim Fong Tom by Beverly Chan SCCAOHC; Levine, Fence Away, 219.
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• Memorandum to William Ball by Paul Vernier (June 5, 1945) Children's Village Materials; “Nisei Girl, Wife of Filipino Held,” Pacific Citizen (July 9, 1942); “Japanese Wife of Oakland Chinese Arrested as Alien,” Hawaii Chinese Journal (July 16, 1942).
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• A sampling of such stories from the Pacific Citizen: “Nisei Girl, Wife of Filipino Held,” (July 9, 1942); “WCLA Plays Cupid to Chinese-Japanese Pair,” (1942); “Japanese Evacuee Supports Adopted Chinese Children,” (December 24, 1942); “Chinese American Gets Into Difficulties Over Nisei Experience,” (March 4, 1943); “Nisei Girl Arrested on Return to Evacuated Area,” (August 4, 1943); “Japanese American Woman, Wife of Chinese, Receives Permission to Return Home,” (December 4, 1943).
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• Arthur Caylor, “Behind the News with Arthur Caylor,” San Francisco News (April 18, 1942).
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• Interview with Allen Mock by Jean Wong (December 13, 1980) Box 47, SCCOHC.
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• Cloyte Larsson, ed., Marriage Across the Color Line (Chicago: Johnston Publication Co., 1965): 62–65; “War Brides of Colored GI's Fare Very Well,” Los Angeles Sentinel (March 13, 1948); “Intermarriage,” New World Sun (March 4, 1936); George De Vos, “Personality Patterns and Problems of Adjustment in American-Japanese Intercultural Marriages,” (Master's Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1959).
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• “Japanese Evacuee Supports Adopted Children,” Pacific Citizen (December 24, 1942).
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• “Seek Foster Homes for Nisei Children in Los Angeles Area” Pacific Citizen (September 10, 1949).
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• “Unwanted Children: A Chinese Tragedy,” Chinese Press (December 16, 1949).
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• “Intermarriage,” New World Sun (March 4, 1936).
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• Interview with Marge Ong, (SCOHC); Mary Oyama, “A Nisei Report from Home,” Common Ground (Winter 1946); Interview with Allen Mock by Jean Wong (December 13, 1980) SCOHC. Author's interview with Gloria Quan (November 10, 2003).
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• “Decision Declares Interracial Marriage Prohibition Violates Equal Protection Guarantee,” Pacific Citizen (October 2, 1948); “County Acts on Racist Brief in Davis-Perez Case,” California Eagle (October 23, 1947); “Eleven Los Angeles Chinese Intermarry in Year,” Chinese Press (October 14, 1949).
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• Nancy Cott argued that the public authority which shapes the institution of marriage has three levels: “The immediate community of kin, friends, and neighbors exercises the approval or disapproval a couple feels most intensely; state legislators and judges set the terms of marriage and divorce; and federal laws, policies, and values attach influential incentives and disincentives to marriage forms and practices.” Cott, Public Vows, 5.
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• Approximately 83 countries in the world have prohibited homosexuality in their criminal code. Twenty-six of those countries are Muslim. Of the ten countries that punish the “crime” of homosexuality with the death penalty, all are Muslim-majority. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan are especially likely to execute those found guilty of homosexuality. Anissa Helie, “Holy Hatred,” Reproductive Health Matters 12 (May 2004): 120–125; Esther Morris, “Equality Watch: Sexual and Gender Minorities,” New Internationalist (January/February 2004): 27–32.
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• As Henry Yu argued, the history of racial mixing in the United States has been as much about creating and revising racial divisions as eroding them. Henry Yu, “Tiger Woods Is Not the End of History: or, Why Sex across the Color Line Won't Save Us All,” American Historical Review 108 (December 17, 2003).
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