Week 7: Interracial Relationships
First of all, I had no idea the British ~brought~ people from India to Uganda to build the railway. It’s a piece of history that we just don’t hear about. The movie started and I was like woah slow down give me the whole summary of events here. But of course… we saw little Mina next and suddenly I was like omg protect this child don’t let anything bad happen to her. Until, of course, we get the flash forward in the next scene – the Milk Run – and we see how much Mina has grown and where her family ends up. Then I was like yesss Mina be all baad with your wild driving self.
How amazingly cliche is it to develop a relationship with the person whose vehicle you smash your car into? I say “amazingly” because I watch Days of our Lives. Some of the way characters meet and end up in a relationship are super cliche. And also, it’s amazing because you never know what could happen in situations like that one. How life changes. Mina and Demetrius seemingly get their end of the movie happily ever after. They achieve their own sense of independence away from their town and their family, free to be and free to explore.
When their relationship gets exposed and Mina is “forbidden” to see Demetrius (Mina, who is 23 in the movie, I should add), this is where other things get exposed. Both Mina and Demetrius get accused, either outright or assumed, of “ruining everything” and they both realize something needs to change. Demetrius’s business got affected and Mina sees how trapped she is living with her parents in the motel. At the end, I really thought she was going to go home when her mom was pleading her to on the phone but I hoped she wouldn’t. I feel like I know how hard it is to leave home and not come back when they are literally telling you to come back. But like she was 23 and longing for more out of life. Not going back to Uganda with her family was that big step away from the safety and predictability of family life. That’s what she needed to do. Demetrius was her way out, it’s always seems to be easy to move when there’s a lover right by your side.
Anyway, their relationship caused a lot of strife with the two family sides. The father tells Mina something along the lines of “their side always sticks together,” referring to the pain he felt when Okelo told him Uganda is for Black Africans. It was the father’s way of trying to protect his daughter while generalizing all black people for not being loyal to the people they care about. Parents’ protection over their daughters is strong and at times, vicious. It’s often mistaken for “love” and then more accurately understood as control.
When I was 23 I began my first relationship and obviously my parents were not thrilled. For many reasons you know, and Jackson and I both understand why. He’s 23 years older than me, he’s previously been incarcerated, and he’s black. He thinks him being black was one of the big things while I think it’s his “criminal” background history. My parents were scared for my life, telling me I was going to end up dead. Looking back of course they were scared. I totally understand it but I also know of the anti-blackness a lot of Asians internalize. But I also gotta factor in how Jackson was 46 at the time and he got out of prison a year and a half before we got together. From a general parent perspective, I get it. But adding in our family dynamic, how sheltered I was as a child, our ethnic background, and my gender, it makes it more complex.
It demonstrates the importance of that conversation Mina had with her father where he told her what happened before they left Uganda and how that led to him acting the way he did.
Anyways, interracial relationships can come in so loaded with history, stereotypes, perceived expectations, prejudices, internalized biases and other things really based on not only the racial identities of the people in the relationship but of their gender identity, class and other identities the people hold. I specify with interracial relationships because we’re partnered with someone whose ethnic background is uniquely different than our own. It’s a loaded topic and it’s very complex so like I don’t want to put myself in a hole trying to come up with sweeping statements. I know that in my own relationship, there’s had to be many learning moments of understanding each other, knowing where each other is coming from and really listening to each other when it comes to our identities. In being Pilipina I’ve had to ask myself if why some of the behavior I exhibit is due to my own background. Some of the things I picked up in how my parents interacted with each other and some of the stereotypes I read in my sources.
Okay that’s enough, still wondering how I can write so much in these posts but get mentally blocked when it comes to my paper. Though it’s no wonder, I know exactly why: I don’t have to worry about sounding academic-y when it comes to here. But then again… Rock post to come next.