Summary #2 - Intercultural marriage

1. Summary

The present article narrates a true story of a 50 years old American lady, Elizabeth, who was married to a Lebanese man for 22 years. They met in Germany and married at a time when both countries had a hostile relationship. They were even raised in two families which followed totally different cultural environments. Elizabeth’s family was individualistic. On the contrary, her husband’s family was collectivistic. After marriage, she gave up American life and started to follow Lebanese culture. They had two kids who also followed the same. Elizabeth believes that couples from cross-cultural environments have to pass their conjugal life through a series of evens and odds. The lesser their dissimilarity, the better. (Sheik)

Reference

Kim Lawler Creative. (2013, April 8). True story: I had a cross-cultural marriage. Retrieved February 11, 2016, from Yes and Yes: http://www.yesandyes.org/2013/04/true-story-i-had-cross-culture-marriage.html

2. Summary

The article shares a story of an American girl happily married with an Indian guy. It tells that their marriage celebrations involved rituals and people from both countries. They are parents of three kids who are being brought up under the shadow of Indian and American cultures. Indian culture emphasizes strong family bond and taking care of siblings by making out of the way efforts, whereas American culture prefers the individuals’ liberty and independence. Therefore the couple always teaches their kids to take care of themselves and people around. They teach them that they should analyze the situation first and think of a culture whose value is best to solve it (Muddamalle, 2015). (Fahad)

References

Kim Lawler Creative. (2013, April 8). True story: I had a cross-cultural marriage. Retrieved February 11, 2016, from Yes and Yes: http://www.yesandyes.org/2013/04/true-story-i-had-cross-culture-marriage.html

Muddamalle, B. (2015, August 6). mixedrootsstories. Retrieved from http://mixedrootsstories.com/is-it-possible-to-balance-two-cultures-perfectly/#comment
 
3. Summary

In this article, the author presents several reports on people’s biases against interracial relationships. The first research result is from the Daily Beast, which reports a cross-cultural couple undergoing a raw deal. What’s more, Huffpost Live believes that the stigmas have lasted for decades. As evidence, a song of an interracial relationship was forced to be revised in 1980s. What Associated Press finds is that about 1 in 12 marriages in America is interracial and this percentage rises quickly. The research conducted by Pew Research Center shows that young people are more open to cross-cultural marriage than their parents and non-whites are more positive to it. The NBC News tells the story about a Vietnamese woman who marries a white man. Her family didn’t agree with her marriage at first but finally accepted it. According to Daniel Licheter, a scholar in sociology, the biases will vanish as society develops. (Songjing)

Reference:

Clark, K. (2014, September 27). Interracial marriages on the rise, but social stigmas persist. Deseret News. Retrieved on 2016, Feb. 11, from http://national.deseretnews.com/article/2430/interracial-marriages-on-the-rise-but-social-stigmas-persist.html.

4. Summary

In this article, the author, who is a dating coach, discusses the difficulties of an inter-faith (intercultural) marriage. She states that though the number of such marriages are increasing, the rate of break ups in relationships is also increasing. She thinks love isn’t an antidote for all the differences in the core values. She gives her own parents' example to state how tough it can get. She says that it becomes really challenging even in this modern age to completely give up your beliefs, or suddenly believe something totally different or opposite to what we believed as we grew up. She advises four steps for couples in this fix. She says first we should know what we believe in, focus on the similarities and not on the differences, do not try to force your partner to change, and lastly she advises to keep the world and other family members' impacts out of your personal life. She ultimately concludes saying that if only we let love take over the differences created by man, we can actually start to understand each other. (Snigdha)

Reference:

Hoffman, Damona. 2013, July 02. "Why You Need To Think Twice About Inter-Faith Marriage". The Huffington Post. Retrieved on 12 Feb. 2016 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damona-hoffman/why-you-need-to-think-twi_b_3530077.html

5. Summary #2

In this article, the author interviewed several people who are interracial couples, scholars in human relation areas, or have experience with cross-cultural relationship. Fortunately, all of them come from Lubbock, Texas. Thus, it is helpful for our future project.

Siu and her husband Lap live in Lubbock and have two children. They are afraid that other kids in school will discriminate against their children. In fact, though, people in Lubbock are very nice. In addition, Lap said that their marriage is stabilized by having same religion as his wife. He thought that the belief in God helps them know each other better.

In this article, scholars hold different opinions on whether the experience being a child of interracial parents will be bright or not, because there are more and more people who get married who are from different cultures. These kinds of situations today are much more acceptable than they were a few years ago. However, the author said that people need more time to adapt to the changing, even though it is common nowadays.

The author said, the most serious problem faced by cross-cultural couples is cultural conflict. They have different history and national culture; even the food is different.

The best way to strengthen the marriage, offered by Lap, is to study from each other; by doing that, they will develop their relationship. (Yuan)

Reference:

Ballinger, C. (2011, February 23). Interracial couples face discrimination from others. Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Retrieved on Feb.11, 2016, from http://lubbockonline.com/stories/022310/loc_566396711.shtml#1

6. Article Summary

In the article, Interracial marriage not a big deal to millennials, the author, Angel Ulloa talked about how common interracial marriage has become throughout the years. She provided results of studies to prove her point. For example, in a single year, 2013, data has proven that “6.3 percent of all marriages were interracial”. Regardless of the different views of generations of interracial marriage, it is actually more favored and, according to one of whom the author quoted, it’s ignorant and even biased to think otherwise. Moreover, the author mentioned how some races favored and were likely to be involved in interracial marriages more than others, such as Asians and American Indians. Still, there were opposing views on how such marriages can be bad for society, which were expressed by some interviewees. Nevertheless, the author showed which point of view she embraced and that was the importance of being connected to one’s personality and character rather than cutting someone off because of their race. (Sarah)

Reference:

Ulloa, A. February 9, 2016. Interracial marriage not a big deal to millennials. The prospector daily. Retrieved February 10, 2016. http://www.theprospectordaily.com/2016/02/09/interracial-marriage-not-a-big-deal-to-millennials/