Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance

by Rachel F. Moran

As late as the 1960s, states could legally punish minorities who either had sex with or married persons outside of their racial groups. In this first comprehensive study of the legal regulation of interracial relationships, Rachel Moran grapples with the consequences of that history, candidly confronting its profound effects on not only conceptions of race and identity, but on ideas about sex, marriage, and family.

"A good introduction to an issue too often overlooked. . . . The writing is clear and accessible, the evidence is evocative, and the ideas are challenging."—Beth Kiyoko Jamieson, Law and Politics Book Review

"U. S. government bodies have tried to regulate interracial intimacy from the day Pocahontas married John Rolfe up through Loving v. Virginia , which found antimiscegentation laws unconstitutional in 1967. . . . The weirder anecdotes from our racial history enliven this study, which is likely to become a classic in its field."— Publishers Weekly

"Moran examines the history of U. S. regulation of cross-racial romance, considering the impact of that regulation on the autonomy of individuals and families as well as on racial identity and equality. . . . She is attuned to the nuances of race in this polyglot nation, and supplies thoughtful analysis of these nuances."— Booklist

Genres: Nonfiction, History

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[sdw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interracial intimacy was written by a lawyer, and it shows. The book is one of the more readable works in the realm of critical race theory and it focuses on the conceptions of race captured in various legal applications of marriage and family. The framing question of the book is if we truly live in a colorblind society and racial intermarriage is not legally prohibited, why are the vast majority of marriages same-race? (The statistic she cites is 93 percent of whites and blacks choose same-race partners, 70 percent of Asians and Latinos and 33 percent of Native Americans). Her answer charts the shifting meanings of both race and marriage including the impact of segregation and the romantic individualistic narratives through which we understand love today.

The book overwhelming focuses on legal decisions and the applications and implications of legal decisions. Much of her early discussions on miscegenation laws drew on Peggy Pascoe and other authors I was familiar with. Her discussion of changing debates around interracial adoption and multi-racial identity in the second half of the book are extremely thought-provoking.

Reading her book helped me understand and articulate today’s racial ideologies in a way I had struggled to define earlier. She clearly articulates how ideas of race have become perceived as increasingly biological, even as they become seen as more incidental (an accident of birth, no different than the color of one’s hair). Such ideas of race and the ideology of the color blind society do not account of course for all the ways in which race continues to matter, and society is not after all colorblind. The end of her book draws on her discussion of race, marriage, and family for a defense of affirmative action.

[Samira]

This book is very much a legal history and is lower on social analysis than I would have liked. That said, the legal history is clear and compelling and chapters 6-8 look at more of the social realities. I think one of the book's main strengths is that it looks as multiple races and ethnicities in the American context, not just the black/white issue.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a survey of the ways the United States has dealt with and codified interracial relationships, it is excellent. When it tries to sort of what the courts and government should do, it becomes a bit messier, though this doesn't really happen until the chapter on interracial adoption and custody (chapter seven of nine). It has one annoying habit though in that it has a conclusion section at the end of every chapter which summarizes the chapter in a few paragraphs. Given that most of the chapters are pretty short and the information is fairly concise, it seems unnecessary and interrupts the flow of the book.