Divergence or Convergence in the U.S. and Brazil:Understanding Race Relations Through White FamilyReactions to Black-White Interracial Couples

Chinyere Osuji

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract Different approaches to race mixture in the U.S. and Brazil have led to the notionthat they are polar opposites in terms of race relations. However, the end of de jure segregationin the U.S., the acknowledgement of racial inequality, and subsequent implementation ofaffirmative action in Brazil have called into question the extent to which these societies arevastly different. By examining race mixture as a lived reality, this study offers a novel approachto understanding racial boundaries in these two contexts. I analyze 87 interviewswith individualsin black-white couples in Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro to examine the cultural repertoires anddiscursive traditions they draw on to understand white families’ reactions to black spouses. I findthat U.S. couples employ “color-blindness” to understand opposition to Blacks marrying into thefamily. Brazilian couples perceive overt racism and the use of humor from white familymembers. Nevertheless, couples with black males experienced more hostility in both sites. Inaddition, white male autonomy was related to the lower hostility that black female-white malecouples experienced in both societies. By examining contemporary race mixture as a livedreality, this study complicates simplistic understandings of race relations as similar or different inthese two societies. Furthermore, with the increase of multiracial families in both societies, itreveals the family as an important site for redrawing and policing racial boundaries.

Keywords Race . Interracial couples .Multiracial families . Brazil . Latin America . Racemixture . Race relations

Several scholars have disproven the myth that the U.S. and Brazil are vastly different in termsof race relations. Scholarship demonstrating Brazilian racial inequalities in income, education-al attainment, mortality, and overall life chances show that the U.S. and Brazil, as two formerslave societies in the Western Hemisphere, in fact have many similarities. Some have arguedthat with the growing populations of Latinos, increase in multiracial identification, and post-Jim Crow de facto racism, U.S. race relations may be coming closer to the Latin Americansituation (Degler 1986; Skidmore 1993; Daniel 2006). Conversely, the influence of the blackmovement in the adoption of race-based affirmative action and the increasing popularity of a

Qual SociolDOI 10.1007/s11133-013-9268-2

C. Osuji (*)Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, 405-7 Cooper Street,Camden, NJ 08102-1521, USAe-mail: chinyere.osuji@rutgers.edu

negro identity have led some to argue that Brazil is becoming more like the U.S. (Degler 1986;Skidmore 1993; Daniel 2006). Nevertheless, important differences still remain in the twosocieties, particularly the weaker group consciousness in Brazil (Bailey 2009; Sansone 2003)compared to the U.S.

In Brazil, race mixture has been mythologized characterizing the society as a racialdemocracy, which purports that Brazilians interact freely without regard to race (Freyre1963). This is different from the U.S., where state laws against interracial marriage were onlyinvalidated in the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia decision. Even though no laws against interracialmarriage have existed in Brazil since the abolition of slavery in 1888 (Marx 1998), contem-porary white intermarriage with Blacks remains stigmatized (Moutinho 2004; Osuji 2013a).This is different for Brazilian Blacks, for whom historically intermarriage with Whites was asign of upward mobility (Azevedo 1955).

Rates of interracial marriage have been increasing in both the U.S. (Qian and Lichter 2011)and Brazil (Ribeiro and Silva 2009), making it important to examine how people navigateracial boundaries within families (Burton et al. 2010). These understandings of boundary-making processes can vary with the cultural repertoires and structural contexts of a givensociety (Lamont 2001, 2000; Lamont and Fleming 2005; Swidler 1986). In addition, it remainsunclear how members of racially dominant categories negotiate the entrance of stigmatizedmembers into their families. Racial hierarchies privileging whiteness, as well as the meaningsassociated with intersections of race and gender, may lead to similarities in the U.S. and Brazilregarding the cultural repertoires that Whites draw on to understand boundary-crossingprocesses in the family. I draw on tools from cultural sociology as well as perspectives fromstudies of race and ethnicity to examine the cultural repertoires and discursive traditions thatblack-white couples employ to respond to white family members’ reactions to black partners.Using an intersectionality perspective (Crenshaw 1989), I analyze 87 interviews with individ-uals in black-white couples in Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro to understand the meaningsthey give to the integration of Blacks into white families. I find that U.S. couples understoodwhite members of their extended family members as engaging in political correctness whereasBrazilian couples witnessed the use of humor and slight aggressions towards black spouses. Inaddition, couples with black males experienced more hostility in both sites, but this was moreevident in the U.S. White male autonomy in both societies was related to the lower levels ofhostility that black female-white male couples experienced. Overall, this study illuminates howboundary work in the family sphere differs across societies and the cultures of race embeddedin these places. It also demonstrates the ways that race and gender intersect, giving differentmeanings to racial boundary negotiation in interracial marriage.

Race Mixing in the U.S. and Brazil

The social construction of race mixture in the U.S. and Brazil demonstrate how sexuality(Nagel 2003) and family formation are a core element of racial boundaries. While interracialmarriage has been taboo in both the U.S. and Brazil, it has been far more stigmatized andregulated in the U.S. context. For much of U.S. history, there were anti-miscegenation laws aswell as violence especially, though not exclusively, targeting black men suspected of engagingin sexual relations with white women. This history still lingers today with Whites being leastlikely to marry Blacks in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups (Rosenfeld 2008). Inaddition, interracial marriages are the least common in the South, where laws against interra-cial marriage were codified the longest (Kalmijn 1993) and are more common in the West(Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan 1990).

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The post-World War II era, including the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, led to a dismantlingof de jure segregation, discrimination, and overt bigotry on racial grounds. However, it hasbeen replaced with a more laissez-faire (Bobo et al. 1997) or color-blind (Bonilla-Silva 2006)racism in which institutional and subtler means are used to reproduce racial inequality. Morethan “political correctness,” this “new racism” is an ideology justifying disapproval forinterracial marriage and race-based policies to address racial inequalities while avoiding thelanguage of race. While overt bigotry still exists, this new form of racism has becomedominant in U.S. society.

Over the last several decades, immigration from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbeanhas complicated dichotomous understandings of race in the U.S. (Lee and Bean 2010). TheU.S. has also seen dramatic increases in interracial marriage and cohabitation: 8 % of formalmarriages and 14 % of cohabiting couples are interracial (Qian and Lichter 2011; U.S. CensusBureau 2012). In addition, since 2000, millions of people in the U.S. have disregarded the“one-drop rule,” opting instead for a multi-racial identification (Humes et al. 2011). Theseevents have led some to argue that understandings of race in the U.S. are becoming more likethose in Latin America (Bonilla-Silva 2006; Degler 1986; Skidmore 1993; Daniel 2006).

In comparison, race mixture is part of the Brazilian national myth of origin, in which allBrazilians are presumed to be racially mixed, regardless of their actual background. In fact, inthe early twentieth century, Brazilian elites advocated large-scale mixing with Whites in orderto “whiten” and “modernize” the large black and indigenous populations (Skidmore 1993;Ianni 1960). To this end, the Brazilian government barred black immigration while subsidizingimmigration from Europe to promote the whitening process. Whitening took on the meaningof upward mobility, as exemplified by the adage “money whitens,” as well as by the socialadvantage conferred on children who are more European in appearance (Schwartzman 2007;Ianni 1960). This ideology of whitening persists today; extended family members and friendsof interracial couples view them as either whitening or darkening themselves through theirspouses (Osuji 2013b).

Gilberto Freyre, a Brazilian sociologist and public intellectual, popularized the concept ofBrazil as a racial democracy with harmonious race relations, integration, and large amounts ofinterracial mating (Freyre 1963; Guimarães 2005a, 54), even if he did not use the exact phrasehimself (Guimarães 2005b). For most of Brazil’s existence as a republic, elites have used theideology of Brazil as a racial democracy to obscure racial inequality as well as prevent blackand brown populations from mobilizing for equal participation in Brazilian society (Marx1998; Hanchard 1993). Unlike in the U.S., where segregation was used to assuage Whites’fears of race mixture with Blacks, in Brazil and other Latin American countries, race mixturewas viewed as evidence of the social inclusion of Blacks and indigenous peoples (Telles andSue 2009). In recent decades, however, this myth has been challenged by increasing evidenceof vast inequalities that disproportionally affect nonwhite Brazilians (Paixão and Carvano 2008;Telles 2004; Hasenbalg 1979; Hasenbalg and Silva 1992; Silva 1987). The implementation ofaffirmative action policies in Brazilian universities and government agencies (Htun 2004)has demonstrated that a simple understanding of Brazilian and U.S. societies as polar oppositesis largely outdated (Degler 1986; Skidmore 1993; Daniel 2006). In addition, race-mixing is notas common as previously thought; although nonwhites are the majority of Brazil, maritalunions across color categories comprise only 30 % of all marriages, including both cohabita-tion and formal marriage (Ribeiro and Silva 2009; Petruccelli 2001; Telles 2004). This is lowgiven Brazilian ideologies of racial democracy and race mixture writ large that suggestinterracial marriage is widely prevalent.

Nevertheless, there are still important differences, such as the lower levels of racial groupconsciousness in Brazil than in the U.S. (Bailey 2009; Sansone 2003). In addition, racial

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boundaries are more blurred in Brazil, where, as mentioned before, a change in status(Schwartzman 2007; Ianni 1960) or marriage across colors (Osuji 2013b) can lighten ordarken an individual. The history of approaches to color and race mixture in these twosocieties may influence how people understand contemporary race-mixing today and canexplain the meaning of negotiating racial boundaries in interracial marriage.

Cultural Repertoires and Understandings of Race-mixing

Families provide an important structure in which to examine the role of race in patterns ofsocial inclusion and exclusion. Despite the increase of interracial marriages in both the U.S.(Qian and Lichter 2011, 2001; Lee and Bean 2010) and Brazil (Ribeiro and Silva 2009; Silva1987; Telles 2004) they occur simultaneously with continued white advantage. Many scholarshave understood interracial marriages as leading to a breakdown of racial boundaries throughaccess to the social networks of both individuals in broader society (Loury 2002; Patterson1997; Davis 1941; Gordon 1964; Lieberson andWaters 1988; Qian and Lichter 2001). For thisreason, white families’ reactions to intermarriage can have repercussions for the life chancesand well being of both partners in an interracial couple. Specifically, these types of familyformations may open up black partners to acts of discrimination from white extendedfamily members that they may not have experienced otherwise. Whereas several scholarshave found that U.S. white families often react negatively to intermarriage with Blacks(Dalmage 2000; Rosenblatt et al. 1995; Root 2001; Porterfield 1978; Childs 2005b), thereis a lack of systematic study across racially diverse societies that examines the extent ofthis racial bias. In addition, while scholars have examined the intersection of race andsexuality in Brazil (Goldstein 1999, 2003), there has been little study of family formationas a site of race mixture.

People construct strategies of action from a “cultural toolkit” or repertoire of habits, skills,and styles (Swidler 1986). These cultural repertoires can vary across societies, reflecting thenational ideologies of a given society (Lamont 1992, 2000), including racial ideologies(Lamont and Mizrachi 2011; Silva 2012). Family members may draw on these ideologies tounderstand interracial marriage. For example, black-white couples have drawn on color-blindideology in the U.S. (Childs 2005b) and the myth of racial democracy in Brazil (Santos-Barros2003) to minimize white family rejection of black spouses. In addition, Blacks can experienceinclusionary discrimination in which they become integrated into a society, yet not on an equallevel with Whites (Sawyer 2006). Inclusionary discrimination may characterize how Blacksare incorporated into white families, especially in Brazil. In other words, anti-black aggres-sions (whether slight or overt) may be a part of how Blacks integrate into these families. As aresult, Blacks and their white spouses may experience “particularized universalism”: ignoringor downplaying racism in intimate settings (Silva and Reis 2011). As Blacks become integrat-ed into their white spouse’s families, they may experience racial prejudice and discriminationwithout them or their partners perceiving it as such.

In addition, a variety of factors may influence how white families negotiate the integrationof black spouses. Different social categories, such as race and gender, often interact simulta-neously to produce an “intersection” of oppressions that can mutually constitute, reinforce, andnaturalize one another (Crenshaw 1989, 1994). Romantic relationships between black men andwhite women are typically the most stigmatized (Judice 2008; Childs 2005b). In addition,phenotype, including color hierarchies valorizing a lighter skin tone (Hunter 2005), is salient inthe experiences of black women married to white men (Judice 2008). For these reasons, raceand gender of the partners may be an important factor influencing white family acceptance.

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While there are differences between the policing of racial boundaries in the U.S. and Brazil(Osuji 2013a), this is far less established in the more intimate setting of the family (for oneexception, see Hordge-Freeman 2013). Most studies examine the role of the state and otherinstitutions in shifting or reinforcing racial and ethnic boundaries negotiation (Tilly 2004;Wimmer 2013). However, as an important site for racial socialization (Burton et al. 2010), thefamily is an important site for understanding the meaning and negotiation of racial boundaries.The histories of race mixing in the U.S. and Brazil suggest that there might be differences andsimilarities in how black-white couples understand the racial boundary negotiation of Blackswho enter white families.

Method

Between August 2008 and April 2010, I interviewed individual members of black-whitecouples in Rio de Janeiro (N=49) and Los Angeles (N=38). Rather than testing a hypothesis,I draw on Wuthnow’s (2011) approach to “taking talk seriously,” analyzing these qualitativeinterviews to understand how black-white couples construct meaning in their social lives andwhat this means for how race is lived in the two societies. In addition, I compare theintersection of race and gender (Crenshaw 1994) within and across the two societies.

In both Brazil and the U.S. (Telles 2004), interracial couples tend to congregate in urbanareas, making these sites amenable to finding black-white couples. A racially diverse city, LosAngeles has significant black, white, Latino, and Asian populations. After controlling for racialcomposition, it has the highest rates of Black out-marriage of any major U.S. city (Batson et al.2006). Similarly, Rio de Janeiro also has large white and non-white populations (Telles 2004).While black-white couples are rare in both societies, the populations of these cities providedopportunities for interracial marriage, facilitating finding interracial couples to interview. Mostimportantly, my personal contacts in both cities facilitated the sampling processes.

The U.S. and Brazil have different understandings of whiteness and blackness. Accordingto Guimarães (2005a, 185), in the United States whiteness is understood as more exclusive andis based on perceived (albeit not actual) “racial purity” in one’s ancestry. In Brazil, whitenessdoes not prohibit acknowledging black ancestry, because blackness is determined by pheno-type rather than strictly by ancestry (Nogueira 1985).

Although Brazil is characterized by a racial continuum, the census categorizes residents intoone of five color categories: branca (white), parda (brown), preta (black), indígena (Indigenous),and amarela (Asian).1 The Brazilian government and the black social movement often collapsethe preta and parda categories into one encompassing negra category. In Portuguese, preta(“black”) refers to the color and negra (“black”) refers to both having dark skin as well as havingprimarily African ancestry. Negra is a term that is increasingly used by Afro-descendants outsideof the Brazilian black movement overall (Silva and Reis 2011). For this reason, I recruited forcouples involving a branco com negro or a white person with a black person.

My sampling requisite was that people be identified by others as negra/o and self-identifyas negra/o, parda/o, or preta/o. Since race in Brazil is based on a continuum, I also requiredthat people who were identified as branca/o self-identify as branca/o or parda/o. This processof selection allowed me to stay true to local understandings of race and color while providinghomogeneity in how outsiders identify and treat black-white couples in both countries. It also

1 The term pardo refers to a grayish-brown color that is rarely used in common parlance and ismostly an official categorization. The indigenous and Asian categories together comprise about 2 % ofthe population (IBGE 2010).

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allowed me to examine their experiences as a black-white couple from their own perspective.None of the couples that I interviewed involved people who overlapped in racial or color self-identifications.

To capture these different forms of racial categorization, I employed different strategies in thetwo cities to reflect the meaning of a “black-white couple.” In Rio, I followed the example ofprevious qualitative studies of Brazilian black-white couples (Santos-Barros 2003;Moutinho 2004)and recruited couples involving a negro married to a branco. I asked only native Brazilians forreferrals of black-white couples. My sampling requisite was that partners be identified by otherBrazilians as negro or branco. I privileged outsiders’ racial identification over individual self-identification to allow for consistency in the sample while capturing how outsiders react to negro-branco couples. Outsider identification corresponded to self-identification in 46 out of 49 respon-dents. This is similar to other Brazilian nationally representative studies that have shown that self-identification overwhelmingly corresponds to outsider racial identification (Telles 2002, 2004).

In Los Angeles, I relied on referrals from friends and colleagues and scouted for couples inpublic spaces, using outsider identification as an aspect of sample-selection. In both cities, Iused snowball sampling, asking couples for other referrals. Unlike Brazil, the majority of U.S.Blacks and Whites do not see themselves as multiracial, despite actual different-race ancestry.For this reason, in Los Angeles, I excluded people who self-identified as biracial or multiracial.

I used purposive sampling to capture variation in the experiences of black-white couples byrace-gender combinations and educational groupings. In Rio, the sample included 14 black male–white female couples and 11 black female–white male couples. The Los Angeles sample had 10black male–white female couples and 9 black female–white male couples. In the U.S., interracialmarriages are concentrated among college-educated populations (Qian and Lichter 2001, 2011;Gullickson 2006), so the majority of the Los Angeles sample involved both partners having atleast some college. In Brazil, nonwhites are more likely to marry Whites at higher levels ofeducation (Schwartzman 2007). At the same time, interracial marriage in Brazil is characterizedby status exchange in which nonwhites compensate for their low racial status by having higherlevels of education than their white partners (Telles 2004; Petruccelli 2001; Ribeiro and Silva2009). Hence, I sampled for individuals in three educational groupings: neither partner having anycollege (n=12), only one partner having some college (n=14), and both partners having somecollege (n=24). This sampling strategy allowed me to stay true to the class component of being ablack-white marital union in both sites, while capturing a variety of experiences.

Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro are both highly visible, world-renowned cities with largepopulations of African descendants. Both cities represent their respective countries in the interna-tional mindscape: Los Angeles through its Hollywood images and Rio de Janeiro with its yearlyCarnaval. While these cities may not be nationally representative of all urban areas with interracialcouples in their respective societies, they are able to capture important variation in experiences ofwhite family reactions to black-white couples in the two societies. Analyzing them as research sitescan illuminate the underlying processes that shape the lives of black-white couples.

Reflexivity

In the U.S., there is a stereotype that black women often think that white women “steal” blackmen from black communities, making the marriage market more difficult for black women(Childs 2005a). As a dark-skinned U.S. black woman with a natural hairstyle, I was veryconscious of this stereotype and thought it may have been a barrier to accessing couples tointerview as well as building rapport in interviews with black men and white women. Tocompensate for this stereotype, I purposefully tried to cultivate a non-threatening, extra cheery

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persona when interacting with couples. This included smiling a lot when approaching couplesfor interviews as well as nodding encouragingly during the interview itself.

In Rio, being an American from California gave me a varnish of intrigue that aided withrecruitment in comparison to Los Angeles. Several black respondents described how beinginterviewed by another negra made them feel at ease during the interview. At the same time,being a foreigner provided the social distance to aid both white and black Brazilians inproviding detailed, highly personal experiences with race in the family. In both research sites,I began the interviews with relatively neutral topics such as the respondent’s childhood, theirparents’ occupational status, and the neighborhoods in which they grew up. This aided inbuilding rapport with both white and black respondents in both societies, creating an openspace to share their more sensitive experiences.

Data and Analysis

Families and Changes in Opposition

In my data, none of the couples in either of the sites expressed that white members of theirextended family were a current cause of worry or concern in their relationships. It was only uponasking specifically about the reactions of the white partner’s family that black-white couples inboth sites revealed the opposition that they faced. Overall, Rio couples perceived far less harshopposition to their marriage than their Los Angeles counterparts. This was particularly true forcouples involving black men with white women. Of the 14 such couples in my Rio de Janeirodata, six had white parents who had completely accepted the relationship from the beginning, andonly three had parents who were opposed to the relationship due to the color difference (in theremaining cases, the parents had passed away before the relationship began). Several of the blackwomen in my sample experienced little to no opposition in both research sites.

Nevertheless, similar to findings among Cuban families (Fernandez 2010), the couples thatI interviewed remarked how even though some white parents were initially against therelationship, this changed over time. Spending time with their son-in-laws and the longevityof the relationship meant that white extended families eventually accepted their black son-in-laws. In Rio, several of the black men who had been accepted by their wives’ families relatedstories of family opposition in their previous relationships with white women. For this reason,many were grateful not to face that situation with their current partners.

Family structure was linked to white family acceptance; in Rio, like in most of LatinAmerica, couples described extended families playing a more important role in their sociallives. Several couples even lived with the white wives’ parents. This was unlike U.S. black-white couples, whose parents and extended families often lived in distant cities or states.However, even U.S. white extended families that were initially against these relationshipscame to accept their black in-laws into their families.

Discursive Tools

Opposition and Social Desirability

Echoing previous studies of U.S. black-white couples, the majority of the Los Angeles couplesinvolving black men with white women experienced some degree of opposition to theirrelationship. This was despite the prevalence of color-blind ideology, political correctness,

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and multiculturalism in the United States. The majority of the couples perceived negativereactions from white family members, particularly parents. White wives who did not experi-ence opposition from their families often referenced their past interracial relationships asmaking their parents more accustomed to seeing them with nonwhite partners. For thosecouples that experienced opposition from white families, unlike previous studies of U.S. black-white couples, they not only relied on color-blind interpretations to understand it, but alsoalternated between color-blind and more overt race-based explanations.

Elizabeth2 is a white woman who lives in Los Angeles with her black husband, Trevor. Bothwork in universities and enjoy running in their spare time. During a joint interview,3 they relatedhow they went to Tennessee, where Elizabeth is from originally, to seek her parents’ blessingand permission to wed. Elizabeth reported she had told her parents about her relationship morethan a year earlier, when they visited her in Los Angeles. She recalled what her father said to herat the time: “Well, you know, Elizabeth, all marriages have their idiosyncrasies. It really doesn’tmatter what color you are.” Elizabeth and Trevor understood this as acceptance of theirrelationship, so the father’s later reaction to their engagement surprised them:

Trevor: It was a very hesitant reaction. It was just a hesitant reaction and she was notexpecting that and I was not expecting that, I guess and um….Elizabeth: They were full of, um, cautious advice.Trevor: “Have you considered this?”Elizabeth: “Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?”…I think, one,I think the general flair of the conversation—which was really not a conversation, it wasreally a one-way dialogue from my dad to us—um, was, “Have you thought about howhard it’s going to be?” And he was just really worried about all I potentially have to gothrough....

On what should have been a happy occasion, Elizabeth said that she became unhappy at herparents’ reaction. She had understood her father as initially being open to her marrying a blackman. However, they perceived his later reaction as showing that their interracial marriage wasmore than just another “idiosyncrasy.” Elizabeth and Trevor perceived a shift in her parents’reaction from a more socially desirable response to expressing grave reservations about thepotential problems of being a black-white couple.

Despite Elizabeth’s father’s reaction based on their being different colors, the couple did notsee race as the focal point of his response. They tried to minimize the racial aspect of herfather’s response. They said:

Trevor: I was going to say, there are two sides to this. One is the racial dimension butthen there’s also the religious dimension. And he did not know my family … with me,all he knew was basically what Elizabeth has said. So, for him, there were two thingsgoing on. One was the kind of racial dimension, which is not just something that you seeevery day in Tennessee. Okay, so that’s something that’s like … “Are you really, reallysure [laughs] you want to do this?” Cause from, if you’re in Tennessee, that’s justsomething you don’t see very often….Elizabeth: As a parent, I can understand. I can totally relate to that even though my kidsare really young right now. I would not want them marrying somebody that I didn’tknow. You know, to have to give up one of your babies to a stranger. That’d be veryhard.

2 All names are pseudonyms.3 This was one of ten couple interviews that I conducted in addition to their individual interviews.

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Trevor: And this is a tight knit family so those two dimensions come together and meeton that night [laughs] in June. And so, it was, it was, so you had this one-wayconversation because we were both silent…. I mean they were just, they’re thinkingout loud but you know (laughs) and so there was this hesitancy and all of this caution.

Elizabeth and Trevor’s story shows how they reframe what could be interpreted as a raciallymotivated reaction on the part of her father. Although how they presented her father’s previouscomments suggest that he was thinking along racial lines, Elizabeth and Trevor emphasize thefact that he did not know Trevor or his family, despite their dating for many years. They arguethat race was just one of the many motivations for their expressed opposition.

In a few extreme cases, Los Angeles couples remarked how the white extended family wasso opposed to the relationship that they distanced themselves from the white spouse. This wasnot a theme among the Carioca4 respondents to whom I spoke. Two white female Angelinosdescribed how their parents did not speak to them for a long time after finding out they wereinvolved with a black man. One of these cases was Stella, a white woman with light brownhair who is married to Edward, a tall man with dark brown skin. She is originally from a smalltown in Indiana where her family still lives. When she decided to move to Los Angeles withEdward, her boyfriend at the time, her parents fought with her about the relationship, then hersister and parents refused to speak with her for two years. Although her family is now acceptingof her relationship with Edward, Stella said:

At first they tried to pretend like race wasn’t the issue. They tried to pretend like that,you know, “He’s moving you across the country…” For a while, it seemed like theywere dancing around the issue when we all knew what the issue was. And theneventually, I was like, “Why won’t you just admit, like, this is why.” And theyeventually were like “Yeah,” because this is their famous line like: “I don’t have aproblem with black people, but I have a problem with my daughter dating one.”

Stella’s response reveals that she understood her parents as trying to avoid acknowledgingracism as the motivating factor for their opposition. Similar to Trevor and Edward, her parentstalked around disapproval of a romantic relationship with a black man. Both sets of parentswere perceived as using the discursive tool of “expressing concern” in attempts to use a color-blind perspective to evaluate the relationship. However, Stella saw this as an unsuccessfulattempt at maintaining this color-blindness.

According to Stella, her paternal aunts and uncles (who lived away from the small town)disapproved of her parents’ behavior when they found out. She said:

Actually, to this day, my dad doesn’t really get along with his family very well because[of] the time when all this was happening. Basically, my family blames me. They saidthat I was the one that called my dad’s sister and told her, but I was like, “I didn’t tellanybody,” like, “I did not talk to any of them.” Well, they found out about kind of whatwas going on, and [my aunts and uncles] were really upset with my family…. and theyactually called them and kind of were like, “You shouldn’t—This is your daughter.” Andso basically, my family got so mad about that, and so even to this day, they’re still, theydon’t have a very good relationship with them…. I know they still blame that on me. Butyeah, they just don’t have a very good relationship with them because, at the time, theystood up for me, and they didn’t agree with [my parents].

4 Cariocas are people from Rio de Janeiro.

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Stella describes her parents and siblings as uncomfortable with extended family membersknowing about their racist reactions and as blaming her for exposing those reactions. Thissituation shows how, unlike decades ago, anti-black racism is frowned upon in many circles.She perceives her family as trying to provide a politically correct reaction to her intermarriagewith a black man. Family members’ attempt at socially desirable responses was not a themethat emerged in any of the interviews in Rio and none of the couples involving white men andblack women in Los Angeles.

Despite the actions of Stella’s parents, Edward had a striking response when I asked himdirectly if his wife’s parents were racists. He said that there were different definitions of beingracist:

I think kind of a conventional definition of it would be to treat a person differentlybecause of race or ethnicity or because of how they look. I think that might be aconventional definition of being racist. If I define it that way, then I would say yes. Iwould say they are racist.

However, Edward continued, saying “in their minds, I don’t believe that they feel they’reracist.” He then compared them to white supremacists on the “Storm Front” website and saidthat in comparison to white supremacists, they are not racists because:

I don’t believe that when they see black people that they think… anything less of thosepeople….But I think that they just did not want her to marry a black guy or to beinvolved with a black guy.… [I]f you are a staunch racist and you really believe thatpeople of another race are inferior in some sense, then you could never get to the pointthat they are at in terms of actually trying. So that’s why I think there’s kind of a grayarea with them because… if you look at it in the sense of a person who is truly sort of anacknowledged racist and truly believes in racial inequalities, then I don’t believe thatkind of person could ever get to the point where Stella’s family’s at. I don’t think theycould ever welcome me into their home…. I do see them making the effort. And if aperson makes a conscious decision to be racist…I don’t think a person like that couldever get to the point of accepting their son or daughter being married to a black person ortrying to accept it.

Some would interpret their disapproval of him as a mate for their daughter as a clear case inwhich they think less of Blacks in comparison to Whites. However, Edward sees theirturnaround as evidence that they have accepted him as an equal. In order to make sense ofhis in-laws as potential racists, Edward compared Stella’s parents to white supremacists, thosewho expose the most extreme form of racial intolerance in U.S. society. Edward draws on acolor-blind approach to make sense of Stella’s parents’ response, comparing it to a moreimmutable, overt racism.

Of all the other race-gender permutations in the two societies, black men-white womencouples in the Los Angeles data experienced the most vehement opposition and concern abouttheir relationship. This issue of expressing disapproval in politically correct terms was not atheme that emerged in any of the interviews in Rio or in Los Angeles couples where thewoman was black. In Rio, couples did not describe the white parents that were against therelationship as being concerned with social desirability.

In contrast, the Carioca couples that I interviewed described white family members as usingovert racial language to express their displeasure, similar to findings from Cuba (Fernandez1996). For example, Konrad, a college-educated negro in his fifties with dark brown skin andshort-cropped hair, is married to Ofélia, also in her fifties, who has dark brown hair and lighttan skin. She recently started attending college for the first time. Both Konrad and Ofélia, in

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their separate interviews, corroborated that Ofélia’s mother did not approve of their relation-ship. Konrad told me:

So one time [Ofélia] told me that her mother said … “If you are thinking that you aregoing to marry a negro, that you’re going to have a child and I am going to be theredoing cornrows on the head of a negro …it’s not going to happen….” So then, I wouldgo to her and her mother’s house. At the beginning, her mother didn’t want me to gothere, right? She would not let me in, so I would stay downstairs and [Ofélia] wouldcome down and we would go out.

According to Konrad, it was only after Ofélia caught dengue fever and could not leave thehouse that her mother allowed Konrad to enter it. Over time, Ofélia’s mother came to acceptthe relationship and now even lives with them. Konrad’s interview excerpt shows how whiteparents in Brazil were described as using explicitly racial terms in a way that never occurredamong U.S. respondents. This may be related to the lower education of Whites who intermarryin Brazil. Similar to the U.S. (Bobo et al. 2012), expressing overt forms of racism may be morecommon among lower-educated Whites. In the case of Brazil, these are the Whites who aremost likely to intermarry.

Humor and Mild Insults

An absence of vehement opposition is not the same as complete acceptance or indifference.Even when black partners are integrated into white extended families, on occasion, they canexperience a form of inclusionary discrimination related to their race. Brazilian but not U.S.couples described how their extended family used lighthearted yet openly racist humor to referaffectionately to the black spouses. Humor can be used as a form of hegemonic discoursereminding Blacks of their lower status position (Goldstein 1999, 2003; Sue and Golash-Boza2013).

For example, Ângela and Donato are a black-white couple living in a working-class,racially mixed suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Ângela is white, with light skin and medium brownhair. Donato is black, with short, black dreadlocks. Neither attended college. Both agree thatDonato is loved and accepted by his white in-laws. Nevertheless, according to Ângela, hermother shows her affection through nicknames like neguinho5 and dehumanizing jokes.Ângela’s mother also calls her son-in-law Foguinho, after a black character played byLázaro Ramos—a famous, award-winning black actor. Ironically, although many peopleconsider Lázaro Ramos attractive, Ângela’s mother occasionally teases her about Donatobeing ugly. Other studies across Latin America have similarly documented that Blacks areseen as having “ugly” features (Twine 1998; Sheriff 2001; Goldstein 2003; Fernandez 2010;Sue 2013). Ângela described her brother behaving similarly toward Donato, saying:

My brother likes him a lot. He doesn’t have anything [mean] to say about him. He’llscrew with him, “Ah, you monkey….” before [my daughter] was born, he said that thedecoration of her room was going to be a bunch of vines…. I was going to put in abunch of bananas because she going to come out a little monkey, he would joke.… Hewould joke but it always was that type of joke, in relation to Blacks, but you would seethat it was with respect, it was not to offend. Because sometimes you can joke with aperson but wanting to offend them, to attack them. And you joke, but in an affectionate

5 Neguinho, a diminutive of negro, is often used as a term of endearment, including in families. However,depending on the way it is used, it can also be a racial epithet.

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way, say something, the person accepts it, but you see that you are not insulting orbelittling, or humiliating [him]. So we always played around like that.

Ângela’s comments reflect how the terms of inclusion in a white family in Brazil caninclude being the butt of racial jokes. As Radcliffe-Brown (1940) pointed out, such jokes are a“combination of friendliness with antagonism” and are part of an overall structure of relations.Similar to U.S. studies showing interracial couples using a color-blind approach to interpretfamily reactions and comments (Childs 2005b), Ângela accepts these jokes at face value.Engaging in particularized universalism, Ângela understands these jokes as affectionate andwithout malicious intent, downplaying the racism in this family interaction. At the same time,the jokes reveal the maintenance of a racial hierarchy that devalues blackness. Donato’sintegration into a white family comes with a reminder of his lower status on the racialhierarchy, allowing him (and his daughter) to be seen as subhuman. These incidents showhow inclusion of Blacks into white families does not always include acceptance as a racialequal.

A few negras mentioned how they experienced discomfort in the presence of their whitehusbands’ families. For example, Tatiana and Gaspar are a college-educated black female–white male couple. Tatiana has dark brown skin and has short pressed black hair. Gaspar is awhite man with a light tan and short, light brown hair. In her interview, Tatiana stated thatGaspar’s family had no problem with her being black. However, at a family event, one ofGaspar’s family members made her feel uncomfortable. She said:

This relative came from far away, he came from the Northeast and he saw me, right? Hehas known Gaspar since he was a baby. When he saw me with him, he started comingwith this story of, “Wow! She is negra!” [her emphasis] “Of course I am!” I said to him,“So, you were the only one to notice it up till now?” (Laughs). I had to say it. [He said,]“Wow, the baby is so cute! Look at how the blood has mixed, huh!”… He said it a littleshocked….He wanted to be nice, but he was discriminatory. . . . I didn’t like it. So thenhe said, “I too once had a preta, you know? Back in Paraíba, a sly preta, you know?” [Isaid,] “I can’t take it anymore!” So, I left.

Tatiana was offended by Gaspar’s uncle’s comments ranging from her phenotype to hissurprise at her child’s appearance and his off-color remarks about his prior liaison with anegra. Unlike many U.S. Blacks, who openly stand up to stigmatization by using them as“teaching moments” (Fleming et al. 2011; Lamont and Fleming 2005), Tatiana indirectlychallenged the uncle’s comments through her own joke, but then chose to leave with herhusband and child instead of continuing to confront the uncle’s racism, whether directly or inthe form of another joke. Her comments illustrate how humor can be used both as a way todiffuse a racially charged conversation (“you were the only one to notice it”) as well as todenigrate Blacks who marry interracially. Overall, race-based humor can be used to negotiateblack entrance into white families.

While jokes were common in the Rio data, it was not a common discursive tool among theLos Angeles couples, probably because of the aforementioned color-blind ideology andpolitical correctness characteristic of the U.S. Only one respondent, Vincent, a white manwith some college experience, mentioned that his sister had made an inappropriate joke to hisblack wife, Charlotte. I asked Vincent about his family’s reaction to his relationship withCharlotte, a woman with dark brown skin. He said:

Vincent: It was you know…my sister who has an absurd sense of humor, was like youknow …she is not afraid to touch the racy stuff.Chinyere: What do you mean?

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Vincent: I think that the comment that got Charlotte all riled up when we were inArkansas…was like…it was dark outside and somebody said “Oh Charlotte, smile andjust show us the way” and so you know it is an easy thing, but it is one of those thingsthat you talk about this stuff, you joke about it, because that is how we show love…is bycutting each other down. She didn’t exactly get that. She got a little upset, which is wellwithin her rights.… The first weekend that we were out together, well in Arkansastogether, and my sister just pushed the inappropriate button a little too far.

Unlike several of the black husbands I interviewed, Charlotte said that she did notexperience overt hostility to her relationship with Vincent, despite this incident that herhusband recalled. Whereas Rio couples generally accepted such remarks without offence,Victor describes Charlotte has having been quite put out by this dehumanizing comment. Thistype of humor was rare in relationships between black men and white women among LosAngeles respondents. Vincent’s understanding of this situation shows that white familymembers can make race-based slight aggressions against Blacks who marry into the family,although it is less common than in Rio. Judging by Charlotte’s response, humor as a discursivetool was less socially acceptable in Los Angeles than in Rio.

In the Rio sample, even when couples did not describe overt opposition to the relationshipon racial grounds, race may inform the value of the relationship. A few Carioca couplesrevealed ways that friends and family members would engage in slight aggressions against theblack spouse. For example, Hilda and Sérgio are a couple who both have some collegeexperience. When I entered their home, there was a large poster of Hilda’s face on the wall,with smaller images of the two of them on their wedding day in the corners. In separateinterviews, they both said that her family did not oppose their relationship on the basis of race.Rather, her family initially disapproved because she is active in her Protestant church and he isa nonbeliever. Although her family has since looked past the religious differences, they stillsometimes make comments that may or may not be interpreted racially. She said that people ingeneral, including her family, have directly told her that her husband is ugly. Hilda thinks thatthis is based not on his color, but on the fact that he is very skinny. While this is a plausibleexplanation, whenever couples raised the issue of physical appearance, it was always in termsof the black, not the white, partner’s ugliness.

Griselda narrated a similar incident. She is a thin, college-educated negra in her late fifties,with light brown skin and her hair cropped close to her head. Her husband, Teófilo, is a whiteman with light tan skin, a dark moustache, and salt-and-pepper hair. Teófilo never went tocollege, but runs a small business in the neighborhood that his wife had purchased for him.Griselda inherited a condo near the beach where they live. Despite Griselda’s higher socio-economic status, she said that her husband’s aunt purposefully referred to her as her husband’s“housekeeper,” a low status occupation commonly occupied by black women, both historicallyas well as today. None of the black husbands or white wives in Rio or Los Angeles referred tobeing confused for a housekeeper, revealing the intersection of race and gender in understand-ings of these relationships. Furthermore, it did not emerge as a theme among black wives inLos Angeles, revealing low status occupations as more salient for the experiences of Brazilianblack women in my data.

Both Hilda’s and Griselda’s interviews reflect how Blacks are constructed in Braziliansociety: as having unattractive features and low-status occupations. These findings suggest thatwhen white families in Brazil are uncomfortable with Blacks entering their families, partnersmay understand them as using racialized language that can also be seen as color-blind in theBrazilian context. In the United States, such comments would likely be tinged with racialmeaning and would be avoided in order not to appear racist. The overt use of such racially-

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tinged discourse seemed a part of Brazilian race relations and howWhites integrate Blacks intotheir families.

Irony of Opposition

Another cultural repertoire that emerged among Rio respondents was the notion of an irony ofopposition in which the white partner’s family members could be opposed to their relation-ships despite their own history of race mixture. This theme emerged among couples involvingblack men with white women and was different from Los Angeles, where an irony ofopposition did not emerge as a theme. Ana María was one Rio respondent who experiencedthis form of opposition. She is a white woman and high school dropout who is married toCândido, a black man who entered the Brazilian armed forces after he graduated from highschool. Ana María described how her “sister”6 had dated Cândido before Ana María did.Expectedly, her sister reacted negatively when, after they split up, Ana Maria started datingCândido. However, Ana María described how her sister expressed her opposition in racialterms:

So she totally discriminated against me. In fact, the first one to go out with him washer….but when I met him, I was like, “I’m going to go out with him.” Then she comeswith, “A negro? With a negro?” “Big-lipped” this, “hair” that. These types of com-ments…. “AnaMaria, really, that negro… you’re going to go out with that negro?” and Idon’t know what. “Really, with all the guys that you’ve gone out with, this negro? No.Oh, I know he works hard, I know he is a good person, but he is a negro.”

Her sister’s opposition to the relationship was likely based in jealousy or tension due to AnaMaria’s dating a man that she had previously been involved with. Nevertheless, Ana Maríainterpreted her sister’s negative response to the situation as ironic given her sister’s own datinghistory with Cândido. In addition, Ana María perceived her sister as using overt, racistlanguage to express this opposition, very different from the notion of racial democracy inwhich race should not matter for interpersonal relationships.

In another example, Idália is a white woman who is a high school dropout, while her blackhusband, Róbinson, went to college. Idália’s mother is the daughter of a black-white coupleherself and is married to a white man of German descent who, according to Idália is brancão or“really white” with blue eyes. According to the U.S. racial logic, Idália would likely bemultiracial or even black; however, in Brazil, where phenotype largely determines an individ-ual’s color or racial categorization, she is white.

In both of their interviews, the couple described how Idália’s mother was against theirrelationship despite her own black father and marriage to a white man. Róbinson understoodhis mother-in-law as engaged in the process of whitening through Idália’s father, whomRóbinson refers to as “the Aryan”:

Róbinson: Her mother is mixed,7 you know? She is more towards our color,8 her fatheris the one that is a real Aryan…. So [her mother] did not like [our relationship] a lotbecause she is more towards our color. Her father is the one that was a real Aryan….she

6 She described her as a type of fictive kin, saying that her “sister” was a “not blood-related, but a sister ofconvenience since we were young.”7 He used the term miscegenada or “miscegenated.”8 “Our color” likely refers to the fact that both of us were unambiguous, dark-skinned negros. In the rest of hisinterview, Róbinson exhibited a strong sense of groupness pertaining to Blacks, both in Brazil and around theworld.

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didn’t like it because… when she married an Aryan, she thought that she was climbing[socially]. When Idália married a negro she thought that she was descending.Chinyere: Really?Róbinson: Really. It was difficult. Her mother was difficult towards me and towards her.Chinyere: How was she difficult? In what way?Róbinson: She would not even talk to me….she did not talk to me. She ignored me.And when I was in Idália’s house, when I saw her with her color like ours, I said: “Great!I’m safe.” I was afraid of the Aryan. And the Aryan was the one who was the coolest[with it].Chinyere: Really?Róbinson: So you can see that, you know, sometimes you think the enemy is one personwhen it’s really another.

Róbinson’s comments reflect how the ideology of whitening, or in this case, darkening, waspart of his understanding of his mother-in-law’s reaction. He saw her as trying to climb thesocial ladder by producing white descendants through her own marriage to an “Aryan” man,Idália’s father. He understood his relationship with Idália as “undoing” the whitening processin which her mother had been engaged. In fact, he saw the irony of opposition in how hisfather-in-law, understood as the epitome of whiteness, reacted very positively to the relation-ship while the mother-in-law who is the child of a black-white couple and married across colorherself was against it. Róbinson also saw his mother-in-law’s opposition as being very overt,showing how the Brazilian myth of racial democracy can fall flat when it comes to contem-porary race-mixing, particularly with a black man.

In her separate interview, Idália also brought up the difficult time that they enduredbecause of her mother’s initial rejection. She said that her mother did not treatRóbinson well, reiterating how she would ignore him. Idália said, “He would cometo a party at my house and she would not greet him. She wouldn’t greet him. Shewould serve everyone else but him, you know?” Idália noted the irony of her motherbeing “the daughter of a negro” yet being opposed to their relationship. On the otherhand, Idália echoed how her father really liked Róbinson and “never saw him asdifferent.” However, after Idália’s father died, both of them noticed that her motherstarted to accept their relationship. She began speaking to Róbinson and today,completely accepts him as part of the family. Idália discussed the process that hermother underwent to accept him as part of the family.

Idália: My mother today likes him. [But] she continues being prejudiced. She says thatshe sees him as branco.Chinyere: What do you mean?Idália: She sees him as branco. She no longer sees him as negro, got it? So, she still hasthis prejudice inside of her. She likes him, but she still looks at him like he’s an alien,you know?

Idália describes her mother as engaging in overt racial discrimination earlier in theirrelationship by ignoring him and not greeting him. However, now she understands her motheras being engaged in inclusionary discrimination, yet undergoing a cognitive shift, changing herperception of Róbinson’s race, in order for him to be acceptable to her. Now that her motherhas accepted Róbinson, Idália still understands her as treating him differently from whitemembers of the family, as though he were from outer space.

This irony of opposition was not a theme that I found among black-white couples in LosAngeles of either race or gender combination. This may be due in part to the different racial

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logics operating in the two societies. Still, none of the Los Angeles respondents referencedwhite parents’ or family members’ prior relationships with nonwhites in making sense ofopposition to their relationship. If anything, they referenced prior race mixing in their ownlives or the lives of their family members as part of their understanding of family acceptance oftheir relationships. The irony of opposition also did not emerge as a theme among couplesinvolving black women with white men in Rio de Janeiro.

White Male Autonomy

In both research sites, couples involving black women with white men referenced alack of opposition to their relationships from white families. White men wereprivileged in these relationships by virtue of their race and gender, similar to findingsfrom Colombia (Vigoya 2008). White men were able to enact hegemonic forms ofmasculinity by acting autonomously in their romantic relationships. In Rio, severalwhite men commented that no one really knew about their previous relationships,including interracial ones, so their parents had no opportunity to take issue with them.For example, when I asked Teófilo, Griselda’s husband, about his family’s andfriends’ reaction to his relationship, he said:

No one said anything to me. When they found out, I was already with Griselda. No onesaid anything. They accepted Griselda. Now, if they are against it or not, I don’tknow….There were a lot of people who did not know. Many people did not know thatI had separated [from my previous wife]….So when they discovered that I was nolonger married and that I was with Griselda, people were shocked.

Teófilo’s comments reveal how the men in my study are able to act much moreautonomously in their relationships, to the extent that people may be unaware of theirinterracial relationship. Although Teófilo did not mention this, his friends’ shock mayhave been due in part to his involvement with a black woman, not just his split withhis previous wife. His comments suggest an indifference to outsiders’ reactions to hisrelationship. Autonomy was not a theme among the white or black women whom Iinterviewed in either site.

Similarly, Otávio is a white man who did not finish the second grade. When I asked himabout his family’s reaction to his relationship with his wife Katarina, a black woman with afourth grade education, he commented on how he saw his family as irrelevant for hisrelationship with Katarina.

Otávio: No, my family does not get involved at all.Chinyere: Why?Otávio: Because they don’t. See, if I am of age, no one has to involve themselves withwhat I do or what I don’t, you know?

Otávio demonstrates how similar to several male respondents, there was never aquestioning in terms of his romantic relationships. White women did not reference their agein their discussions of how their families treated them. Both Teófilo and Otávio’s commentsreveal how the men in my study are able to act much more autonomously in their relationshipsthan their white female counterparts.

White male autonomy vis-à-vis their white families was also a theme in the lives of LosAngeles couples. For instance, Neil is a white man with a light tan and short blond hair.Both he and his wife, Jennifer, went to college. When I asked him about his family’s

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response, he mentioned that when the relationship began, he was living in a different statethan his parents:

I think that they didn’t have strong opinions in the beginning because they just weren’tthere and people weren’t really aware of—they just knew her name kept coming up.Other than that, they just knew that I was kind of forming a greater friendship and agreater kind of relationship with this woman, but since they weren’t there, they didn’treally have an opinion, other than the fact that it was making me happy, so I think theywere happy with it.

Unlike their white female counterparts, several white men left their family in the dark abouttheir relationships with black women. These men express a lack of concern with sharing theirromantic relationships with their families. As I have mentioned, this situation was verydifferent in Rio de Janeiro, where spouses had more regular contact with extended familiesand were often a part of their everyday lives. Nevertheless, even in Rio, white men discussedthe autonomy they experienced in their relationships, despite greater familial integration.

For a few of the college-educated white women in their forties and fifties, their families oforigin had been against their previous romantic relationships with black men. For example,Juliana is a college-educated white woman and is in her fifties. She lives with Patrício, a blackman, in the home that she inherited from her parents. Juliana recalled that despite Blacks beingwelcomed in her home by her parents, when Juliana developed a romantic interest in blackmen, her mother began to hassle her.

She had jokes that would annoy me a lot. Like “Princess Isabel.” Do you know whoPrincess Isabel was in Brazil? She created the Golden Law liberating the slaves. Shewould call me “Princess Isabel” because I “would go crazy for crioulo,”9 you know?She would say, “Gosh, you go crazy for crioulo.” She would say this in that exact way.She would call me “Slaveship” (navio negreiro); slaveships brought Blacks to Brazil inthe era of slavery, right? She would talk like this: “Don’t you look in the mirror?” So thatI would look in the mirror and see that there was a color difference.

Juliana understood these nicknames as her mother’s way of letting her know that despiteher mother’s own friendly relationships with Blacks, Juliana’s attraction for black men wasinappropriate. Due to her parents’ opposition, like some of the other white women that Iinterviewed, she waited until after her parents had died to enter long-term relationshipswith black men. This strategy of purposefully entering serious romantic relationships withblack men later in life to avoid white parental opposition did not emerge in my LosAngeles data. This strategy enabled older Carioca women to enjoy the autonomy thattheir white male counterparts of all ages experienced in their own relationships withBlacks.

Black males in both sites also experienced some degree of autonomy in their relationshipsvis-à-vis their black families. In Los Angeles, however, black husbands expressed greaterinterest than white husbands in how their families of origin accepted their spouses. Also, blackwives in Los Angeles expressed not meeting their white husband’s family as a concern,whereas white wives did not. Nevertheless, the autonomy of black male respondents in theirromantic relationships was often challenged by white extended families. In both sites, auton-omy was the cultural repertoire that white men drew on to give meaning to their marriages toblack women.

9 Críoulo is a derogatory term for Blacks. There is no direct translation, except for the n-word.

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Racial Ambiguity

In both Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles, black women married to white men rarely describedhostility from white families. The ways that black men have been constructed in both societiesis likely a factor explaining this. In the U.S., black men have historically been seen as one ofthe greatest threats to white womanhood, justifying segregation, lynchings, and other acts ofviolence against black men. Today, black men continue to be seen as “criminally inclined,promiscuous, and dangerous” (Collins 2004, 255). The same is true in Brazil, where black menare often portrayed in the media as diabolical and criminally dangerous (Souza 2009; Amparo-Alves 2009). At the same time, white women are idealized as symbols of female beauty andfemininity in both Brazil (Caldwell 2007) and the United States (Hall 1993). In addition, U.S.white women are represented as naturally belonging to white men (Ferber 1998). Despiteinterracial marriages with black men being more common today in both societies(Schwartzman 2007; Ribeiro and Silva 2009), white women’s marriage to black men can bemore threatening to social norms than white men’s marriage with black women.

Interviews with respondents in both sites revealed another factor that may explain genderdifferences in white family acceptance. Although couples themselves did not explain thedifferences, in couples where the woman was black she was often seen as racially ambiguous.In Rio, the majority of black women revealed that their blackness had been questioned byothers. For instance, Eloíza is a woman with light brown skin and facial features that she saysare indigenous, despite identifying herself as a negra. In her interview, Eloíza said:

His family thinks that… I am not negra. His sister, who went to college, I spoke to her,[saying,] “My goodness, Suelaine … your mother, I can understand, since she has littleeducation, but you?” “But you are not negra” [Suelaine replied]. I said, “No, Suelaine, Iam not negra, so what am I? AViking?” She subscribes to the idea…they don’t want tosee me as negra, because they think that negros are ugly.

Eloíza’s in-laws refuse to acknowledge her as negra, even though that is how she self-identifies and how her husband and other Brazilians identify her. This may be due to her nothaving the dark brown skin, which often marks blackness. This was not a pattern among theblack men I interviewed in Rio, who by and large did not experience ambiguity surroundingtheir blackness.

A similar racial ambiguity of black women occurred in my Los Angeles data. The majorityof black women revealed that others either expressed confusion over their ethnic backgroundor viewed them as multiracial. For example, Helen is a light-skinned black woman withstraightened black shoulder-length hair. When I interviewed her husband Perry, a tall whiteman with a long gray beard, I asked how he racially identifies his wife:

I think that she’s—I don’t really think of it. I think that she’s—I guess she’s black. Iknow she’s a little bit mixed race. Her dad came from the Caribbean. I think one of hergrandmothers married a Jewish guy, and she’s Catholic.

Perry’s comment illustrates how he understands her as ambiguously black. Similar tostudies of skin tone in the U.S. (Hunter 2005), outsiders perceptions of these black women,may impact the extent to which they are seen as “authentic Blacks.” In fact, one of the fewcases of white family hostility toward a black woman involved the aforementioned insultagainst Charlotte, a woman with dark brown skin. Ambiguity can make it harder to draw aracial boundary against black women since it is not clear that they are black. At the same time,the comparative rigidity of racial boundaries in the U.S. makes it difficult to escape a blackracial categorization, unlike in the case of Eloíza or even Róbinson’s mother-in-law’s

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perception of him. Nevertheless, very few black men mentioned experiencing ambiguousracial identification by others, showing gender as salient in this dynamic.

Conclusion

There were a number of discursive strategies, cultural repertoires, and strategies of action thatblack-white couples and their families drew on to understand the integration of black spousesinto white extended families. In my Los Angeles data, couples understood white familymembers as using the discourse of “expressing concerns” about the relationship, yet sawfamily members move to more overt discouragement of marrying black partners. Couplesunderstood this “expressing concern” discourse as an attempt at social desirability on the partof white family members. This was emblematic of a U.S. “laissez-faire” or “color-blind” racerelations.

According to my Rio respondents, white family members engaged in more openly racistopposition to their relationships, particularly when they included black men. Even uponacceptance of the relationship, the white spouse’s extended family would use racist humoras well as indirect insults to express discomfort with Blacks marrying into the family. Thisincluded cultural tropes and stereotypes such as Blacks as ugly, animalistic, and exclusivelyworking in low status occupations. Furthermore, couples also described an irony of oppositionin which prior race mixing in white extended families did not shield them from opposition tothe relationship. These discursive strategies were characteristic of an inclusionary discrimina-tion emblematic of Brazilian—and possibly more broadly, Latin American—race relations.They also ran counter to the myth of racial democracy in which race does not matter forinterpersonal relationships.

At the same time, there was some overlap in how black partners were accepted (or not) bywhite families. The most opposition to intermarriage was reserved for black men in both sites,although this attitude was more vehement and commonplace in the Los Angeles data.Nevertheless, with time white family members came to accept black partners across gender,even if the terms of this acceptance were sometimes questionable. In both sites, white menexperienced a great deal of autonomy in their relationships with black women, whereas whitewomen described experiences of racial boundary-policing by white extended family. Whilehistoric constructions of race and gender are a part of these gender differences in both societies,the racial ambiguity of black wives was also a possible factor.

By examining the integration of the racially stigmatized into racially dominant families, thisstudy illuminates race mixture as a lived phenomenon and, in the Brazilian context, not simplyrelegated to an idealized past. Understanding the ways that black-white couples make sense ofrace mixture sheds light on race relations and the contemporary lived experiences of racialboundaries in the two contexts. Specifically, this study shows that families can redraw andpolice racial boundaries despite mixture, even in a society like Brazil, known for its blurredracial boundaries; inclusionary discrimination can allow for both to coexist. In addition, ironyof opposition shows how, similar to Barth’s postulation decades ago (1998), interaction acrossracial boundaries does not mean that the boundaries disappear or cease to be important. Inaddition, by utilizing an intersectionality approach, this study demonstrates how gender andrace together impact the meanings of crossing racial boundaries in the family.

This study also shows how, contrary to the belief of many scholars, interracial marriage andmultiracial families are not a solution to racism. In fact, as interracial marriages and multiracialfamilies increase in number, the home writ large may become a more salient site for racialdiscrimination than has been previously acknowledged, including for non-Blacks who marry

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black partners. More than just rebound racism from the outside world (Dalmage 2000), theprivate sphere of the family is important to consider in understanding race relations within aswell as across given societies. As Asians and Latinos occupy large proportions of intermarriedspouses in the U.S., comparative studies of interracial marriage within the U.S. can show theways that different types of couples navigate racial boundaries as well as the characteristics ofthese boundaries that can become salient (ie., language, religion, immigration status,nationality).

Further studies of families are needed to show how race continues to matter in the familysphere, including for nonwhite families. While there has been some work on race in Afro-Brazilian families (Hordge-Freeman 2013), further research is necessary to examine the extentto which black extended families integrate white spouses into their families. In addition, thereis a dearth of scholarship in either society of how other aspects of race, such as colorism impactthe family (Burton et al. 2010). More comparative qualitative research can reveal unexpecteddynamics in the maintenance of racial hierarchies as well as the various ways that racialboundaries are negotiated in everyday life, both within and across racial categories.

Among race scholars, Brazilianists often emphasize how much Brazil is unlike the U.S. interms of its race relations while U.S. scholars often take for granted that racialization processesare the same everywhere. As one of the first studies to take a comparative and qualitativeapproach to how racial boundaries are lived in the two societies in the twenty-first century, thisstudy complicates these simplistic understandings of race relations in Brazil and the U.S. Inaddition, it decenters U.S. race relations as representative of all societies. More comparativestudies on multiracial families, and race more broadly, are needed to illuminate taken-for-granted notions of racial boundaries both in the U.S. and abroad.

Acknowledgments The author is grateful to Crystal Fleming, Onoso Imoagene, and Sylvia Zamora for theirgenerous suggestions for this article. The author would also like to thank Edward Telles, Stefan Timmermans,Mignon Moore, and M. Belinda Tucker for their feedback on earlier drafts. Support for data collection wasprovided by the National Science Foundation, the UCLA Latin American Institute, the UCLA Bunche Center forAfrican American Studies, and the University of Pennsylvania Center for Africana Studies. Earlier versions ofthis article were presented at the 2012 annual meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society and at the 2011sessions of the Council on Contemporary American Families. I thank the anonymous reviewers for theirinsightful comments.

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Chinyere Osuji is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University at Camden. She is a formerPostdoctoral Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Africana Studies and received her PhD inSociology from UCLA. She has received awards for her work from the American Sociological Association andthe Population Association of America. She is also a former NSF Graduate Trainee and Fulbright recipient. She iscurrently writing a book comparing race relations in the U.S. and Brazil through examining the family formationprocesses of black-white interracial couples.

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