Divergence or Convergence in the U.S.

and Brazil:
Understanding Race Relations Through White Family
Reactions 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 notion
that they are polar opposites in terms of race relations. However, the end of de jure segregation
in the U.S., the acknowledgement of racial inequality, and subsequent implementation of
affirmative action in Brazil have called into question the extent to which these societies are
vastly different. By examining race mixture as a lived reality, this study offers a novel approach
to understanding racial boundaries in these two contexts. I analyze 87 interviews with individuals
in black-white couples in Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro to examine the cultural repertoires and
discursive traditions they drawon to understand white families reactions to black spouses. I find
that U.S. couples employ color-blindness to understand opposition to Blacks marrying into the
family. Brazilian couples perceive overt racism and the use of humor from white family
members. Nevertheless, couples with black males experienced more hostility in both sites. In
addition, white male autonomy was related to the lower hostility that black female-white male
couples experienced in both societies. By examining contemporary race mixture as a lived
reality, this study complicates simplistic understandings of race relations as similar or different in
these two societies. Furthermore, with the increase of multiracial families in both societies, it
reveals the family as an important site for redrawing and policing racial boundaries.
Keywords Race
.
Interracial couples
.
Multiracial families
.
Brazil
.
Latin America
.
Race
mixture
.
Race relations
Several scholars have disproven the myth that the U.S. and Brazil are vastly different in terms
of 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 former
slave societies in the Western Hemisphere, in fact have many similarities. Some have argued
that 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 American
situation (Degler 1986; Skidmore 1993; Daniel 2006). Conversely, the influence of the black
movement in the adoption of race-based affirmative action and the increasing popularity of a
Qual Sociol
DOI 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, USA
e-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 two
societies, 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 racial
democracy, which purports that Brazilians interact freely without regard to race (Freyre
1963). This is different from the U.S., where state laws against interracial marriage were only
invalidated in the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia decision. Even though no laws against interracial
marriage 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 a
sign 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 navigate
racial boundaries within families (Burton et al. 2010). These understandings of boundary-
making processes can vary with the cultural repertoires and structural contexts of a given
society (Lamont 2001, 2000; Lamont and Fleming 2005; Swidler 1986). In addition, it remains
unclear how members of racially dominant categories negotiate the entrance of stigmatized
members into their families. Racial hierarchies privileging whiteness, as well as the meanings
associated with intersections of race and gender, may lead to similarities in the U.S. and Brazil
regarding the cultural repertoires that Whites draw on to understand boundary-crossing
processes in the family. I draw on tools from cultural sociology as well as perspectives from
studies of race and ethnicity to examine the cultural repertoires and discursive traditions that
black-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 meanings
they give to the integration of Blacks into white families. I find that U.S. couples understood
white members of their extended family members as engaging in political correctness whereas
Brazilian couples witnessed the use of humor and slight aggressions towards black spouses. In
addition, couples with black males experienced more hostility in both sites, but this was more
evident in the U.S. White male autonomy in both societies was related to the lower levels of
hostility that black female-white male couples experienced. Overall, this study illuminates how
boundary work in the family sphere differs across societies and the cultures of race embedded
in these places. It also demonstrates the ways that race and gender intersect, giving different
meanings 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 interracial
marriage has been taboo in both the U.S. and Brazil, it has been far more stigmatized and
regulated in the U.S. context. For much of U.S. history, there were anti-miscegenation laws as
well as violence especially, though not exclusively, targeting black men suspected of engaging
in sexual relations with white women. This history still lingers today with Whites being least
likely to marry Blacks in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups (Rosenfeld 2008). In
addition, 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).
Qual Sociol
The post-World War II era, including the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, led to a dismantling
of de jure segregation, discrimination, and overt bigotry on racial grounds. However, it has
been 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. More
than political correctness, this new racism is an ideology justifying disapproval for
interracial marriage and race-based policies to address racial inequalities while avoiding the
language of race. While overt bigotry still exists, this new form of racism has become
dominant in U.S. society.
Over the last several decades, immigration from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean
has complicated dichotomous understandings of race in the U.S. (Lee and Bean 2010). The
U.S. has also seen dramatic increases in interracial marriage and cohabitation: 8 % of formal
marriages and 14 % of cohabiting couples are interracial (Qian and Lichter 2011; U.S. Census
Bureau 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). These
events have led some to argue that understandings of race in the U.S. are becoming more like
those 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 all
Brazilians are presumed to be racially mixed, regardless of their actual background. In fact, in
the early twentieth century, Brazilian elites advocated large-scale mixing with Whites in order
to whiten and modernize the large black and indigenous populations (Skidmore 1993;
Ianni 1960). To this end, the Brazilian government barred black immigration while subsidizing
immigration from Europe to promote the whitening process. Whitening took on the meaning
of upward mobility, as exemplified by the adage money whitens, as well as by the social
advantage conferred on children who are more European in appearance (Schwartzman 2007;
Ianni 1960). This ideology of whitening persists today; extended family members and friends
of interracial couples view them as either whitening or darkening themselves through their
spouses (Osuji 2013b).
Gilberto Freyre, a Brazilian sociologist and public intellectual, popularized the concept of
Brazil as a racial democracy with harmonious race relations, integration, and large amounts of
interracial mating (Freyre 1963; Guimares 2005a, 54), even if he did not use the exact phrase
himself (Guimares 2005b). For most of Brazils existence as a republic, elites have used the
ideology of Brazil as a racial democracy to obscure racial inequality as well as prevent black
and brown populations from mobilizing for equal participation in Brazilian society (Marx
1998; 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 mixture
was viewed as evidence of the social inclusion of Blacks and indigenous peoples (Telles and
Sue 2009). In recent decades, however, this myth has been challenged by increasing evidence
of vast inequalities that disproportionally affect nonwhite Brazilians (Paixo and Carvano 2008;
Telles 2004; Hasenbalg 1979; Hasenbalg and Silva 1992; Silva 1987). The implementation of
affirmative action policies in Brazilian universities and government agencies (Htun 2004)
has demonstrated that a simple understanding of Brazilian and U.S. societies as polar opposites
is largely outdated (Degler 1986; Skidmore 1993; Daniel 2006). In addition, race-mixing is not
as common as previously thought; although nonwhites are the majority of Brazil, marital
unions 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 low
given Brazilian ideologies of racial democracy and race mixture writ large that suggest
interracial marriage is widely prevalent.
Nevertheless, there are still important differences, such as the lower levels of racial group
consciousness in Brazil than in the U.S. (Bailey 2009; Sansone 2003). In addition, racial
Qual Sociol
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 or
darken an individual. The history of approaches to color and race mixture in these two
societies may influence how people understand contemporary race-mixing today and can
explain 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 of
social 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; Silva
1987; Telles 2004) they occur simultaneously with continued white advantage. Many scholars
have understood interracial marriages as leading to a breakdown of racial boundaries through
access to the social networks of both individuals in broader society (Loury 2002; Patterson
1997; Davis 1941; Gordon 1964; Lieberson and Waters 1988; Qian and Lichter 2001). For this
reason, white families reactions to intermarriage can have repercussions for the life chances
and well being of both partners in an interracial couple. Specifically, these types of family
formations may open up black partners to acts of discrimination from white extended
family members that they may not have experienced otherwise. Whereas several scholars
have 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), there
is a lack of systematic study across racially diverse societies that examines the extent of
this racial bias. In addition, while scholars have examined the intersection of race and
sexuality in Brazil (Goldstein 1999, 2003), there has been little study of family formation
as 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 the
national ideologies of a given society (Lamont 1992, 2000), including racial ideologies
(Lamont and Mizrachi 2011; Silva 2012). Family members may draw on these ideologies to
understand interracial marriage. For example, black-white couples have drawn on color-blind
ideology in the U.S. (Childs 2005b) and the myth of racial democracy in Brazil (Santos-Barros
2003) to minimize white family rejection of black spouses. In addition, Blacks can experience
inclusionary discrimination in which they become integrated into a society, yet not on an equal
level with Whites (Sawyer 2006). Inclusionary discrimination may characterize how Blacks
are 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 a
result, Blacks and their white spouses may experience particularized universalism: ignoring
or downplaying racism in intimate settings (Silva and Reis 2011). As Blacks become integrat-
ed into their white spouses families, they may experience racial prejudice and discrimination
without them or their partners perceiving it as such.
In addition, a variety of factors may influence how white families negotiate the integration
of 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, and
naturalize one another (Crenshaw 1989, 1994). Romantic relationships between black men and
white 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 in
the experiences of black women married to white men (Judice 2008). For these reasons, race
and gender of the partners may be an important factor influencing white family acceptance.
Qual Sociol
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 one
exception, see Hordge-Freeman 2013). Most studies examine the role of the state and other
institutions 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), the
family 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 and
similarities in how black-white couples understand the racial boundary negotiation of Blacks
who enter white families.
Method
Between August 2008 and April 2010, I interviewed individual members of black-white
couples in Rio de Janeiro (N=49) and Los Angeles (N=38). Rather than testing a hypothesis,
I draw on Wuthnows (2011) approach to taking talk seriously, analyzing these qualitative
interviews to understand how black-white couples construct meaning in their social lives and
what this means for how race is lived in the two societies. In addition, I compare the
intersection 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 urban
areas, making these sites amenable to finding black-white couples. A racially diverse city, Los
Angeles has significant black, white, Latino, and Asian populations. After controlling for racial
composition, 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 provided
opportunities for interracial marriage, facilitating finding interracial couples to interview. Most
importantly, my personal contacts in both cities facilitated the sampling processes.
The U.S. and Brazil have different understandings of whiteness and blackness. According
to Guimares (2005a, 185), in the United States whiteness is understood as more exclusive and
is based on perceived (albeit not actual) racial purity in ones ancestry. In Brazil, whiteness
does 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 into
one of five color categories: branca (white), parda (brown), preta (black), indgena (Indigenous),
and amarela (Asian).
1
The Brazilian government and the black social movement often collapse
the 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 having
primarily African ancestry. Negra is a term that is increasingly used by Afro-descendants outside
of the Brazilian black movement overall (Silva and Reis 2011). For this reason, I recruited for
couples 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-identify
as negra/o, parda/o, or preta/o. Since race in Brazil is based on a continuum, I also required
that people who were identified as branca/o self-identify as branca/o or parda/o. This process
of selection allowed me to stay true to local understandings of race and color while providing
homogeneity 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 is
mostly an official categorization. The indigenous and Asian categories together comprise about 2 % of
the population (IBGE 2010).
Qual Sociol
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 the
two cities to reflect the meaning of a black-white couple. In Rio, I followed the example of
previous 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 for
referrals of black-white couples. My sampling requisite was that partners be identified by other
Brazilians 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 in
public spaces, using outsider identification as an aspect of sample-selection. In both cities, I
used 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 by
race-gender combinations and educational groupings. In Rio, the sample included 14 black male
white female couples and 11 black femalewhite male couples. The Los Angeles sample had 10
black malewhite female couples and 9 black femalewhite male couples. In the U.S., interracial
marriages 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 at
least some college. In Brazil, nonwhites are more likely to marry Whites at higher levels of
education (Schwartzman 2007). At the same time, interracial marriage in Brazil is characterized
by status exchange in which nonwhites compensate for their low racial status by having higher
levels of education than their white partners (Telles 2004; Petruccelli 2001; Ribeiro and Silva
2009). Hence, I sampled for individuals in three educational groupings: neither partner having any
college (n=12), only one partner having some college (n=14), and both partners having some
college (n=24). This sampling strategy allowed me to stay true to the class component of being a
black-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 large
populations 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 yearly
Carnaval. While these cities may not be nationally representative of all urban areas with interracial
couples in their respective societies, they are able to capture important variation in experiences of
white family reactions to black-white couples in the two societies. Analyzing themas research sites
can 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 black
men 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 very
conscious of this stereotype and thought it may have been a barrier to accessing couples to
interview as well as building rapport in interviews with black men and white women. To
compensate for this stereotype, I purposefully tried to cultivate a non-threatening, extra cheery
Qual Sociol
persona when interacting with couples. This included smiling a lot when approaching couples
for 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 with
recruitment in comparison to Los Angeles. Several black respondents described how being
interviewed 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 in
providing detailed, highly personal experiences with race in the family. In both research sites,
I began the interviews with relatively neutral topics such as the respondents childhood, their
parents occupational status, and the neighborhoods in which they grew up. This aided in
building rapport with both white and black respondents in both societies, creating an open
space 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 their
extended family were a current cause of worry or concern in their relationships. It was only upon
asking specifically about the reactions of the white partners family that black-white couples in
both sites revealed the opposition that they faced. Overall, Rio couples perceived far less harsh
opposition to their marriage than their Los Angeles counterparts. This was particularly true for
couples involving black men with white women. Of the 14 such couples in my Rio de Janeiro
data, six had white parents who had completely accepted the relationship fromthe beginning, and
only three had parents who were opposed to the relationship due to the color difference (in the
remaining cases, the parents had passed away before the relationship began). Several of the black
women in my sample experienced little to no opposition in both research sites.
Nevertheless, similar to findings among Cuban families (Fernandez 2010), the couples that
I interviewed remarked how even though some white parents were initially against the
relationship, this changed over time. Spending time with their son-in-laws and the longevity
of 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 related
stories 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 Latin
America, couples described extended families playing a more important role in their social
lives. 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 relationships
came 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 couples
involving black men with white women experienced some degree of opposition to their
relationship. This was despite the prevalence of color-blind ideology, political correctness,
Qual Sociol
and multiculturalism in the United States. The majority of the couples perceived negative
reactions from white family members, particularly parents. White wives who did not experi-
ence opposition from their families often referenced their past interracial relationships as
making their parents more accustomed to seeing them with nonwhite partners. For those
couples 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 also
alternated between color-blind and more overt race-based explanations.
Elizabeth
2
is a white woman who lives in Los Angeles with her black husband, Trevor. Both
work in universities and enjoy running in their spare time. During a joint interview,
3
they related
how they went to Tennessee, where Elizabeth is from originally, to seek her parents blessing
and permission to wed. Elizabeth reported she had told her parents about her relationship more
than a year earlier, when they visited her in Los Angeles. She recalled what her father said to her
at the time: Well, you know, Elizabeth, all marriages have their idiosyncrasies. It really doesnt
matter what color you are. Elizabeth and Trevor understood this as acceptance of their
relationship, so the fathers later reaction to their engagement surprised them:
Trevor: It was a very hesitant reaction. It was just a hesitant reaction and she was not
expecting 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 conversationwhich was really not a conversation, it was
really a one-way dialogue from my dad to usum, was, Have you thought about how
hard its going to be? And he was just really worried about all I potentially have to go
through....
On what should have been a happy occasion, Elizabeth said that she became unhappy at her
parents reaction. She had understood her father as initially being open to her marrying a black
man. However, they perceived his later reaction as showing that their interracial marriage was
more 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 the
potential problems of being a black-white couple.
Despite Elizabeths fathers reaction based on their being different colors, the couple did not
see race as the focal point of his response. They tried to minimize the racial aspect of her
fathers response. They said:
Trevor: I was going to say, there are two sides to this. One is the racial dimension but
then theres 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 things
going on. One was the kind of racial dimension, which is not just something that you see
every day in Tennessee. Okay, so thats something thats like Are you really, really
sure [laughs] you want to do this? Cause from, if youre in Tennessee, thats just
something you dont see very often.
Elizabeth: As a parent, I can understand. I can totally relate to that even though my kids
are really young right now. I would not want them marrying somebody that I didnt
know. You know, to have to give up one of your babies to a stranger. Thatd be very
hard.
2
All names are pseudonyms.
3
This was one of ten couple interviews that I conducted in addition to their individual interviews.
Qual Sociol
Trevor: And this is a tight knit family so those two dimensions come together and meet
on that night [laughs] in June. And so, it was, it was, so you had this one-way
conversation because we were both silent. I mean they were just, theyre thinking
out loud but you know (laughs) and so there was this hesitancy and all of this caution.
Elizabeth and Trevors story shows how they reframe what could be interpreted as a racially
motivated reaction on the part of her father. Although how they presented her fathers previous
comments suggest that he was thinking along racial lines, Elizabeth and Trevor emphasize the
fact that he did not know Trevor or his family, despite their dating for many years. They argue
that 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 was
so opposed to the relationship that they distanced themselves from the white spouse. This was
not a theme among the Carioca
4
respondents to whom I spoke. Two white female Angelinos
described how their parents did not speak to them for a long time after finding out they were
involved with a black man. One of these cases was Stella, a white woman with light brown
hair who is married to Edward, a tall man with dark brown skin. She is originally from a small
town in Indiana where her family still lives. When she decided to move to Los Angeles with
Edward, her boyfriend at the time, her parents fought with her about the relationship, then her
sister and parents refused to speak with her for two years. Although her family is nowaccepting
of her relationship with Edward, Stella said:
At first they tried to pretend like race wasnt the issue. They tried to pretend like that,
you know, Hes moving you across the country For a while, it seemed like they
were dancing around the issue when we all knew what the issue was. And then
eventually, I was like, Why wont you just admit, like, this is why. And they
eventually were like Yeah, because this is their famous line like: I dont have a
problem with black people, but I have a problem with my daughter dating one.
Stellas response reveals that she understood her parents as trying to avoid acknowledging
racism as the motivating factor for their opposition. Similar to Trevor and Edward, her parents
talked around disapproval of a romantic relationship with a black man. Both sets of parents
were 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 unsuccessful
attempt 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 doesnt really get along with his family very well because
[of] the time when all this was happening. Basically, my family blames me. They said
that I was the one that called my dads sister and told her, but I was like, I didnt tell
anybody, like, I did not talk to any of them. Well, they found out about kind of what
was going on, and [my aunts and uncles] were really upset with my family. and they
actually called them and kind of were like, You shouldntThis is your daughter. And
so basically, my family got so mad about that, and so even to this day, theyre still, they
dont have a very good relationship with them. I know they still blame that on me. But
yeah, they just dont have a very good relationship with them because, at the time, they
stood up for me, and they didnt agree with [my parents].
4
Cariocas are people from Rio de Janeiro.
Qual Sociol
Stella describes her parents and siblings as uncomfortable with extended family members
knowing about their racist reactions and as blaming her for exposing those reactions. This
situation 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 intermarriage
with a black man. Family members attempt at socially desirable responses was not a theme
that emerged in any of the interviews in Rio and none of the couples involving white men and
black women in Los Angeles.
Despite the actions of Stellas parents, Edward had a striking response when I asked him
directly if his wifes parents were racists. He said that there were different definitions of being
racist:
I think kind of a conventional definition of it would be to treat a person differently
because of race or ethnicity or because of how they look. I think that might be a
conventional definition of being racist. If I define it that way, then I would say yes. I
would say they are racist.
However, Edward continued, saying in their minds, I dont believe that they feel theyre
racist. He then compared them to white supremacists on the Storm Front website and said
that in comparison to white supremacists, they are not racists because:
I dont believe that when they see black people that they think anything less of those
people.But I think that they just did not want her to marry a black guy or to be
involved with a black guy. [I]f you are a staunch racist and you really believe that
people of another race are inferior in some sense, then you could never get to the point
that they are at in terms of actually trying. So thats why I think theres kind of a gray
area with them because if you look at it in the sense of a person who is truly sort of an
acknowledged racist and truly believes in racial inequalities, then I dont believe that
kind of person could ever get to the point where Stellas familys at. I dont think they
could ever welcome me into their home. I do see them making the effort. And if a
person makes a conscious decision to be racistI dont think a person like that could
ever get to the point of accepting their son or daughter being married to a black person or
trying to accept it.
Some would interpret their disapproval of him as a mate for their daughter as a clear case in
which they think less of Blacks in comparison to Whites. However, Edward sees their
turnaround as evidence that they have accepted him as an equal. In order to make sense of
his in-laws as potential racists, Edward compared Stellas parents to white supremacists, those
who expose the most extreme form of racial intolerance in U.S. society. Edward draws on a
color-blind approach to make sense of Stellas parents response, comparing it to a more
immutable, overt racism.
Of all the other race-gender permutations in the two societies, black men-white women
couples in the Los Angeles data experienced the most vehement opposition and concern about
their relationship. This issue of expressing disapproval in politically correct terms was not a
theme that emerged in any of the interviews in Rio or in Los Angeles couples where the
woman was black. In Rio, couples did not describe the white parents that were against the
relationship as being concerned with social desirability.
In contrast, the Carioca couples that I interviewed described white family members as using
overt racial language to express their displeasure, similar to findings from Cuba (Fernandez
1996). For example, Konrad, a college-educated negro in his fifties with dark brown skin and
short-cropped hair, is married to Oflia, also in her fifties, who has dark brown hair and light
tan skin. She recently started attending college for the first time. Both Konrad and Oflia, in
Qual Sociol
their separate interviews, corroborated that Oflias mother did not approve of their relation-
ship. Konrad told me:
So one time [Oflia] told me that her mother said If you are thinking that you are
going to marry a negro, that youre going to have a child and I am going to be there
doing cornrows on the head of a negro its not going to happen. So then, I would
go to her and her mothers house. At the beginning, her mother didnt want me to go
there, right? She would not let me in, so I would stay downstairs and [Oflia] would
come down and we would go out.
According to Konrad, it was only after Oflia caught dengue fever and could not leave the
house that her mother allowed Konrad to enter it. Over time, Oflias mother came to accept
the relationship and now even lives with them. Konrads interview excerpt shows how white
parents in Brazil were described as using explicitly racial terms in a way that never occurred
among U.S. respondents. This may be related to the lower education of Whites who intermarry
in Brazil. Similar to the U.S. (Bobo et al. 2012), expressing overt forms of racism may be more
common among lower-educated Whites. In the case of Brazil, these are the Whites who are
most 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 can
experience 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 refer
affectionately to the black spouses. Humor can be used as a form of hegemonic discourse
reminding Blacks of their lower status position (Goldstein 1999, 2003; Sue and Golash-Boza
2013).
For example, ngela and Donato are a black-white couple living in a working-class,
racially mixed suburb of Rio de Janeiro. ngela is white, with light skin and medium brown
hair. Donato is black, with short, black dreadlocks. Neither attended college. Both agree that
Donato is loved and accepted by his white in-laws. Nevertheless, according to ngela, her
mother shows her affection through nicknames like neguinho
5
and dehumanizing jokes.
ngelas mother also calls her son-in-law Foguinho, after a black character played by
Lzaro Ramosa famous, award-winning black actor. Ironically, although many people
consider Lzaro Ramos attractive, ngelas mother occasionally teases her about Donato
being ugly. Other studies across Latin America have similarly documented that Blacks are
seen as having ugly features (Twine 1998; Sheriff 2001; Goldstein 2003; Fernandez 2010;
Sue 2013). ngela described her brother behaving similarly toward Donato, saying:
My brother likes him a lot. He doesnt have anything [mean] to say about him. Hell
screw with him, Ah, you monkey. before [my daughter] was born, he said that the
decoration of her room was going to be a bunch of vines. I was going to put in a
bunch of bananas because she going to come out a little monkey, he would joke. He
would joke but it always was that type of joke, in relation to Blacks, but you would see
that it was with respect, it was not to offend. Because sometimes you can joke with a
person 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.
Qual Sociol
way, say something, the person accepts it, but you see that you are not insulting or
belittling, or humiliating [him]. So we always played around like that.
ngelas comments reflect how the terms of inclusion in a white family in Brazil can
include 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 interpret
family reactions and comments (Childs 2005b), ngela accepts these jokes at face value.
Engaging in particularized universalism, ngela understands these jokes as affectionate and
without 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. Donatos
integration into a white family comes with a reminder of his lower status on the racial
hierarchy, allowing him (and his daughter) to be seen as subhuman. These incidents show
how inclusion of Blacks into white families does not always include acceptance as a racial
equal.
A few negras mentioned how they experienced discomfort in the presence of their white
husbands 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 a
white man with a light tan and short, light brown hair. In her interview, Tatiana stated that
Gaspars family had no problem with her being black. However, at a family event, one of
Gaspars family members made her feel uncomfortable. She said:
This relative came from far away, he came from the Northeast and he saw me, right? He
has known Gaspar since he was a baby. When he saw me with him, he started coming
with 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 little
shocked.He wanted to be nice, but he was discriminatory. . . . I didnt like it. So then
he said, I too once had a preta, you know? Back in Paraba, a sly preta, you know? [I
said,] I cant take it anymore! So, I left.
Tatiana was offended by Gaspars uncles comments ranging from her phenotype to his
surprise at her childs appearance and his off-color remarks about his prior liaison with a
negra. 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 indirectly
challenged the uncles comments through her own joke, but then chose to leave with her
husband and child instead of continuing to confront the uncles racism, whether directly or in
the form of another joke. Her comments illustrate how humor can be used both as a way to
diffuse a racially charged conversation (you were the only one to notice it) as well as to
denigrate Blacks who marry interracially. Overall, race-based humor can be used to negotiate
black entrance into white families.
While jokes were common in the Rio data, it was not a common discursive tool among the
Los Angeles couples, probably because of the aforementioned color-blind ideology and
political correctness characteristic of the U.S. Only one respondent, Vincent, a white man
with some college experience, mentioned that his sister had made an inappropriate joke to his
black wife, Charlotte. I asked Vincent about his familys reaction to his relationship with
Charlotte, a woman with dark brown skin. He said:
Vincent: It was you knowmy sister who has an absurd sense of humor, was like you
know she is not afraid to touch the racy stuff.
Chinyere: What do you mean?
Qual Sociol
Vincent: I think that the comment that got Charlotte all riled up when we were in
Arkansaswas likeit was dark outside and somebody said Oh Charlotte, smile and
just show us the way and so you know it is an easy thing, but it is one of those things
that you talk about this stuff, you joke about it, because that is how we show loveis by
cutting each other down. She didnt exactly get that. She got a little upset, which is well
within her rights. The first weekend that we were out together, well in Arkansas
together, 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 not
experience overt hostility to her relationship with Vincent, despite this incident that her
husband recalled. Whereas Rio couples generally accepted such remarks without offence,
Victor describes Charlotte has having been quite put out by this dehumanizing comment. This
type of humor was rare in relationships between black men and white women among Los
Angeles respondents. Vincents understanding of this situation shows that white family
members can make race-based slight aggressions against Blacks who marry into the family,
although it is less common than in Rio. Judging by Charlottes response, humor as a discursive
tool was less socially acceptable in Los Angeles than in Rio.
In the Rio sample, even when couples did not describe overt opposition to the relationship
on racial grounds, race may inform the value of the relationship. A few Carioca couples
revealed ways that friends and family members would engage in slight aggressions against the
black spouse. For example, Hilda and Srgio are a couple who both have some college
experience. When I entered their home, there was a large poster of Hildas face on the wall,
with smaller images of the two of them on their wedding day in the corners. In separate
interviews, 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 is
a nonbeliever. Although her family has since looked past the religious differences, they still
sometimes make comments that may or may not be interpreted racially. She said that people in
general, including her family, have directly told her that her husband is ugly. Hilda thinks that
this is based not on his color, but on the fact that he is very skinny. While this is a plausible
explanation, whenever couples raised the issue of physical appearance, it was always in terms
of the black, not the white, partners 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, Tefilo, is a white
man with light tan skin, a dark moustache, and salt-and-pepper hair. Tefilo never went to
college, 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 Griseldas higher socio-
economic status, she said that her husbands aunt purposefully referred to her as her husbands
housekeeper, a low status occupation commonly occupied by black women, both historically
as well as today. None of the black husbands or white wives in Rio or Los Angeles referred to
being 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 in
Los Angeles, revealing low status occupations as more salient for the experiences of Brazilian
black women in my data.
Both Hildas and Griseldas interviews reflect how Blacks are constructed in Brazilian
society: as having unattractive features and low-status occupations. These findings suggest that
when white families in Brazil are uncomfortable with Blacks entering their families, partners
may understand them as using racialized language that can also be seen as color-blind in the
Brazilian context. In the United States, such comments would likely be tinged with racial
meaning and would be avoided in order not to appear racist. The overt use of such racially-
Qual Sociol
tinged discourse seemed a part of Brazilian race relations and how Whites integrate Blacks into
their families.
Irony of Opposition
Another cultural repertoire that emerged among Rio respondents was the notion of an irony of
opposition in which the white partners family members could be opposed to their relation-
ships despite their own history of race mixture. This theme emerged among couples involving
black men with white women and was different from Los Angeles, where an irony of
opposition did not emerge as a theme. Ana Mara was one Rio respondent who experienced
this form of opposition. She is a white woman and high school dropout who is married to
Cndido, a black man who entered the Brazilian armed forces after he graduated from high
school. Ana Mara described how her sister
6
had dated Cndido before Ana Mara did.
Expectedly, her sister reacted negatively when, after they split up, Ana Maria started dating
Cndido. However, Ana Mara described how her sister expressed her opposition in racial
terms:
So she totally discriminated against me. In fact, the first one to go out with him was
her.but when I met him, I was like, Im going to go out with him. Then she comes
with, A negro? With a negro? Big-lipped this, hair that. These types of com-
ments. Ana Maria, really, that negro youre going to go out with that negro? and I
dont know what. Really, with all the guys that youve 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 sisters opposition to the relationship was likely based in jealousy or tension due to Ana
Marias dating a man that she had previously been involved with. Nevertheless, Ana Mara
interpreted her sisters negative response to the situation as ironic given her sisters own dating
history with Cndido. In addition, Ana Mara perceived her sister as using overt, racist
language to express this opposition, very different from the notion of racial democracy in
which race should not matter for interpersonal relationships.
In another example, Idlia is a white woman who is a high school dropout, while her black
husband, Rbinson, went to college. Idlias mother is the daughter of a black-white couple
herself and is married to a white man of German descent who, according to Idlia is branco or
really white with blue eyes. According to the U.S. racial logic, Idlia would likely be
multiracial or even black; however, in Brazil, where phenotype largely determines an individ-
uals color or racial categorization, she is white.
In both of their interviews, the couple described how Idlias mother was against their
relationship despite her own black father and marriage to a white man. Rbinson understood
his mother-in-law as engaged in the process of whitening through Idlias father, whom
Rbinson refers to as the Aryan:
Rbinson: Her mother is mixed,
7
you know? She is more towards our color,
8
her father
is the one that is a real Aryan. So [her mother] did not like [our relationship] a lot
because 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 of
convenience 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 his
interview, Rbinson exhibited a strong sense of groupness pertaining to Blacks, both in Brazil and around the
world.
Qual Sociol
didnt like it because when she married an Aryan, she thought that she was climbing
[socially]. When Idlia married a negro she thought that she was descending.
Chinyere: Really?
Rbinson: Really. It was difficult. Her mother was difficult towards me and towards her.
Chinyere: How was she difficult? In what way?
Rbinson: She would not even talk to me.she did not talk to me. She ignored me.
And when I was in Idlias house, when I saw her with her color like ours, I said: Great!
Im safe. I was afraid of the Aryan. And the Aryan was the one who was the coolest
[with it].
Chinyere: Really?
Rbinson: So you can see that, you know, sometimes you think the enemy is one person
when its really another.
Rbinsons comments reflect how the ideology of whitening, or in this case, darkening, was
part of his understanding of his mother-in-laws reaction. He saw her as trying to climb the
social ladder by producing white descendants through her own marriage to an Aryan man,
Idlias father. He understood his relationship with Idlia as undoing the whitening process
in which her mother had been engaged. In fact, he saw the irony of opposition in how his
father-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 color
herself was against it. Rbinson also saw his mother-in-laws 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, Idlia also brought up the difficult time that they endured
because of her mothers initial rejection. She said that her mother did not treat
Rbinson well, reiterating how she would ignore him. Idlia said, He would come
to a party at my house and she would not greet him. She wouldnt greet him. She
would serve everyone else but him, you know? Idlia noted the irony of her mother
being the daughter of a negro yet being opposed to their relationship. On the other
hand, Idlia echoed how her father really liked Rbinson and never saw him as
different. However, after Idlias father died, both of them noticed that her mother
started to accept their relationship. She began speaking to Rbinson and today,
completely accepts him as part of the family. Idlia discussed the process that her
mother underwent to accept him as part of the family.
Idlia: My mother today likes him. [But] she continues being prejudiced. She says that
she sees him as branco.
Chinyere: What do you mean?
Idlia: She sees him as branco. She no longer sees him as negro, got it? So, she still has
this prejudice inside of her. She likes him, but she still looks at him like hes an alien,
you know?
Idlia describes her mother as engaging in overt racial discrimination earlier in their
relationship by ignoring him and not greeting him. However, now she understands her mother
as being engaged in inclusionary discrimination, yet undergoing a cognitive shift, changing her
perception of Rbinsons race, in order for him to be acceptable to her. Now that her mother
has accepted Rbinson, Idlia still understands her as treating him differently from white
members 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 Los
Angeles of either race or gender combination. This may be due in part to the different racial
Qual Sociol
logics operating in the two societies. Still, none of the Los Angeles respondents referenced
white parents or family members prior relationships with nonwhites in making sense of
opposition to their relationship. If anything, they referenced prior race mixing in their own
lives or the lives of their family members as part of their understanding of family acceptance of
their relationships. The irony of opposition also did not emerge as a theme among couples
involving black women with white men in Rio de Janeiro.
White Male Autonomy
In both research sites, couples involving black women with white men referenced a
lack of opposition to their relationships from white families. White men were
privileged in these relationships by virtue of their race and gender, similar to findings
from Colombia (Vigoya 2008). White men were able to enact hegemonic forms of
masculinity by acting autonomously in their romantic relationships. In Rio, several
white 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 Tefilo, Griseldas husband, about his familys and
friends reaction to his relationship, he said:
No one said anything to me. When they found out, I was already with Griselda. No one
said anything. They accepted Griselda. Now, if they are against it or not, I dont
know.There were a lot of people who did not know. Many people did not know that
I had separated [from my previous wife].So when they discovered that I was no
longer married and that I was with Griselda, people were shocked.
Tefilos comments reveal how the men in my study are able to act much more
autonomously in their relationships, to the extent that people may be unaware of their
interracial relationship. Although Tefilo did not mention this, his friends shock may
have been due in part to his involvement with a black woman, not just his split with
his previous wife. His comments suggest an indifference to outsiders reactions to his
relationship. Autonomy was not a theme among the white or black women whom I
interviewed in either site.
Similarly, Otvio is a white man who did not finish the second grade. When I asked him
about his familys reaction to his relationship with his wife Katarina, a black woman with a
fourth grade education, he commented on how he saw his family as irrelevant for his
relationship with Katarina.
Otvio: No, my family does not get involved at all.
Chinyere: Why?
Otvio: Because they dont. See, if I am of age, no one has to involve themselves with
what I do or what I dont, you know?
Otvio demonstrates how similar to several male respondents, there was never a
questioning in terms of his romantic relationships. White women did not reference their age
in their discussions of how their families treated them. Both Tefilo and Otvios comments
reveal how the men in my study are able to act much more autonomously in their relationships
than their white female counterparts.
White male autonomy vis--vis their white families was also a theme in the lives of Los
Angeles 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 familys
Qual Sociol
response, he mentioned that when the relationship began, he was living in a different state
than his parents:
I think that they didnt have strong opinions in the beginning because they just werent
there and people werent really aware ofthey just knew her name kept coming up.
Other than that, they just knew that I was kind of forming a greater friendship and a
greater kind of relationship with this woman, but since they werent there, they didnt
really have an opinion, other than the fact that it was making me happy, so I think they
were happy with it.
Unlike their white female counterparts, several white men left their family in the dark about
their relationships with black women. These men express a lack of concern with sharing their
romantic relationships with their families. As I have mentioned, this situation was very
different in Rio de Janeiro, where spouses had more regular contact with extended families
and were often a part of their everyday lives. Nevertheless, even in Rio, white men discussed
the 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 of
origin 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 Patrcio, a black
man, in the home that she inherited from her parents. Juliana recalled that despite Blacks being
welcomed in her home by her parents, when Juliana developed a romantic interest in black
men, her mother began to hassle her.
She had jokes that would annoy me a lot. Like Princess Isabel. Do you know who
Princess Isabel was in Brazil? She created the Golden Law liberating the slaves. She
would 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 in
the era of slavery, right? She would talk like this: Dont you look in the mirror? So that
I would look in the mirror and see that there was a color difference.
Juliana understood these nicknames as her mothers way of letting her know that despite
her mothers own friendly relationships with Blacks, Julianas attraction for black men was
inappropriate. Due to her parents opposition, like some of the other white women that I
interviewed, she waited until after her parents had died to enter long-term relationships
with black men. This strategy of purposefully entering serious romantic relationships with
black men later in life to avoid white parental opposition did not emerge in my Los
Angeles data. This strategy enabled older Carioca women to enjoy the autonomy that
their white male counterparts of all ages experienced in their own relationships with
Blacks.
Black males in both sites also experienced some degree of autonomy in their relationships
vis--vis their black families. In Los Angeles, however, black husbands expressed greater
interest than white husbands in how their families of origin accepted their spouses. Also, black
wives in Los Angeles expressed not meeting their white husbands family as a concern,
whereas white wives did not. Nevertheless, the autonomy of black male respondents in their
romantic 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 to
black women.
9
Croulo is a derogatory term for Blacks. There is no direct translation, except for the n-word.
Qual Sociol
Racial Ambiguity
In both Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles, black women married to white men rarely described
hostility from white families. The ways that black men have been constructed in both societies
is likely a factor explaining this. In the U.S., black men have historically been seen as one of
the greatest threats to white womanhood, justifying segregation, lynchings, and other acts of
violence 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 men
are 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 and
femininity 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). Despite
interracial marriages with black men being more common today in both societies
(Schwartzman 2007; Ribeiro and Silva 2009), white womens marriage to black men can be
more threatening to social norms than white mens marriage with black women.
Interviews with respondents in both sites revealed another factor that may explain gender
differences in white family acceptance. Although couples themselves did not explain the
differences, 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 by
others. For instance, Eloza is a woman with light brown skin and facial features that she says
are indigenous, despite identifying herself as a negra. In her interview, Eloza 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 little
education, but you? But you are not negra [Suelaine replied]. I said, No, Suelaine, I
am not negra, so what am I? AViking? She subscribes to the ideathey dont want to
see me as negra, because they think that negros are ugly.
Elozas 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 not
having the dark brown skin, which often marks blackness. This was not a pattern among the
black men I interviewed in Rio, who by and large did not experience ambiguity surrounding
their blackness.
A similar racial ambiguity of black women occurred in my Los Angeles data. The majority
of black women revealed that others either expressed confusion over their ethnic background
or viewed them as multiracial. For example, Helen is a light-skinned black woman with
straightened black shoulder-length hair. When I interviewed her husband Perry, a tall white
man with a long gray beard, I asked how he racially identifies his wife:
I think that shesI dont really think of it. I think that shesI guess shes black. I
know shes a little bit mixed race. Her dad came from the Caribbean. I think one of her
grandmothers married a Jewish guy, and shes Catholic.
Perrys comment illustrates how he understands her as ambiguously black. Similar to
studies 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 few
cases of white family hostility toward a black woman involved the aforementioned insult
against Charlotte, a woman with dark brown skin. Ambiguity can make it harder to draw a
racial 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 black
racial categorization, unlike in the case of Eloza or even Rbinsons mother-in-laws
Qual Sociol
perception of him. Nevertheless, very few black men mentioned experiencing ambiguous
racial identification by others, showing gender as salient in this dynamic.
Conclusion
There were a number of discursive strategies, cultural repertoires, and strategies of action that
black-white couples and their families drew on to understand the integration of black spouses
into white extended families. In my Los Angeles data, couples understood white family
members as using the discourse of expressing concerns about the relationship, yet saw
family members move to more overt discouragement of marrying black partners. Couples
understood this expressing concern discourse as an attempt at social desirability on the part
of white family members. This was emblematic of a U.S. laissez-faire or color-blind race
relations.
According to my Rio respondents, white family members engaged in more openly racist
opposition to their relationships, particularly when they included black men. Even upon
acceptance of the relationship, the white spouses extended family would use racist humor
as well as indirect insults to express discomfort with Blacks marrying into the family. This
included cultural tropes and stereotypes such as Blacks as ugly, animalistic, and exclusively
working in low status occupations. Furthermore, couples also described an irony of opposition
in which prior race mixing in white extended families did not shield them from opposition to
the relationship. These discursive strategies were characteristic of an inclusionary discrimina-
tion emblematic of Brazilianand possibly more broadly, Latin Americanrace relations.
They also ran counter to the myth of racial democracy in which race does not matter for
interpersonal relationships.
At the same time, there was some overlap in how black partners were accepted (or not) by
white 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 men
experienced a great deal of autonomy in their relationships with black women, whereas white
women described experiences of racial boundary-policing by white extended family. While
historic 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, this
study illuminates race mixture as a lived phenomenon and, in the Brazilian context, not simply
relegated to an idealized past. Understanding the ways that black-white couples make sense of
race mixture sheds light on race relations and the contemporary lived experiences of racial
boundaries in the two contexts. Specifically, this study shows that families can redraw and
police racial boundaries despite mixture, even in a society like Brazil, known for its blurred
racial boundaries; inclusionary discrimination can allow for both to coexist. In addition, irony
of opposition shows how, similar to Barths postulation decades ago (1998), interaction across
racial boundaries does not mean that the boundaries disappear or cease to be important. In
addition, by utilizing an intersectionality approach, this study demonstrates how gender and
race 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 and
multiracial families are not a solution to racism. In fact, as interracial marriages and multiracial
families increase in number, the home writ large may become a more salient site for racial
discrimination than has been previously acknowledged, including for non-Blacks who marry
Qual Sociol
black partners. More than just rebound racism from the outside world (Dalmage 2000), the
private sphere of the family is important to consider in understanding race relations within as
well as across given societies. As Asians and Latinos occupy large proportions of intermarried
spouses in the U.S., comparative studies of interracial marriage within the U.S. can show the
ways that different types of couples navigate racial boundaries as well as the characteristics of
these 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 family
sphere, 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 extent
to which black extended families integrate white spouses into their families. In addition, there
is a dearth of scholarship in either society of how other aspects of race, such as colorismimpact
the family (Burton et al. 2010). More comparative qualitative research can reveal unexpected
dynamics in the maintenance of racial hierarchies as well as the various ways that racial
boundaries 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. in
terms of its race relations while U.S. scholars often take for granted that racialization processes
are the same everywhere. As one of the first studies to take a comparative and qualitative
approach to how racial boundaries are lived in the two societies in the twenty-first century, this
study complicates these simplistic understandings of race relations in Brazil and the U.S. In
addition, it decenters U.S. race relations as representative of all societies. More comparative
studies 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 their
generous 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 was
provided by the National Science Foundation, the UCLA Latin American Institute, the UCLA Bunche Center for
African American Studies, and the University of Pennsylvania Center for Africana Studies. Earlier versions of
this article were presented at the 2012 annual meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society and at the 2011
sessions of the Council on Contemporary American Families. I thank the anonymous reviewers for their
insightful comments.
References
Bailey, S.R. 2009. Legacies of race: Identities, attitudes, and politics in Brazil. Palo Alto: Stanford University
Press.
Barros, Z.d.S. 2003. Casais inter-raciais e suas representaes acerca de raa. Masters thesis. Salvador da
Bahia: Universidade Federal da Bahia, Filosofia e Cincias Humanas.
Barth, F. 1998. Introduction. In Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social origin of culture difference, ed. F.
Barth, 938. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press.
Batson, C.D., Z. Qian, and D.T. Lichter. 2006. Interracial and intraracial patterns of mate selection among
Americas diverse black populations. Journal of Marriage and Family 68: 658672.
Bobo, L., J.R. Kluegel, and R.A. Smith. 1997. Laissez-faire racism: The crystallization of a kinder, gentler,
antiblack ideology. In Racial attitudes in the 1990s: Continuity and change, ed. S.A. Tuch and J.K. Martin,
1542. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Bobo, L.D., C.Z. Charles, M. Krysan, and A.D. Simmons. 2012. The real record on racial attitudes. In Social
trends in American life: Findings from the general social survey since 1972, ed. P.V. Marsden, 3882.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bonilla-Silva, E. 2006. Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the
United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Qual Sociol
Burton, L.M., E.B. Silva, V. Ray, R. Buckelew, and E. Hordge-Freeman. 2010. Critical race theories, colorism,
and the decades research on families of color. Journal of Marriage and Family 72: 440459.
Caldwell, K.L. 2007. Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning black women, citizenship, and the politics of identity. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Childs, E.C. 2005a. Looking behind the stereotypes of the angry black woman: An exploration of black
Womens responses to interracial relationships. Gender & Society 19: 544.
Childs, E.C. 2005b. Navigating interracial borders: Black-white couples and their social worlds. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Collins, P.H. 2004. Black sexual politics. New York: Routledge.
Crenshaw, K. 1994. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics and violence against women of
color. In The public nature of private violence: The discovery of domestic abuse, ed. M. Fineman and R.
Mykitiuk, 3119. New York: Routledge.
Crenshaw, Kimberl. 1989. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of
antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum:
13967.
da Silva, G.M. 2012. Folk conceptualizations of racism and antiracism in Brazil and South Africa. Ethnic and
Racial Studies 35: 506522.
da Silva, G.M., and E.P. Reis. 2011. Perceptions of racial discrimination among black professionals in Rio de
Janeiro. Latin American Research Review 46: 5578.
Dalmage, H.M. 2000. Tripping on the color line: Black-white multiracial families in a racially divided world.
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Daniel, G.R. 2006. Race and multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging paths? University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press.
Davis, K. 1941. Intermarriage in caste societies. American Anthropologist 43: 388395.
de Azevedo, T. 1955. As elites de cr: Um estudo da ascenso social. So Paulo: Companhia Editora
Nacional.
de Souza, R.R. 2009. As representaes do homem negro e suas consequncias. Revista Form Identidades 6:
97115.
Degler, C.N. 1986. Neither black nor white: Slavery and race relations in Brazil and the United States. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
do Amparo-Alves, J. 2009. Narratives of violence: The white imagination and the making of black masculinity in
City of God. Sociedade e Cultura 12: 301309.
Ferber, A.L. 1998. White man falling: Race, gender, and white supremacy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers.
Fernandez, N.T. 1996. The color of love. Latin American Perspectives 23: 99117.
Fernandez, N. 2010. Revolutionizing romance: Interracial couples in contemporary Cuba. New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press.
Fleming, C., M. Lamont, and J. Welburn. 2011. African Americans respond to stigmatization: The meanings and
salience of confronting, deflecting conflict, educating the ignorant and managing the self. Ethnic and
Racial Studies 35: 400417.
Freyre, Gilberto. 1963/1980. The mansions and the shanties: The making of modern Brazil. Translated by Harriet
De Ons. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Goldstein, D. 1999. Interracial sex and racial democracy in Brazil: Twin concepts? American Anthropologist
101: 563578.
Goldstein, D.M. 2003. Laughter out of place: Race, class, violence, and sexuality in a Rio shantytown. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Gordon, M.M. 1964. Assimilation in american life: The role of race, religion, and national origins. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Guimares, A.S.A. 2005a. Racismo e anti-racismo no Brasil. So Paulo: Fundao de Apoio Universidade de
So Paulo.
Guimares, A.S.A. 2005b. Racial democracy. In Imagining Brazil, ed. J. Souza and V. Sinder, 119140. Lanham:
Lexington Books.
Gullickson, A. 2006. Education and black-white interracial marriage. Demography 43: 673689.
Hall, J.D. 1993. Revolt against chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the womens campaign against lynching. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Hanchard, M.G. 1993. Orpheus and power: The movimento negro of Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo, Brazil
19451988. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hasenbalg, C. 1979. Discriminao e desigualdades raciais no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Graal.
Hasenbalg, C., and N.d.V. Silva. 1992. Relaes raciais no Brasil contemporneo. Rio de Janeiro: Rio Fundo
Editora.
Qual Sociol
Hordge-Freeman, E. 2013. Whats love got to do with it?: Racial features, stigma and socialization in Afro-
Brazilian families. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36: 15071523.
Htun, M. 2004. From racial democracy to affirmative action: Changing state policy on race in Brazil. Latin
American Research Review 39: 6089.
Humes, Karen R., Nicholas A. Jones, and Roberto R. Ramirez. 2011. Overview of race and Hispanic origin:
2010. U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf. Accessed 25
September 2011.
Hunter, M.L. 2005. Race, gender, and the politics of skin tone. New York: Routledge Press.
Ianni, O. 1960. Cor e mobilidade social em Florianpolis: Aspectos das relaes entre negros e brancos numa
comunidade do Brasil meridional. So Paulo, Brazil: Companhia Editora Nacional.
IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatstica). 2010. Sntese de Indicadores Sociais: Uma Anlise das
Condies de Vida da Populao Brasileira. http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/
condicaodevida/indicadoresminimos/sinteseindicsociais2010/SIS_2010.pdf. Accessed 23 March 2012.
Judice, C.Y. 2008. Interracial marriages between black women and white men. Amherst: Cambria Press.
Kalmijn, M. 1993. Trends in black/white intermarriage. Social Forces 72: 119146.
Lamont, M. 1992. Money, morals and manners: The culture of the French and American upper-middle class.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lamont, M. 2000. The dignity of working men: Morality and the boundaries of race, class, and immigration.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lamont, M. 2001. Culture and identity. In Handbook of sociological theory, ed. J.H. Turner, 171185. New
York: Plenum.
Lamont, M., and C.M. Fleming. 2005. Everyday antiracism. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
2: 2943.
Lamont, M., and N. Mizrachi. 2011. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things: Responses to stigmatization in
comparative perspective. Ethnic and Racial Studies 35: 365381.
Lee, J., and F.D. Bean. 2010. The diversity paradox: Immigration and the color line in twenty-first century
America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications.
Lieberson, S., and M. Waters. 1988. From many strands: ethnic and racial groups in contemporary America.
New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Loury, G. 2002. The anatomy of racial equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Marx, A.W. 1998. Making race and nation: A comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Moutinho, L. 2004. Razo, cor e desejo. Sao Paulo: UNESP.
Nagel, J. 2003. Race, ethnicity, and sexuality: Intimate intersections, forbidden frontiers. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Nogueira, O. 1985. Tanto preto quanto branco: Estudos de relaes raciais: Estudo de relaes raciais. So
Paulo: T.A. Queiroz.
Osuji, C. 2013a. Racial boundary-policing: Perceptions of black-white interracial couples in Los Angeles and Rio
de Janeiro. DuBois Review: Social Science Research on Race 10: 179203.
Osuji, C. 2013b. Confronting whitening in an era of black-consciousness: Racial ideology and black-white
marriages in Brazil. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36: 14901506.
Patterson, O. 1997. The ordeal of integration: Progress and resentment in Americas racial crisis. New York:
Basic Civitas Books.
Paixo, M., and L.M. Carvano. 2008. Relatrio anual das desigualdades raciais no Brasil, 2007-2008. Rio de
Janeiro: Garamond Universitria.
Petruccelli, J.L. 2001. Seletividade por cor e escolhas conjugais no Brasil dos 90. Estudos Afro-Asiaticos 23: 29
54.
Porterfield, E. 1978. Black and white mixed marriages. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers.
Qian, Z., and D.T. Lichter. 2001. Measuring marital assimilation: Intermarriage among natives and immigrants.
Social Science Research 30: 289312.
Qian, Z., and D.T. Lichter. 2011. Changing patterns of interracial marriage in a multiracial society. Journal of
Marriage and Family 73: 10651084.
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1940. On roking Relationships. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 13:
195210.
Ribeiro, C.A.C., and N.d.V. Silva. 2009. Cor, educao e casamento: Tendncias da seletividade marital no
Brasil, 1960 a 2000. DADOS: Revista de Cincias Sociais 52: 751.
Root, M.P.P. 2001. Loves revolution: Interracial marriage. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Rosenblatt, P.C., T.A. Karis, and R. Powell. 1995. Multiracial couples: Black & white voices, understanding
families. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Qual Sociol
Rosenfeld, M.J. 2008. Racial, educational and religious endogamy in the United States: A comparative historical
perspective. Social Forces 87: 131.
Sansone, L. 2003. Blackness without ethnicity: Constructing race in Brazil. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Sawyer, M. 2006. Racial politics in post-revolutionary Cuba. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schwartzman, L.F. 2007. Does money whiten? Intergenerational changes in racial classification in Brazil.
American Sociological Review 72: 940.
Sheriff, R.E. 2001. Dreaming equality: Color, race, and racism in urban Brazil. New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press.
Silva, N.d.V. 1987. Distncia social e casamento inter-racial no Brasil. Estudos Afro-Asiaticos 14: 5484.
Skidmore, T.E. 1993. Bi-Racial U.S.A. vs. multi-racial Brazil: Is the contrast still valid? Journal of Latin
American Studies 25: 373386.
Sue, C.A. 2013. Land of the cosmic race: Race mixture, racism, and blackness in Mexico. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Sue, C.A., and T. Golash-Boza. 2013. It was only a joke: How racial humour fuels colour-blind ideologies in
Mexico and Peru. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36: 15821598.
Swidler, A. 1986. Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review 51: 273286.
Telles, E.E. 2002. Racial ambiguity among the Brazilian population. Ethnic and Racial Studies 25: 415441.
Telles, E.E. 2004. Race in another America: The significance of skin color in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Telles, E.E., and C. Sue. 2009. Race Mixture: Boundary Crossing in Comparative Perspective. Annual Review of
Sociology 35: 129146.
Tilly, C. 2004. Social boundary mechanisms. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34: 211236.
Tucker, M.B., and C. Mitchell-Kernan. 1990. New trends in Black American interracial marriage: The social
structural context. Journal of Marriage and the Family 52: 209218.
Twine, F.W. 1998. Racism in a racial democracy: The maintenance of white supremacy in Brazil. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
U.S. Census Bureau. 2012. Interracial and interethnic coupled households appendix tables. Households and
Families: 2010 Census Brief. http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2010/briefs/tables/appendix.pdf.
Accessed 7 July 2011.
Vigoya, M.V. 2008. Ms que una cuestin de piel. Determinantes sociales y orientaciones subjetivas en los
encuentros y desencuentros heterosexuales interraciales en Bogot. In Raza, etnicidad y sexualidades:
Ciudadana y multiculturalismo en Amrica Latina, ed. P. Wade, F. Urrea, and M. Viveros, 247279.
Bogot: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Centro de Estudios Sociales
(CES).
Wimmer, A. 2013. Ethnic boundary making: Institutions, power, networks. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wuthnow, R.J. 2011. Taking talk seriously: Religious discourse as social practice. Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion 50: 121.
Chinyere Osuji is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University at Camden. She is a former
Postdoctoral Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Africana Studies and received her PhD in
Sociology from UCLA. She has received awards for her work from the American Sociological Association and
the Population Association of America. She is also a former NSF Graduate Trainee and Fulbright recipient. She is
currently writing a book comparing race relations in the U.S. and Brazil through examining the family formation
processes of black-white interracial couples.
Qual Sociol