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Experts on census find surprises in marriage trends
Washington Post Photo
Katie Xiao (left) and Evelyn Hu meet at a social gathering for singles of Asian heritage. Xiao says she wants to meet a man of Asian descent.
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Published: March 19, 2009
Katie Xiao emigrated from China when she was 4 and always thought of herself as Americanized -- until she started dating.
Subtle cultural clashes with Caucasian or Latino boyfriends led to unhappy breakups. It made her realize she's more Chinese than she thought. Now she wants to meet a man of Asian descent.
She has recently gone to a chocolate tasting and a cocktail mixer, both catering to Asian Americans and immigrants. She spent Valentine's Day weekend making contacts at a Harvard Business School conference called "Asia in a Whole New World."
Sociologists and demographers are just beginning to study how the children of immigrants who have flowed into the country in recent years will date and marry. The generation that is coming of age is the most open-minded in history and living in the Obama era -- where hues mingle in classrooms, nightclubs and the White House. Conventional wisdom has it that they will begin choosing spouses of other ethnicities as the number of interracial marriages rises.
But scholars delving into the U.S. Census have found a surprising converse trend. Although interracial marriages overall have increased, the rate of Hispanics and Asians marrying partners of other races declined in the past 20 years. This suggests that the growing number of immigrants is having a profound effect on coupling, they say.
The number of native- and foreign-born people marrying outside their race fell from 27 percent to 20 percent for Hispanics and 42 percent to 33 percent for Asians from 1990 to 2000, according to Ohio State University sociologist Zhenchao Qian, who co-authored a study on the subject. The downward trend continued through last year, Qian said.
"The immigrant population fundamentally changes the pool of potential partners for Asians and Hispanics. It expands the number and reinforces the culture, which means the second generation ... is more likely to marry people of their own ethnicity," said Daniel Lichter, a sociologist at Cornell University.
Increasingly, singles are turning to a growing number of niche dating sites on the Internet, such as Shaadi.com and Persiansingles.com. The large social networking groups Professionals in the City has expanded its repertoire over the past year to include "speed dating" nights for people of Asian, Latino or South Asian descent.
The 20- and 30-somethings drawn to these events say they have a deep yearning to connect with someone who shares their roots, yet they are conflicted about it. As children, they felt divided loyalties, growing up with one foot in their parents' home country, the other in the United States. Now, as adults, they wonder: Would I be happy with someone as American as I am, or a recent immigrant?
"People grow up the entire time rebelling to our parents, doing everything we could to fit in and spending the majority of our time running away from the traditions and our heritage," said Bhavna Pandit, a political consultant of Indian descent. "Now I'm 29 years old, and I actually care about this stuff
Even minor issues can become a big deal, singles say, such as a man who wore a T-shirt with a risque slogan to meet his girlfriend's conservative Iranian parents. One 27-year-old woman, a successful energy financier who still lives with her parents in their suburban house, believes an American man wouldn't understand her Indian values.
Researchers spent 10 yeras following 3,300 children of immigrants in the New York region as they navigated adulthood, which led to a study published last year called "Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age." They followed both the "second generation" children born in the United States and the "1.5 generation" -- children of immigrants who came as youngsters -- who were Dominican, Chinese, Russian Jews, South Americans and West Indians.
Researchers found that their subjects were constantly struggling with the desire to be open to people of all backgrounds vs. family expectations, and their own desires to sustain their culture. Most paired with others who shared similar racial or language backgrounds.
On a recent night in a dimly lit bar, Park and Xiao were among about 30 singles gathered as a host moved through at four-minute intervals, telling the men when to switch seats. Participants took notes on their prospective dates; they would learn later through an anonymous e-mail system whether they had a match.
One whom Xiao met recently stands out: a Korean-American lawyer about her age.She likes his funky black glasses and sturdy physique and the self-deprecating way he writes his e-mails. ("You'll probably find this really boring but...." he writes, prefacing a brainy thought.)
That's very Asian, she thinks. It feels like home.
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