Michael Tan: Pinoy Kasi

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Sunday, August 05, 2007

Loving story

PINOY KASI

Loving story
By Michael Tan

Inquirer
Last updated 02:19am (Mla time) 06/15/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- It couldn’t have been more appropriate, a love story involving a couple with the surname Loving. But more than a love story, the case was a landmark in civil rights, offering lessons not just for Americans but for the whole world.

On June 12, 1967, the US Supreme Court ruled in a “Lovings vs. Virginia” case that laws barring interracial marriages were unconstitutional. At that time, there were still 17 American states that had such “anti-miscegenation laws,” all of which were rendered null and void by the ruling.

I will explain, shortly, how Filipinos in the States were also affected by these laws, but let me get first to the Lovings’ story.

Lovings vs. Virginia

The 1967 Supreme Court decision came in response to a case filed by Richard and Mildred Loving against the state of Virginia. Richard was white and Mildred, black. (I’m going to use “black” here instead of the current politically correct term “African-American.”) Both were from the state of Virginia, had fallen in love and wanted to get married but couldn’t because Virginia had a Racial Integrity Act which prohibited interracial marriages.

In the American system, each state can formulate its own laws as long as these do not violate provisions of the Constitution. It was in 1958 when the Lovings wanted to marry and at that time, interracial couples couldn’t get married in Virginia but could in Washington, D.C., which was right at the doorstep of Virginia. So the Lovings crossed the border and got married.

One would have thought they could then live happily ever after, but when they returned to Virginia to live, their home was raided one night and they were arrested. Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act didn’t just forbid interracial marriages within Virginia, but also didn’t recognize marriages outside of the state.

The Lovings were sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, but were given a choice: Their sentence would be suspended if they agreed to live outside of Virginia for 25 years. The Lovings did leave, settling down in Washington where Richard took up a job as a bricklayer. But the Lovings’ self-exile was not easy since they were away from family and friends. They wanted to return.

Eventually they wrote to Robert Kennedy, who at that time was the US attorney general, asking for legal assistance. Kennedy referred the case to the American Civil Liberties Union, where two lawyers offered to take up the case. Virginia’s Supreme Court upheld the Interracial Act, with the judge, Leon Bazile, writing: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. ... The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

The case then moved on to the US Supreme Court, which ruled on June 12, 1967 that the anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional.

Mongolian or Malay?

Looking back now, I’m amazed at how such laws could have existed in the United States so late into the 20th century. Apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany had similar laws, but then it wasn’t surprising given how racism was so much part of state and religious ideology (the South African apartheid regime would cite the Bible as the basis for their racist policies). We tend to think of the United States as a bastion of freedom and human rights but forget racism was (and still is) a burning issue.

The term “miscegenation” (“mixing of genus”) dates back only to the 19th century, but anti-miscegenation laws go back to the 17th century, during the British colonial period. Virginia had one of those early interracial bans on marriage as well as sexual relations. Such laws clearly had white slave-owners and black slaves in mind. The ban on interracial sex was, of course, constantly violated but interracial marriages were effectively suppressed.

Even after slavery was abolished after the Civil War, anti-miscegenation laws continued and were even expanded in the 20th century, with the new waves of non-white immigrants. During the first part of the 20th century, many Filipino men, mainly Ilokano, migrated to the United States as workers. Many of the “manong” [Ilokano elder] who ended up in California remained bachelors because that state did not allow them to marry Caucasian women.

Who knows what love stories transpired in those years. Some brave couples went off to other states where they could marry. Others, mainly Filipinos who went to work in the states of Washington and Alaska, did marry Native Americans and “non-white” immigrants. Many others remained bachelors. In the 1970s and 1980s, many of the retired old-timers returned to the Philippines where they were able to find young Filipina brides.

Scientists generally recognize that race is an artificial category -- all humans have the same genes, with greater variations within “races” than between them. “Race” is based on our perceptions of physical appearance, which can be arbitrary as was shown in California’s anti-miscegenation law. Originally, California banned marriage between “Whites” and “Mongolians,” the latter category defined to include Filipinos. In 1933, a Filipino, Salvador Roldan, wanted to marry a white woman and challenged California’s anti-miscegenation law, arguing that Filipinos were “Malay” and not “Mongolian.” The California judge handling his case agreed with him, but two weeks after that court decision, California’s Senate amended their anti-miscegenation statute to include the “Malay” race. I couldn’t find information on what Roldan and his girlfriend did. California kept its anti-miscegenation law until 1948.

Even today, Americans grapple constantly with race. Their national censuses still insist on asking for racial classification, with all kinds of categories: American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. There is a “Some Other Race” category for “mulatto,” “Creole,” “mestizo” [of mixed blood].

The reality is that beyond skin color, we all look pretty much alike. Armed with a few local phrases, I have passed as Japanese, Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Mexican, Brazilian (OK, Japanese-Brazilian), even Indian (where they thought I was from one of the northern states).

Back to our love story. The Lovings did get to live in Virginia, but life for interracial couples, and their children, remains difficult in many parts of the United States. The prejudice remains and I am sure many Filipinos remain affected, whether as children of interracial marriages or not. What’s so sad is that I’ve met so many Filipinos in the States who are themselves quite racist, with very condescending views of blacks and Hispanics, and also intolerant of other forms of diversity (for example, sexual orientation). In the Philippines, racism remains strong as well toward children of black GIs, and toward our Negrito groups or, generally, anyone with dark skin.

I’d like to see our schools dealing with the fallacy of race, and the dangers of racism. A good place to start might be this Loving story.

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1 Comments:

Blogger MDB said...

I totally agree with you about Filipinos so prejudice against dark skinned or black people in
our country. Honestly, I would
like to write a book or write to
TV stations to promote the equality
of kayumanggi vs mestizas. Because
I experienced discrimination when I applied to work as a sales lady for being kayumanggi. The stores prefer fair skinned or mestizas. I live in the US now.

4:25 PM  

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