Love Without Borders

Ah, weddings. the hair, the makeup, the layers of fabric. They're enough to frazzle the calmest of brides. But when Taiwanese-American Grace Tsai married Japanese-Canadian Richard Tsuyuki, she took wedding-day stress to a whole new level. After a Roman Catholic ceremony in a New Jersey church, the wedding party dashed to a banquet hall in Philadelphia's Chinatown. There was the waltz, the cake and the bouquet toss. Then the new Mrs. Tsuyuki rushed to a back room, took off her white gown and returned in a slim-fitting, high-necked Chinese chipao dress for a customary tea ceremony. As guests dug into a 14-course Chinese meal, she dashed out, changed into an elaborate Japanese kimono and reappeared for a sake-drinking ritual. By the time the bride raised her tiny cup of Japanese wine, she was ready for a drink. "It was totally crazy and exhausting," she says. "But it was important for us to melt together our different cultures."

Americans are melting together like never before. A 1998 Census survey tallied more than 1.3 million racially mixed marriages in the United States. And that didn't include interethnic couples like Grace and Richard. As the nonwhite population becomes more diverse, the number of interethnic marriages is fast increasing. Roughly one in six Asian-Americans is married to an Asian of a different ethnic background. Latinos are intermarrying in similar numbers. "Because we're a society obsessed with race, interethnic marriages fall under a cloak of invisibility," says demographer Larry Shinagawa. "But in fact, these unions are reshaping our concept of ethnicity."

Invisibility has its rewards. When Grace and Richard stroll down the suburban streets near their home in Sterling, Va., they are spared the obvious stares that white and black mixed couples sometimes face. To the majority of Americans, the features that would mark them as ethnically different in Asia (the shape of their eyes and curve of their faces) go completely unnoticed. But the assumption of cultural affinity can also be annoying. "People look at us and they see us as generically Asian," says Richard, "when in reality we have to deal with cultural clashes like other mixed couples."

Their differences are never more pronounced than when dealing with family. Though Grace grew up in Bordentown, N.J., her home life was traditional Taiwanese, filled with live-in extended family and lots of raucous chatter. To Richard, who was raised in a strict, Japanese family in Winnipeg, Canada, where his father was the sole voice of authority, the onslaught of Grace's lively relatives often feels like chaos. His sometimes standoffish demeanor can unwittingly cause offense. For Grace, the subtle Japanese nuances of nondirectness are as frustrating as a foreign language. "The phrase 'I want' is not part of their traditional style," she says.

But for couples like the Tsuyukis, bridging the cross-cultural waters is about more than preserving family harmony. On some level it is also about rejecting Old World baggage and grasping for a shared American identity. A generation ago, their marriage would have been scandalous to relatives with bad memories of war and occupation. And even today there are a few left in the family tree who rationalize the union with the notion that it could have been worse. "At least he's not mainland Chinese," some of Grace's Taiwanese clan might mumble. "At least she's Asian and not white," some of Richard's Japanese relatives may reason. To Grace and Richard the old-school divisiveness just doesn't make sense. "'United we stand' is so much smarter for us as a people," says Grace. "Even if living it is not always that easy."

The trick is to build on shared values without losing treasured customs and traditions. It is a challenge Grace and Richard will soon face. They are expecting their first child, a girl, in October. They plan to choose a Japanese first name that can be shortened to an English-sounding nickname, and a Chinese middle name, chosen based on the date and time of the birth. They are amassing a library filled with Japanese children's songs, Chinese folk tales and Dr. Seuss. The nursery will have ABCs along one wall, Chinese characters on another and modern Japanese characters on a third. "We're committed to preserving the richness of our cultures," says Richard.