re: Does intermarriage take away our Chinese heritage?

[Moran Jasmine <jasminemoran@yahoo.com>]

Dear Frank,

I am responding to your question about intermarriage,
which is something I should know about- my mother is
Hakka (from Malaysia), my father is Irish (from
Ireland), and my husband is Jewish. (Funny how in the
end this situation winds up sounding really American…)
 I can see pros and cons to intermarriage, though I
would never advise anyone against it if the marriage
is based on love. Of course it’s sad to lose your
culture, but I don’t think that necessarily has to
follow from intermarriage, nor do I think that is the
only reason it happens. Irish marrying Irish in
America produces Irish-Americans, who are not really
like the Irish in Ireland, Jewish marrying Jewish can
be the same, etc. So where does culture come from? I
guess a major part of it is in the language, (sad for
me to say, since I don’t speak Hakka or Cantonese
(just a little Mandarin), and since the Irish language
is all but dead). It seems to me that within a
language one can see a way of thinking, patterns of
social interaction, and personality of an ethnicity.
Another way culture can be passed along is through
religion, (again something I don’t take part in.) It
seems like people who have “lost” these things over
generations are constantly in the throes of identity
crises because they are not things you can truly adopt
from the outside. But ironically, if someone is raised
with all these things and does not know about any
other way of living, they may be too sheltered to
appreciate it as their “culture.”  There may even be
reactions against it, as in my mother’s family, where
now almost all of her generation and their offspring
(my cousins in Malaysia and Singapore) speak only
English, even at home. Sometimes I feel incredibly
lucky to be in the US where you are constantly aware
of the diversity it has to offer (esp. since I wasn’t
born here.) It makes people proud of where they came
from, even though they can never fully be part of
their original heritage. 

The best way a child can learn about his or her
culture (be it singular or mixed) is through the
attitude and actions of the parents. Also if the
parents are truly in love, the child can learn that
different cultures do not need to be in conflict. I
think it is extremely important in mixed marriages to
make the children aware of their past. This is
something both I and my husband missed out on in our
childhoods and something we will concentrate on in the
future. Even if it feels a little forced at first, we
will make sure to celebrate all the holidays that are
part of our heritages and try to instill a sense of
history and pride within the family. Though the
children may lose some of the concentration on one
particular culture, they gain from being part of
several cultures, something that will make them
unique.

Jasmine Christina Choon-Hua Moran

ps- it's a very interesting topic, I'm glad you raised
the question!


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