跨种族婚姻：加拿大宽容度的风向标

随着越来越多的华裔移民在加拿大落户生根，中国小伙娶个“洋媳妇”和中国姑娘嫁给“洋小伙”的现象早已不是什么新鲜事了。在加拿大这样的多种族的移民国家中，跨种族婚姻也应当是十分常见的现象。不过，最近的研究引起了人们的疑虑：加拿大真的对跨种族婚姻全盘接受了吗?

跨种族婚姻不普遍隐性歧视很伤人

伴随着越来越多的各族裔移民来到加拿大生活和发展，加拿大本就引以为豪的多元社会文化如今更为丰富。现在，虽然白种人仍然在加拿大社会占据主流地位，但日益增多的亚裔、非裔、拉丁裔和人口基数本就不可被忽视的原住民一起，正逐渐在加拿大的人口构成中扮演更为重要的角色。在这样的社会背景下，各种族间的交流显得顺理成章。而跨种族婚姻，更应成为加拿大各民族文化融合贯通的最佳见证。然而数据证明，加拿大的跨种族婚姻情况似乎并不像人们想象中的多。

根据加拿大统计局 (Statistics Canada) 去年公布的数据，到2011年，加拿大共有36万对跨种族夫妇。虽然相比起1991年，这一数字上涨了一倍有余，但跨种族夫妇人数却只占到加国全部夫妇人数的5%。这一数字在国际化、文化多元的大都市相对较高，多伦多的全部夫妇中有8%是跨种族伴侣，而温哥华达到10%。然而，2010年的美国人口普查报告显示，同样是移民国家的美国拥有15.1%的跨种族夫妇。

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多伦多大学教授玛塔尼 (Minelle Mahtani) 认为，加拿大的跨种族夫妇人数确实在上升，但他们所经历的种族歧视却并未减少。加拿大社会并不像表面看上去那般宽容，许多跨种族伴侣仍在承受种族歧视带来的痛苦。虽然有统计数据显示，92%的加拿大人对跨种族婚姻表示认同，玛塔尼教授却根据自己的调查结果认为，许多加拿大人对跨种族婚姻的接受是“被动的”：他们并不是发自内心地接纳跨种族伴侣，而是极力“容忍”这一现象的存在。相比明目张胆的种族歧视，这种看不见的“隐性歧视”才是最让跨种族结婚的人群担忧的。

玛塔尼教授的说法并非没有依据。虽然在有关不同族裔婚姻的社会调查中，加拿大人提供的数据十分好看，但当调查指向特定族裔时，受访的加拿大人似乎提供了更为真实的反应。权威杂志《Maclean's》在2009年的一项调查显示，只有39%的加拿大人乐意看到自己的子女和穆斯林人士结婚，同时，只有28%的受访者对中东人士抱有好感。而加拿大统计局的一份调查显示，当被问及如果自己的子女将同其他种族的人士结婚时，16%的加拿大人选择将会视不同种族而决定自己的态度。

CBC的一份统计结果则显示，只有37%的加拿大国民对和少数族裔移民结婚持积极态度。此前的一档本地电视节目邀请少数族裔匿名打电话来倾诉自己遇到的偏见与歧视，竟有众多跨种族夫妇致电节目组，哽咽着讲述自己因与不同族裔人士结为伴侣而遭受的无端攻击。而直到今日，在加拿大的某些地区，仍有不成文的规定，如果本地人同其他族裔者或外来人口结婚，就必须搬出当地。这些现象在某种程度上印证了加拿大人对于与特定族裔的跨种族交往和婚姻依然抱有偏见的事实。

不久前，一则知名麦片品牌的电视广告也在加拿大境内引起了有关跨种族婚姻话题的新争端。广告塑造了一个父亲是非裔、母亲是白人的混血家庭形象。在匿名的互联网环境上，许多人针对广告中跨种族婚姻的设定表达了不解甚至愤怒。这无疑也是对当前加拿大社会对于跨种族婚姻依然存在偏见和歧视的佐证。玛塔尼教授则认为，这则广告引起人们的关注，本身就说明跨种族婚姻在加拿大依然没有得到普遍认可。她表示，类似的广告和影视作品越多越好。当这种作品不再引起特别的关注时，才意味着加拿大社会彻底接纳跨种族婚姻了。

跨族联姻成“最后战场” 少数族裔为自己而战

英属哥伦比亚大学社会学家罗斯(Wendy Roth)对加拿大的跨种族婚姻前景表示乐观。她将跨种族婚姻视作是衡量不同族裔间社会距离的指标。“两个族裔间跨种族婚姻的数量越多，这两个族裔间的社会距离也就越近。”多伦多大学教授博伊德(Monica Boyd)则将接受跨种族婚姻形容为社会对少数族裔宽容度增加的“最后战场”。博伊德教授解释道，跨种族婚姻是亲密的举动，它涉及到下一代的繁衍，因此很容易引起人们的敏感和关注。认可跨种族婚姻，便等于在最深的层面上认可不同种族间的平等关系。

而对少数族裔来说，这场“战争”并不是单纯地等待主流文化的认可就能赢得的。跨种族婚姻率领先全加的温哥华，在这场博弈之中身先士卒地走在了前面。如今，许多少数族裔人士在大温地区举办多元文化的联谊活动，其中也不乏亚洲人的活跃身影。香港移民李先生就是一位多元文化联谊活动的举办者。他对加拿大媒体表示，举办此类活动的初衷无关盈利，而是希望各族裔能够在一个场所相聚，相互沟通了解。而此类联谊活动，也催生了不少浪漫火花，促成诸多跨种族伴侣。

李先生说，在他和朋友举办的联谊活动中，能频繁看到非裔、拉丁族裔面孔，本地白人的参与者也不在少数，虽然一开始亚洲人不多，但随着活动举办，也有越来越多的“黄皮肤”参与其中。大家彼此交流文化上的差异，每个人离开时都觉得收获满满。他认为，人们对其他族裔的敌视态度往往来自于对未知的恐惧。李先生和其他举办者们并不指望联谊活动能够彻底逆转社会对跨种族交际和婚姻的偏见与歧视，但他认为，如果少数族裔能够更勇敢大方地展示自己和争取自己的权利，很多原来对他们持消极态度的人士也会产生转变。

包容多元文化，欢迎各种族裔本来就是加拿大乐于呈现给世人的文化特征。而对跨种族婚姻的态度，绝不该成为加拿大社会的污点。虽然认可跨种族婚姻可能是消除种族歧视的“最后的”也是最艰难的“战场”，但在认可多元文化方面领先世界的加拿大，也应该在这场战争中挺身而出，为其他移民社会做出优良表率。

来源：《加西周末》2016年10月29日第368期

附上两篇英文文章供大家参考：

Where is the love: How tolerant is Canada of its interracial couples?

ZOSIA BIELSKI
The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Oct. 03, 2016 12:23PM EDT
Last updated Monday, Oct. 03, 2016 2:02PM EDT

Is love the last frontier of racial bigotry in Canada?

It’s a question that intrigues Minelle Mahtani, who has dared to ask whether interracial couples and their families still test the limits of tolerance in this country.

In her recent book Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality in Canada, Mahtani, an associate professor in human geography and journalism at the University of Toronto Scarborough, questions whether we’ve not just put rose-coloured glasses on our multiculturalism, especially where mixed-race families are concerned.

While interracial relationships are on the rise in Canada (we had 360,000 mixed-race couples in 2011, more than double the total from 20 years earlier), the numbers remain slim. Just 5 per cent of all unions in Canada were between people of different ethnic origins, religions, languages and birthplaces in 2011, the last year Statistics Canada collected such data. That figure rises only marginally in urban areas: Just 8 per cent of couples were in mixed-race relationships in Toronto, 10 per cent in Vancouver.

How do people in interracial relationships experience that multiculturalism on the ground, when they introduce their boyfriends and girlfriends to family, or hold hands on a date? How do mixed-race families and their children feel about it, in their communities and in their schools?

Mahtani was the keynote speaker at last month’s Hapa-palooza, an annual festival celebrating mixed heritage in Vancouver, and she will present at the next Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference in California in February. She spoke with The Globe and Mail about the daily realities of mixed-race families.

How tolerant are Canadians of interracial relationships today?

It’s an early kind of euphoria around celebrating multiracialism in Canada. We’ve romanticized this notion far too quickly. All the numbers from Statistics Canada show that yes, we are seeing more interracial relationships, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the racism is decreasing. People who are in interracial relationships are still experiencing a lot of racism.

What kind of criticism do mixed-race people in this country still get for their dating choices?

So much depends on where the relationship is happening and the class background of the people who are getting involved. Even though there’s a greater tolerance of interracial relationships, some researchers talk about this as a kind of “repressive tolerance”: it’s not quite acceptance but a kind of toleration.

So many of the mixed-race people I interviewed spoke about the challenges that their own parents faced as interracial couples. We’re talking about kids whose parents met in the seventies and earlier when there was much more outright, blatant racism experienced by interracial couples.

Often, the parents did not talk to their kids about the racism they faced, even though it was considerable. It’s something I call “cocooning”: These parents wanted to create a little, happy home for their kids, the progeny of the interracial relationship.

This silence had a huge impact on the way mixed-race children felt growing up. When they experienced racism themselves in the school system, they didn’t want to tarnish their parents’ experience of race, assuming that it was fairly pristine simply because it was never discussed in the household. And so a chasm was created.

It’s why today, so many of these now-grown-up mixed-race people are very upfront with their own kids, talking through the racism they have experienced.

Beyond parenting, what happens between people in interracial relationships when they struggle with racist family members, or encounter stares or slurs in public?

It corrodes the trust that can exist between them because of misunderstandings. And it becomes very tiring for the person of colour always to be explaining to the person who is white the challenges that they face, explaining, “This is what it’s like for me. These are the consequences of the choices that we’re making that I have to face in my community.” It’s not easy.

It’s only through partnering and being on a really deeply intimate level with somebody that we see how they live out their lives. For people who are not racialized on a day-to-day basis – people who are white – they see how the person of colour experiences race every single day. They understand the racial gaze a lot more. Having that window is really interesting and it’s key for the white person. They get to experience a whole different dimension of how race is lived out in Canadian society.

Let's turn to mixed-race Canadians: What type of decision-making goes into how they choose to partner up in this country?

We have very little information about how people who are mixed – like myself, I’m Indian and Iranian – approach dating. Most of the research has been about monoracial people, however you define that, because of course that’s a mythology too: We’re all mixed in some way, but we tend to forget that.

What I found interviewing women of mixed race in Toronto is that they changed who they decided to partner with over time. A lot of mixed-race women between the ages of 16 and 20 tend to look for partners who are white. A lot of it has to do with the kind of internalized racism they felt when they’re younger. They want to become more white because they saw it as much more appealing racial group to identify with.

But then something happens between their university years: They start looking for somebody from their more racialized side, meaning if they’re Asian white, they try to find an Asian partner, or if they’re black and white, they choose a black partner. That pattern sticks around until they’re about 28.

Then around 29, something else happens: They recognize that choosing a partner is about so much more than basing it on their racial category. They choose partners because they enjoy the same kind of music, hobbies or passions. These are the partnerships that tend to stick.

It's heartening to hear that what people ultimately land on goes beyond race.

It shows how the backdrop of living and growing up in a multicultural country influences how they think about racial categories and the choices that they make in partnering up.

What about babies? We hear that patronizing gushing, that mixed-race babies are the most beautiful babies. How does this bode for new generations of mixed-race Canadians?

On the one hand, mixed-race people are caught in the mythology of, “Oh no! What about the children? How are they going to survive coming out of an interracial relationship?” And now we have this hybrid vigour: “Mixed-race kids: They’re so beautiful! They have the best of worlds” – this notion that they have access to everything and are the world’s national, rational ambassadors with a foot in all these different camps.

It’s so much more complicated than that. The only thing that mixed-race people have in common, if they look racially ambiguous, is an understanding of the fluidity of the cultural capital that they have moving through the world.

One of the best racial barometers was the attention after that Cheerios commercial, where a black dad and a white mom and a mixed daughter were featured. There was such backlash. So many people were surprised by that, but those of us who do work in this area, we weren’t surprised at all. It showed that the anger over racial mixing has such a long and tortured history that has nowhere near been banished.

Do we need to see more commercials like that?

We need more media that is more representative of the actual population in which we live, that reflects what it is that we’re choosing in our own lives. We now have access to more examples of interracial coupling in Canada. It offers a different window into thinking about the possibility of successful interracial partnering. The reality is that so many people who are mixed are choosing partners who are also mixed. It’s now moving beyond race.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Ref: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/where-is-the-love-how-tolerant-is-canada-of-its-interracial-couples/article32206930/

Mixed marriage in Canada: Forces for and against

DOUGLAS TODD
More from Douglas Todd
Published on: September 21, 2013 | Last Updated: September 21, 2013 1:39 PM PST

They believe love can overcome difference. That's one reason inter-marriage is a key hope of tolerant, open-minded North Americans.

Supporters of inter-marriage maintain it’s time to transcend old ethnic, cultural and religious barriers. They feel the tide toward mixed relationships is good and inexorable.

Indeed, mixed unions are on a roll in North America. Mass migration has dramatically brought people of contrasting ethnicities and religions closer together.

More people of diverse ethno-cultural origins and spiritual world views are dating and marrying. They’re lured together by eros, the fascination of the unknown and the ideal of a colour-blind world.

In this intoxicating realm of cultural fusion, there are two basic kinds of mixed unions: One consists of inter-ethnic couples, the other is made up of interfaith couples. They often overlap.

Some signs suggest both inter-ethnic and inter-faith couples are the multicultural future. Pollster Reg Bibby has found 92 per cent of Canadians now support the concept of mixed unions. The implication is only narrow-minded bigots oppose them.

What North Americans tend to overlook, however, is that many forces continue to work against mixed unions.

Some hard realities could stall their expansion, leaving those who engage in such intimate cross-collaborations a relatively small portion of all couples.

Let's examine the influences working for and against mixed unions – beginning with evidence indicating inter-ethnic relationships could become a mass movement.

Now that visible minorities make up one out of five Canadians, personal ads in newspapers and on the web boldly reveal many North Americans are dazzled by the chance to date or marry across ethnic lines.

Such boundary-breaking attractions have even become the stuff of academic studies. University of Cardiff reseachers have discovered white women prefer, in order, black men, white men and Asian men.

The Cardiff researchers found, for their part, white men prefer Asian women, followed by whites and blacks. Meanwhile, a Columbia University study suggested Asian women prefer Asian men, followed by whites, Latinos and blacks.

In Canada, the visible minority groups most likely to partner outside their background are ethnic Japanese, followed by Latin Americans, blacks and Southeast Asians.

Statistics Canada has discovered in recent years that about four per cent of all Canadian couples, or 290,000 people, are in mixed unions. That percentage grew by one-third between 2001 and 2006.

They are most popular among the young. Canadian supporters of inter-ethnic relationships can feel boosted by knowing the rate of mixed unions is almost double the national average among adults under age 35.

What’s more, people betting on mixed unions as the wave of the future can take heart in StatsCan data suggesting visible minorities are much more likely to enter a mixed relationship if they are second-or third-generation immigrants.

This trend is even more pronounced in the U.S., where the Pew Research Center found an all-time high of inter-ethnic couples in 2010: Eight per cent of the total. And 15 per cent of all weddings in the U.S. are now between spouses of different ethnicities.

Given this good news for mixed unions, what are the forces working against them?

In many cultures now strongly present in Canada – including Chinese, South Asian and Arabic – respect for elders remains powerful. It is the norm for parents to arrange, or strongly encourage, marriages between children of the same ethnicity and world view.

Tragically, in some ultraconservative ethnic cultures, opposition to inter-ethnic marriages exists in the form of so-called “honour killings.”

In “honour killings,” fathers, mothers and other family members feel entitled to murder young females who dare to experiment with liberal ways regarding relationships, including dating outside their ethnic group. The Canadian government maintains there have so far been 19 such killings in this country.

Much milder resistance to mixed unions is illustrated in Canada by matchmaking ads in South Asian newspapers. Parents, for the most part, post the ads because they wish their son or daughter to marry in the same community.

The Ajit Weekly, for instance, publishes scores of personal ads in which parents of a particular cultural Sikh group from northern India, the “Jats,” routinely seek a “Jat Sikh” partner for offspring.

There are even more subtle shifts – involving demographics – working against mixed unions.

StatsCan figures show the proportion of mixed unions among ethnic group members actually goes down in large Canadian cities. And that’s where the vast majority of visible minorities live.

This development is so counter-intuitive that it was entirely missed in an article in Toronto Life Magazine, which ran a boastful headline declaring: “Toronto is the mixed-marriage capital of Canada.”

While the magazine accurately stated the total of mixed unions is highest in Toronto, it is only because it is Canada’s largest city and contains the most visible minorities.

Compared with smaller Canadian cities, the actual percentage of visible minorities in inter-ethnic relationships in Toronto is very low.

For instance, StatsCan reports 40 per cent of visible minority members in the small cities of Trois-Rivières and Moncton are in mixed unions. But in Toronto only 11 per cent of visible minorities are doing so. In Vancouver the proportion is 12.2 per cent.

The findings suggest that in major metropolises, where there is a critical mass of certain ethnic groups, visible minorities are much more likely to partner Couple: Asian man white womanwith someone of their own skin pigment and background.

That theory is supported by the habits of the two visible minorities who together account for roughly three million Canadians: Ethnic Chinese and South Asians.

While 75 per cent of couples with at least one Japanese person included partnerships outside their visible minority, only 17 per cent of couples involving an ethnic Chinese person were mixed unions. That figure drops to 13 per cent for South Asians.

In other words, the larger and more concentrated the ethnic group, the less likely it will produce a mixed relationship. This has particular relevance for Metro Vancouver, which has distinct Chinese and South Asian enclaves.

What happens if we set aside ethnicity and focus on interreligious relationships?

There is no doubt more Canadians are having wedding rituals that blend traditions, clergy and officials from multiple spiritual world views.

Even though StatsCan’s data on inter-faith marriages is old, it shows 19 per cent of couples were in interfaith relationships in 2001. More recently, the Pew Research Center found in 2010 that 42 per cent of all U.S. marriages are interfaith.

Despite this, there remains resistance to interfaith weddings.

Opposition to cross-religious unions remains strong among many Canadian Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis, evangelical pastors, Sikh priests and Muslim imams.

In addition, many of the almost one million Muslim immigrants to Canada come from regions where women are forbidden to marry non-Muslims. Imams don’t want wives, and especially their children, lured outside Islam.

Disturbingly, in countries such as Pakistan, Egypt and Iraq (which are major sources of immigrants to Canada), the Pew Research Center found more than half fail to condemn “honour killings.” And two out of three Muslims who say Shariah should be the law of the land “favour the death penalty” for those who convert to another religion.

However, it’s not only ultraconservative religious people who are wary of mixed unions. Some North American liberals are also starting to question them.

Naomi Schaefer Riley’s new book, ‘Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage Is Transforming America (Oxford University Press), shatters rose-coloured views of interfaith marriage.

She unveils how hard such unions can be.

Despite being in a challenging but fruitful interfaith marriage herself, Riley has performed extensive studies on the rise of what she describes as this “bittersweet trend.”

While the public face of interfaith marriage is often one of harmony, Riley has assembled evidence showing some harsh hidden realities, particularly regarding children.

“My survey suggests,” Riley writes, “that interfaith marriages are generally more unhappy – with lower rates of marital satisfaction – and often more unstable.”

Partners in interfaith relationships often don’t realize until years into their marriage, after having children, how important their original religion is to them.

“Faith is a tricky thing,” Riley writes. “It sneaks up on people.”

Riley warns people against believing love always triumphs and that any objections to marriage based on religion are misguided.

Tolerance, she astutely says, cannot solve every relationship problem.

Indeed, both Riley and the Pew Research Center have found that divorce rates are generally higher among interfaith couples.

Still, Riley maintains interfaith marriages can be successful, as long as partners are willing to put in extra relationship work.

Despite the evidence for and against, many open-minded people continue to dream mixed unions will become the blessed norm in North America and beyond.

But reality suggests this vision remains an optimistic projection. It’s far from inevitable.

Ref: https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/mixed-marriage-in-canada-forces-for-and-against

跨种族婚姻不普遍 隐性歧视很伤人

跨族联姻成“最后战场” 少数族裔为自己而战

附上两篇英文文章供大家参考：

跨种族婚姻不普遍隐性歧视很伤人