Raymond Jami and Rocio Mendez

“As I grew up, my mom never taught me to just stick to one race,” said Rocio. “If the person was nice, then of course, I was going to be his or her friend, and color was not a factor for me at all.”

She and Raymond, both 17, are seniors at Lawrence Early College High School. Jenny Hamilton, 18, said she’s grown up in a diverse world, and so interracial dating has never seemed taboo. She’s white, dating Isaac Gill, 18, who is black. Both will attend college in the fall – Isaac is going to the University of Southern Indiana, and Jenny is going to Xavier University.

“I went to school with people from a bunch of different races, and my parents’ friends were of different races,” Jenny said.

Isaac agreed that interracial dating isn’t a big deal. “A good amount of my friends are black, and I also have a lot of white friends,” he said. Other area students who are open to interracial dating and marriage are: Brandon Boston, 18; Sudarsan Chandrasekhar, 18; and Megan Cochran, 18. They are like the majority of Americans, according to a 2005 Gallup Poll.

The survey found that more than 70 percent of Americans approve of interracial dating. And an even higher percentage – 95 percent – of young people approve. “Race isn’t the issue; finding the right person is the issue,” said Sudarsan, who is Indian and dated Megan, who is white, for a few weeks.

He will be a freshman at the University of Indianapolis. Nearly half of all Americans reported that they have dated outside of their race. Sixty percent of Americans, ages 18 to 29, have dated outside of their own race -- the highest percentage of all age groups. Interracial marriage may be widely accepted now, but it’s only been 41 years since the Supreme Court, in the landmark Loving v. Virginia decision, ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment. In fact, Barack Obama’s white mother and African father dated and married in 1961 at a time when interracial dating was legal in their home state of Hawaii, but illegal in 24 states, including Indiana.

Even more recently – just eight years ago – Bob Jones University still banned interracial dating. The conservative Christian university in South Carolina attracted national scrutiny for this policy after then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush spoke on its campus. This was during the presidential Republican primary, and Sen. John McCain was Bush’s strongest rival for the nomination. McCain lambasted Bush for not criticizing the interracial dating ban sooner and called the policy “idiotic.”

 
In light of public condemnation, university leaders eliminated the rule. Courtney Martin wrote earlier this year about how Obama’s ethnic background is critically important to today’s America. “For me and so many young people like me, Barack is the very public, matter-of-fact face of the fiercely and unapologetically interracial country we are creating,” she wrote in commentary for The New York Daily News. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of bi-racial babies born in the 70s has increased by 260 percent, compared to a 15 percent of single race babies. More than one million first generation biracial babies were born since 1989. “Obama’s rise gives us all a chance to grow up,” she continued. “We need plots that deal with complexity of contemporary interracial relationships, which sometimes are more affected by class or religious differences than race.” A feminist author, Martin has dated an African-American man for several years. Indianapolis teenagers agreed that religious differences are often more challenging than dealing with different skin colors. “My parents had issues with me swinging my religion back and forth. I was interested in Hinduism for a while, but then I saw that as a problem because my parents were Catholic,” said Megan, who will be a freshman at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. “I think that they were trying to kind of break me away from the non-Catholic thing and trying to keep me Catholic.” she said, noting that was one of the reasons she and Sudarsan broke up. Rocio and Raymond said that toward the beginning of their relationship religion was hard to sort out. “He didn’t know any other religion other than being Muslim, and I’ve grown up since I was a baby being Christian and Pentecostal,” Rocio said. “So those two kind of collided, and his family was totally against what my religion was and my beliefs were against his religion.” Raymond thought they could both keep their own faiths even if they got married, but Rocio was doubtful that could work. Recently he has considered becoming Christian. “In a way I was more open-minded about it. I really didn’t care, but she really cared because she grew up as a pastor’s kid and I didn’t,” said Raymond. On the other hand, he admitted that he used to be more close minded, holding some racist stereotypes. “Honestly, before I went out with a Mexican girl, I used to think Mexicans were dirty,” he said, laughing at his ignorance. “I honestly did, but now I don’t.” Brandon, who is biracial, is dating a Hispanic woman at the University of Notre Dame, which they both attend. He grew up around mostly whites because his mother remarried a white man when he was just a toddler. Brandon considers him his father. His dad grew up in Latin America, and the family is open to all different kinds of people. Brandon said he and his girlfriend have the same circle of friends, and all accept the relationship of a biracial man and Latino woman. “Among my generation and my friends, they are just happy that I found someone, and she found someone.” But the story is different when it comes to older generations in his girlfriend’s family. Other kids agreed that some older adults have more difficulty accepting their interracial relationships than young people do. “Her parents had had apparently some bad experiences with the African-American community and they didn’t want her to date a so-called black guy,” Brandon said. “They wanted her to be with either a white guy or a Hispanic guy.” Her father said he wouldn’t pay for his daughter’s education if she continued dating Brandon, so she’s seeing him secretly now. That’s why she wasn’t interviewed for this story. Brandon is frustrated by the bigotry. “That’s the thing about prejudice, he didn’t even base it off of meeting me. He is making the his decision solely on the fact of the color of my skin.” Yet these Indianapolis teens did not let differences stop them from appreciating the positives of interracial dating. Brandon enjoys the new experiences and different culture his Hispanic girlfriend brings to the relationship. For example, she sometimes makes him an authentic Mexican meal from family recipes. He also admires her fierce loyalty to her family. Out of respect for his girlfriend’s ethnic background, Raymond learned Spanish and can communicate with her mother better now. And even though she didn’t date Sudarsan long, Megan is glad she did.

“Dating interracially is one of the best things I can suggest,” she said. “Honestly it is. You’ll get a nice perspective for other people’s traditions and you’ll learn a lot too.”