ABSTRACT
My parents talk little about their interracial marriage and the difficulties they have encountered as a couple. My father grew up in Alabama, my mother in a small town in Austria. My father never shared with me his mother and sister’s disapproval of his marriage to my mother. I am only aware of this because on one or two occasions, my mother had made a reference to their hostility toward her and me during the first two years we were in the United States. After being told of my father’s intention of marrying my mother, my grandmother strongly opposed it and refused to welcome “white trash” into her family. And for a long time, I was not welcome in her home either, because I was the child of such a sinful marriage. Once, at about age 2, when I was visiting my father’s stepsister, my grandmother allowed me into her home, though she still rejected my mother, her “white” daughter-in-law.
