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U.S. Campus Life

Syncretic love

By Masako Yamada


異文化同士の愛

アメリカはさまざまな人種・民族で成り立っている国です。恋人同士の文化的背景や習慣が異なることも珍しくありません。その違いからさまざまな障害も生まれます。でも、異文化・異宗教だからこそ、より強い結びつきが育まれることも…。最近、2組のユニークな結婚式に参加した雅子さんが、式の様子をレポートします。

A couple of friends and I were chatting outside the physics department building when one of them said he was going to Thailand for a month to visit his girlfriend, but that her parents didn't know about it. He added that she had warned him that if they found out about him, they would probably chase him down and kill him for turning their innocent daughter into a lying, disobedient girl.

We all offered him some sympathetic laughter. It's quite common to hear of even third- or fourth-generation immigrants being heavily pressured to marry partners of their "own kind." On the other hand, I think we were all secretly relieved that in spite of tensions between the different cultures in the States, not many people here really expect to be chased down and killed by their partner's parents. I doubt many people even expect to be disowned by relatives for marrying outside their own culture.

I've taken a casual inventory of the couples that I know, and I realize that an enormous proportion of stable relationships that I see around me are international or interracial relationships. I can easily list 20 or 30 such couples around me. I can't say that this is representative of the "American experience," since I happen to be in a particularly international environment, but it's a very natural situation for me.

Recently, I attended a multicultural wedding that was held over two days. One ceremony was a Hindu ceremony conducted in Sanskrit (and English), and the reception was an Indian buffet lunch. The bride wore a spectacular golden gown, and the groom wore a fancy turban with a bright pink ornament. The following day, a Jewish ceremony was conducted in Hebrew (and English), with a sit-down formal dinner afterward. The costumes were much more sedate, with all the men wearing yarmulkes.

This was a fascinating event, one in which the guests could see that the marriage would be an intermingling of cultures — and a blending of families. The relatives of the bride and groom actively participated in the rituals, providing the guests some very humorous moments, including when the bride's father gave his daughter away in a mixture of Sanskrit and gibberish. The guests were delighted by this wedding, but I've heard that it was in fact very difficult for the couple to find a Hindu priest and Jewish rabbi willing to perform for this "mixed" event.

I attended another wedding a few weeks ago, where both the bride and groom were Catholics. They were married in a Catholic church in the bride's hometown in Massachusetts, and finding a priest should have been easy. However, it ended up, being very hard, because they insisted on a priest who was bilingual in Spanish and English. The groom arrived from Colombia only a few months ago. After much effort, they managed to find a lovely priest, and the Mass was conducted in both Spanish and English. Even the friends who read Scriptures read them in Spanish and English. I was happy that they fulfilled their vision in spite of the initial obstacles.

When the blending of disparate cultures simply doesn't seem to work, it's not uncommon for one side to make a major "compromise." I've attended a Jewish wedding where the groom had converted to Judaism in order to marry his wife. He used to be active in his church, but chose to do this from the bottom of his heart, and as far as I could see, there was joy and support from both sides of the family upon his conversion, a process that took him many years of contemplation and study.

The process of putting together different cultures is never easy, especially when families are involved, but it's probably easier in the States than it is elsewhere. Many people bemoan the dilution of ancient cultures, but I think there's something very exciting about the process of learning, blending, negotiating and, yes, compromising. And I'm sure that I'm not just saying this because I'm in an international relationship, myself.


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Shukan ST: June 1, 2001

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