During a family outing to our city's Italian district when I was only ten years old, my mother told me that if I married an Italian, the wedding could take place at the big church on the corner. Twenty years later, I'm planning to get married in that same church - but not to an Italian. My fiancé, Frank, is of mixed Filipino and Spanish descent.

Growing up in a neighborhood that was ninety-five percent Caucasian (as the only Italian in my class, I was considered exotic), I never imagined that my most important relationship, the one that will hopefully lead to marriage and children, would be with a person of another race. The term "interracial dating" often evokes images of ostracism by family, friends, and community, lynch mob violence, and other Jungle Fever-type scenarios. But that's not the case with every interracial relationship, and at times even seemingly old-fashioned people may welcome mixed couples with open arms.

Some individuals do have a problem with interracial dating and marriage. For example, White Supremacists frequently decry the "mongrelization" of the European gene pool (there's somewhat of a double standard in their thinking, as unions between White women and men of color bother them much more than those between Caucasian men and women of other races). However, many non-racist people, regardless of their ethnic background, also harbor misgivings about romance across color lines.

Then there's the question of kids. Some people don't object to adults engaging in interracial relations but feel they should not produce children who might be hurt by finding themselves "caught between two worlds yet part of neither." While White racists have used the "What about the children?" argument as a smokescreen for their segregationist agenda, left-wingers too have expressed concern that biracial children might be prone to confusion and psychological maladjustment. Nevertheless, studies comparing mixed-race kids with their monoracial peers have shown that in terms of self-esteem, emotional well-being and other areas the first group of children does just as well as or even better than the second. Like the deprived child of the working mother, the "tragic mulatto" (or tragic individual of any mixed background) seems to be another case of smoke without fire.

My own family has no objections to me dating a person of color. One of my aunts actually looks forward to having cute mixed-race nieces and nephews. And by and large, my Italian friends, neighbors, colleagues and acquaintances haven't given me any flack about my choice of mate. Of course there's always a rotten apple in every barrel, like one columnist in a Montreal Italian-language newspaper who wrote that all scientists oppose race mixing (he didn't mention the fact that some scientists - including a well-known one of Italian descent in the United States - have or have had partners of other races). In general, though, miscegenation (race mixing) doesn't appear to be a big taboo in the Italian community, as seen in the number of high-profile intermarriages involving people of Italian origin.

The individuals most affected by interracial dating are obviously the couple themselves. Sometimes they must adjust to traditions that may seem useless, bizarre, or downright distasteful to them. Frank and I haven't experienced too many cultural conflicts, however. In fact, we've found we have more in common culturally than might be expected. Among the things we share is the Roman Catholic faith (which automatically settles the question of how to raise the children), a Spanish colonial history (my region of origin, Sicily, was under Spain's control for three centuries), and strong family ties. As one Jewish-American woman wrote of her marriage to a man of Lebanese descent, Frank's and my relationship isn't really an intercultural one.

I'd like to end with a bit of advice for anyone considering getting involved with someone of another race. First, don't date the person in order to make a statement against racism. You're going out with an individual, not a whole group, so if you want to fight discrimination, join an anti-racist organization. Second, don't forgo having children for fear that they might be maladjusted; science has proved the "tragic mulatto" concept wrong. Third, expect some criticism, but know how to answer back to it. And finally, remember that you'll face the same challenges as any other couple, no matter what their racial makeup.

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