Intercultural Marriage

In the movie Days of Waiting the topic of intercultural and interracial marriage came up with Estelle and her Japanese husband. I think that what she did was extremely brave because it would have been easy to stay behind and not have to endure the internment camps since she was Caucasian. I couldn't imagine how hard it must have been to deal with the discrimination she faced because a marriage between two people of different ethnicities was not accepted back then. Besides the legal barriers that stopped these marriages, I think the traditions and cultural pressures from all ethnicities also have something to do with the taboo against interracial relationships. Part of that has to do with staying within your comfort zone, which would be to marry someone who shares the same culture as you and whose family would be comfortable integrating with yours. If you marry someone from the same race there wouldn't be as many issues with language barriers between the families, religion to raise your children into, or other differences. I've heard of many parents who pressure their children into marrying a person of the same culture, partly because of ethnocentrism but also because it's easier to get to become a family with people that share the same experiences as you. There are more and more interracial couples now and I think it has to do with examples set by people like Estelle who show that race doesn't have to be a divider when it comes to relationships.