Love's Revolution: Interracial Marriage [Paperback]

Maria Root (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2001

When the Baby Boom generation was in college, the last miscegenation laws were declared unconstitutional, but interracial romances retained an aura of taboo. Since 1960 the number of mixed race marriages has doubled every decade. Today, the trend toward intermarriage continues, and the growing presence of interracial couples in the media, on college campuses, in the shopping malls and other public places draws little notice. "Love's Revolution" traces the social changes that account for the growth of intermarriage as well as the lingering prejudices and false beliefs that oppress racially mixed families. For this book author Maria P.P. Root, a clinical psychologist, interviewed some 200 people from a wide spectrum of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Speaking out about their views and experiences, these partners, family members, and children of mixed race marriages confirm that the barriers are gradually eroding; but they also testify to the heartache caused by family opposition and disapproving strangers. Root traces race prejudice to the various institutions that were structured to maintain white privilege, but the heart of the book is her analysis of what happens when people of different races decide to marry. Developing an analogy between families and types of businesses, she shows how both positive and negative reactions to such marriages are largely a matter of shared concepts of family rather than individual feelings about race. She probes into the identity issues that multiracial children confront and draws on her clinical experience to offer child-rearing recommendations for multiracial families. Root's "Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People" is a document that at once empowers multiracial people and educates those who ominously ask, "What about the children?" "Love's Revolution" paints an optimistic but not idealized picture of contemporary relationships. The "Ten Truths about Interracial Marriage" that close the book acknowledge that mixed race couples experience the same stresses as everyone else in addition to those arising from other people's prejudice or curiosity. Their divorce rates are only slightly higher than those of single race couples, which suggests that their success or failure at marriage is not necessarily a racial issue. And that is a revolutionary idea! Author note: Maria P. P. Root, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and past President of the Washington State Psychological Association.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In a time when race is much discussed yet less understood, Root's painstaking analysis of people who are challenging the meaning of race in America reads like a breath of fresh air. Through meticulous scholarship and an array of fascinating first-person narratives, Root provides one of the most comprehensive and insightful analyses of interracial marriage thus far. Love's Revolution makes a distinctive and important contribution to contemporary scholarship on race and ethnicity." - Patricia Hill Collins, University of Cincinnati, author of Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice "Maria Root's Love's Revolution provides a frank examination of the challenges that racial intermarriage entails. At the same time it offers insights into the transformative power of love on the individuals in these relationships and points to the revolutionary potential this transformation holds for re-envisioning the pursuit of a more equitable society." - G. Reginald Daniel, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara "This is the most valuable, practical book available on interracial marriage. Maria Root has done the reading public a service in writing Love's Revolution. It is a careful, social and psychological study of the growing phenomenon of interracial marriage. Her writing is open and accessible... She examines ideas about factors that have been thought to encourage or discourage interracial marriages, to make them more or less successful than other sorts of marriages. All of this with scholarly integrity and humane wisdom." - Paul Spickard, Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in 20th-Century America and co-editor of We Are a People (Temple) "Maria Root has given us extraordinary insight into the social and historical forces that both strain and strengthen interracial marriages. In remarkably revealing interviews with wives and husbands, as well as their families and friends, she documents the complexity of life 'on exhibit' and the abiding power of love." - M. Belinda Tucker, Professor of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, and author of The Decline of Marriage Among African Americans "A practical guide to meeting the challenges that sometimes arise in interracial marriage." - Seattle Times

From the Publisher

A contemporary snapshot of interracial marriage. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (January 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566398266
• ISBN-13: 978-1566398268
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #798,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well crafted into one book, December 7, 2003

By 

Tri Nguyen "UCDAVIS" (Davis, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love's Revolution: Interracial Marriage (Paperback)

This book has a complete history of interracial marriages in America. Maria P. Root included her research as well the research and studeis of others to demonstrate the aspects surrounding interracial marriages. The book started off talking about the love revolution, which touched on "love" as being the primary factor for two individuals despite their skin color to become one. Each chapter Root also included real life situations of those individuals that she studied to demonstarte the struggles and pain these interracial couples and children face in society. Root covered all aspects relating to interracial marriages quite well. The drawback of this book is that, it is repetitive in some points. This book also do not focus on interracial marriages upon the white and African Americans but covered all races. It is not a hardcore reading book, but very informative with a nice balance of facts and personal information.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique insights, decently written, not well-edited, but worth a read, November 27, 2008

By 

JDinNY (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love's Revolution: Interracial Marriage (Paperback)

Using the personal stories elicited from several hundred people of varying ages, races, ethnicities, educational levels and socio-economic classes, all from interracial families, Dr. Root sketches our nation's gradually maturing psychology on race and gender. Some typos and spelling errors are the starkest evidence of lack of attention to tightening this work in the editing stage. That said, I glean a cautiously hopeful message: that America is growing up, slowly, painfully. We've got decades of growing pains ahead of us arising out of racism, classism and the deeply-rooted, unconscious and therefore most pernicious societal prejudices that the author refers to as America's "caste" system. But Root makes a persuasive case that women of all races will play an increasingly vital role in mitigating prejudice in America. From a civil rights lawyer's perspective, this book provided me with insights about the power and limits of law, especially the US Supreme Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia (1967), to promote our nation's "growing up." The author tackles her subject as a psychologist, not a lawyer, but does a good job of integrating relevant legal developments into her overall analysis. This book has something to offer psychologists, sociologists, public policy makers, lawyers and all who are interested in the impact of racism, classism and other forms of prejudice on individual American families and our nation as a whole, and the important role that women could have in helping our nation make further progress against these problems.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book., June 30, 2010

By 

Cynthia Ruth - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Love's Revolution: Interracial Marriage (Paperback)

I read this book for my Marriage Institutions class and I learned so much from it. The condition of the book I received was decent for the amount of time I used it.