An Interview with Jennifer Cole

1. How do you define yourself, racially, ethnically, and culturally?

Mixed race — Pacific Islander (Asian-American) and White. I was actually pretty lucky because as a kid, my mom was VERY vocal that I needed to check both the White and Pacific Islander boxes on census-type forms. She loves her family and her home, so I’m pretty sure she was scared shitless that I wouldn’t identify with her heritage. It makes sense because, growing up, my friends were predominantly White and the town that I lived in was pretty racially stratified. I think often in those situations, kids can grow up feeling ashamed or embarrassed about the parts of them that aren’t white, and I know that I felt that way for a long time. I have this distinct memory of being in fourth grade and not wanting to tell anyone in my class where I was born (Guam) because I felt like most of the kids had been born at the St. Mary’s hospital across the street. (A blonde friend of mine told me it was actually cool that I was born in Guam, which helped a bit but that’s probably a whole other story…). Around that time (early middle school) my grandma in Guam started to get sick and my family would visit more — for my mom, my brother, and I that often meant a whole six or seven weeks of the summer spent there. We visited this way for years, until my grandma passed away in college. Those summers were a hugely important part of me becoming more confident in my identity.

2. What are some dating trends you’ve noticed surrounding race?

Most of my straight girl friends in the Bay Area aren’t White (with many of us Asian), and I’ve noticed that we often date White guys. We are totally the Bay Area stereotype. I’m not really sure what the solution might be for better mixed race dating in the U.S. To some extent, I think that everyone action we make is in part political. But if I fall for someone who is White, I am going to date them, and I don’t think that I’m alone in that decision. I believe that much of the solution has to do with how people of color are represented in the U.S., so trying to make my media follows as inclusive as possible is one thing that I personally try to do, but it takes time to change a system of thinking. It’s also just really challenging to be part of a flawed system (racism) and trying to balance out how much of changing that system you should do in your intimately personal life (dating) versus other actions like protesting, calling out racist shit when you see it, etc.

3. How do you feel being mixed race impacts your dating life, if at all?

One of the things I’m really conscious of while dating is what my children will be like. I am really grateful that my mom was able to take us to Guam so much as kids, and it is something that I also want for my children. However, I am INCREDIBLY cautious about having kids that look White but feel connected to a land that has been colonized and exploited. I am scared that I would have children who feel entitled to all the beautiful (often fetishized) parts of island culture, without having to grapple with many of the challenges that come along with presenting as non or only half White in the U.S.

I also feel like I have a lot of interesting moments when dating White guys — I once dated someone who was in academia for the humanities. During one of our early dates, he asked me to clarify “how I identify” and when I said mixed race I saw this smile start to creep up on his face. In that moment, I had this flash forward image of us dating in the future and him introducing me to other academics feeling smug and enlightened that his gf was only half White.

I’ve noticed, especially when I’m dating guys who are also mixed race, we have great early dates because of the way we’ve both thought about the different parts of our identity and our level of connection on that issue. With one ex who wasn’t white, we would have a lot of moments where (because both of us are somewhat ambiguous looking) we could laugh and bond about all of the silly comments we’d gotten in the past about race.

I actually had a lot of conversations about dating and race in my now defunct book club (RIP Girls Gone Oscar Wilde) because I was going on a lot of dates with guys who weren’t White and my (nonWhite) friends were getting in very serious relationships with White guys. For me, the interest was in thinking about the differences in dating White guys versus men of color, but for my friends the conversation had gone on to the next level: What will my family think? What will my kids be like? How do I ensure my kids (should I have any) feel connected to my culture?

4. What about dating apps? Do you like them?

I’ve mostly used Tinder, which I hate less than most people. However, one of the reasons I don’t hate it is because I only go on a handful of dates every few months and only really hope for a good first date. For a while I had Hinge and The League, which were both duds. Although the league invited me to a “freeze your eggs” mixer and panel which was hilarious and the exact moment when I knew I was completely done with it. I decided I was done with Hinge when it kept trying to match me with an ex I had broken up with literally a week before.

5. We’ve all heard of fetishization- when a dominant culture creates a stereotypical and hyper sexualized version of another group, often leading to a trend in sexual and dating preference. Things like the “little China doll” or “fiery Latina”. Do you feel like this happens to you?

Because I look part Asian, I get some of the typical Asian stereotypes about hypersexualization. On dating apps, I’m mostly likely to get questions about “what I am”, and I don’t think that I’ve ever had a first date where it didn’t come up. Actually, the one time I decided to not talk about my race on a date it became the worst first date I have ever been on. I was out with this engineer and it started out alright. I had told him about my upbringing in the south and decided that I just didn’t feel like going into where my mom’s family was from and what that was like growing up (sometimes you don’t have the energy, ya know?), so I decided to skip it. For the next five minutes of the date, we started to talk about art and he kept bringing up Asian art and artists that he liked, which I found very strange. When I started to talk about the art that I liked, he straight up lost all self-control and interrupted to blurt out the question “so where exactly is your family from?” The cherry on top was at the end of the date when, after spilling some water on me, he said that he must have “just wanted to get me wet.” Google, you should probably fire one of your engineers.

6. Have you ever had a fight about race in a relationship?

I had a VERY stereotypical mixed race couple/election 2016 fight. At the time, I was (of course) dating a White guy who unlike most of my past exes, didn’t have very many friends who weren’t White. Due to his career path, he also had a habit of intellectualizing arguments that to me were mostly personal. (It was clear from early on that it was not going to end well.) Because he had spent a lot of time in White, conservative communities, he expressed a lot of concerns about how to cater to those voters in the election. Valid concerns, but every time we talked about the details, I got the feeling that every time he wasn’t spending time with me, he might be going off into the world chipping away at my rights and hiding it with a concern for the “end goal” which had mostly to do with focusing on the biases of racists and less about the implications of racism for those who aren’t White.

7. Does your knowledge and understanding of historical oppression, racism, fetishization, and skewed standards of attractiveness impact your choices around dating? How so or why not?

My knowledge of historical oppression to some extent impacts my dating choices in how it ties to a potential future family and what they would look like and where they would spend time.

8. Final thoughts?

Comment from my friend who is Asian, and whose last boyfriend was very Manchester by the Sea on mixed race dating- “Some things just can’t be taught” . lol