From Publishers Weekly
U.S. government bodies have tried to regulate interracial intimacy from the day Pocahontas married John Rolfe up through Loving v. Virginia, which found antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional in 1967. Even without a solid biological definition of race, laws regarding the mixing of the races have been upheld by the highest courts to prevent dilution or devaluation of white privilege, argues Moran, professor at U.C. Berkeley School of Law, based on her studies of historical regulations created for different ethnicities. The history of interracial intimacy has crucial ongoing implications, she believes, pointing to America's relatively few interracial marriages today. Do workplace and residential segregation keep us from meeting people of other ethnicities? Do the economics of marriage encourage marrying "up" or equal, which may favor a same-race match? There are no clear answers, though Moran reveals intriguing insights from examining the "outmarriage" rates of various groups. Not surprisingly, she finds that differing "racialized images of sexuality" account for many discrepanciese.g., black women don't marry out much; Asian-American women do. With this race-intimacy perspective, Moran traces adoption and child custody policy and census bureau policies on racial identity. While hopeful for America's more multiracial future generations, Moran is well aware of the bureaucratic and public apathy that preserves the segregated status quo. Her attention to detail can be daunting, but legal scholars will prize her research. General readers may find the going slow, though the weirder anecdotes from our racial history enliven this study, which is likely to become a classic in its field. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Several million Americans checked more than one race when they completed the 2000 census. University of California at Berkley law professor Moran examines the history of U.S. regulation of cross-racial romance, considering the impact of that regulation on the autonomy of individuals and families as well as on racial identity and equality. Her book's first half culminates in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, with Chief Justice Warren declaring antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional discrimination. The second half explores the post-Loving struggle between color-blindness and color-consciousness, including "the persistence of racial endogamy," the complex considerations in interracial adoption and custody situations, and "the new multiracialism" reflected in the 2000 census. Moran--the daughter of an Irish father and Mexican mother--is attuned to the nuances of race in this polyglot nation, and supplies thoughtful analysis of these nuances. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
As late as the 1960s, states could legally punish minorities who either had sex with or married persons outside of their racial groups. In this first comprehensive study of the legal regulation of interracial relationships, Rachel Moran grapples with the consequences of that history, candidly confronting its profound effects on not only conceptions of race and identity, but on ideas about sex, marriage, and family.





From the Inside Flap
After decades of struggle to promote racial equality and ensure personal freedom, interracial intimacy remains one of the least understood areas of race relations in the United States. Few people realize that as late as the 1960s state legislatures were free to punish individuals who either had sec with or married persons outside their racial and ethnic groups. The first history of the legal regulation of interracial relationships, Rachel R. Moran's groundbreaking book also grapples with the consequences of that history.

Crossing disciplinary lines, Moran looks in depth at interracial intimacy in America from colonial times to the present. She traces the evolution of bans on intermarriage and explains why blacks and Asians faced harsh penalties while Native Americans and Latinos did not. She provides fresh insight into how these laws served complex purposes, why they remained on the books for so long, and what led to their eventual demise. As Moran demonstrates, the United States Supreme Court could not declare statutes barring intermarriage unconstitutional until the civil rights movement, coupled with the sexual revolution, has transformed prevailing views about race, sex, and marriage.

Although the Supreme Court established a principle of color blindness in the regulation of intimacy when it struck down bans on intermarriage, centuries of segregation in sex, marriage, and family life are not easily undone. Today high rates of same-race marriage persist, adoption across the color line generates intese controversy, and census takers struggle to classify multiracial citizens. With candor and compassion, Moran confronts such emerging issues in her account of the ongoing struggle to make freedom and equality a reality in private life. Interracial Intimacy--with its exploration of the complicated interplay of race and romance, the challenge of forging family ties across the color line, and the gowing visibility of multiracial Americans--reveals that even today, interracial relationships remain fragile arrangements poised between a history of pervasive segregation and a hope of personal transcendence.



About the Author
Rachel F. Moran is the Robert D. and Leslie-Kay Raven Professor of Law at the University of California School of Law, Berkeley.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"After decades of struggle to promote racial equality and ensure personal freedom, interracial intimacy remains one of the least understood areas of race relations in the United States. Few people realize that as late as the 1960s state legislatures were free to punish individuals who either had sex with or married persons outside their racial and ethnic groups. The first history of the legal regulation of interracial relationships, Rachel F. Moran's ground-breaking book also grapples with the consequences of that history." "Crossing disciplinary lines, Moran looks in depth at interracial intimacy in America from colonial times to the present. She traces the evolution of bans on intermarriage and explains why blacks and Asians faced harsh penalties while Native Americans and Latinos did not. She provides fresh insight into how these laws served complex purposes, why they remained on the books for so long, and what led to their eventual demise. As Moran demonstrates, the United States Supreme Court could not declare statutes barring intermarriage unconstitutional until the civil rights movement, coupled with the sexual revolution, had transformed prevailing views about race, sex, and marriage." "Although the Supreme Court established a principle of color blindness in the regulation of intimacy when it struck down bans on intermarriage, centuries of segregation in sex, marriage, and family life are not easily undone. Today high rates of same-race marriage persist, adoption across the color line generates intense controversy, and census takers struggle to classify multiracial citizens. With candor and compassion, Moran confronts such emerging issues in her account of the ongoing struggle to make freedom and equality a reality in private life. Interracial Intimacy - with its exploration of the complicated interplay of race and romance, the challenge of forging family ties across the color line, and the growing visibility of multiracial Americans - reveals that even

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly