title: Reconstituting racial histories and identities: the narratives of interracial couples.
abstract: This study explores the process by which interracial spouses construct narratives about their racial histories, identities, and experiences in their relationship together. Ten black-white couples were interviewed individually and conjointly. The results reflected interracial spouses' experience of their life together, their perception of others' perceptions of them, and their unique processes of negotiating racial, gender, and class differences. Black spouses, compared with white spouses, demonstrated a greater awareness of and sensitivity to social resistance to interracial couples, and black spouses' familial and personal histories were sometimes relegated to silence in the couple relationship. I discuss recommendations for marriage and family therapists working with interracial spouses.
authors.affiliation: University of Houston-Clear Lake, Box 201, 2700 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX 77058-1098, USA.
authors.forename: K D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Killian
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D000739:Anecdotes as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008388:Marital Therapy; D009518:New York; D012933:Social Identification; D012938:Social Perception; D018454:Spouses / Q000208:ethnology*; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*