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Marriage during anti-miscegenation laws

Somehow they talked my father into letting me get married. I was not ready to get married. That was not quite what I had in mind. I was engaged. Once we got carried away with everything, checking a place, we found out the closest place we could get married was New Mexico. The first town was Lordsburg, so we went there. Herbert’s, my father was there and mother and Herbert’s brother and Herbert and I. We found this minister and he said the church is being cleaned so we couldn’t get married in there, but he could marry us in the parsonage. There were laws against getting mixed marriages in California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Montana. Again, I think they had more of the mixed people, Indians and Mexicans, but they listed all the people including Japanese and Chinese. You couldn’t even be half. Daddy worried about those things. It’s something I never worried about, never even thought about. That’s the thing, you figure you’re American till you’re American. That’s why it hurts in a way that I can't get a birth certificate. If I had been smart and looked fifty years ago, my uncle could have just written a letter. In fact, he wrote a letter for me, but it was too late, they wanted more proof.


anti-miscegenation laws hapa intermarriage interracial marriages marriages mixed marriages racially mixed people

Date: August 27, 2012

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Cindy Nakashima, Emily Anderson

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project. Courtesy of the USC Hapa Japan Database Project.

Interviewee Bio

Terry Janzen was born in Tokyo, Japan on July 15, 1930. She is half Japanese and grew up in both Japan and the United States. She was incarcerated at Poston for 6 months during World War II. She has been a teacher and a Chair for the Adams County Democratic Party in Washington. (April 2013)

 

* Terry Janzen interviewed by Cindy Nakashima and Emily Anderson for the exhibition, Visible & Invisible: A Hapa Japanese American History. A Collaboration with the USC Hapa Japan Database Project, videographer, Evan Kodani with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project.

Eric Morton
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Addressing multiracial identity can be difficult

Starred at wide receiver for Dartmouth College, now a patent attorney. Brother of Johnnie and Chad Morton.

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Johnnie Morton
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Gained appreciation of his multiracial heritage through participation in Nisei Relays

(b.1971) Professional football player.

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Kip Fulbeck
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Early consciousness of identity

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Finding parallels through art

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Refusing to use a Chinese name to identify as Asian American

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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The Hapa Project

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Perceptions of uniqueness

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Defusing myths through The Hapa Project

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Difficulty responding to the question "What are you?"

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Differing responses by gender to the Hapa Project

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Japanese Americans are more aware of their Hapa identity

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Hapa as his primary identity

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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International dimensions of hapa identity

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Issues of identity outside of America

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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Kip Fulbeck
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Imposing identity upon others

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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