As American society becomes ever more diverse, the number of integrated marriages rises. In fact, since 1970 that number has doubled and the demographics suggest that it will continue to do so. For the purposes of this paper, in order to adequately narrow the topic, integrated marriage will mean black white marriage. The paper will concern itself with the way in which language and culture cause problems in integrated marriage. Besides scholarly sources, it will include personal narrations from collected interviews. Of course, fictional names will be given to these people for the sake of anonymity.
The paper itself will be organized into four major sections. The first section will outline the problem, and comment on the way in which language is acquired and unique within a given cultural situation. This will be followed by a section on Black and White integrated marriages, and will overview some of the unique problems associated with such. The third section will use children within Black and White integrated marriages as a case study to show how children are confused, not knowing what culture and language truly reflects their own views of life. Finally, the paper will conclude with a summation of the situation within Black and White integrated marriages, the cumulative effects on children, and suggestions for further research.
Interracial children, dubbed "rainbow children" in today's jargon, experience the same difficulties as single race children, but have added difficulties and a more complicated set of variables to sort through. One predominant difficulty is that of language. Scholars and philosophers have long debated the problems involved in the origins of language. Theories range from imitation to echo to natural expressions developed in a cogent manner (McCarthy, 1975; Noire, 1917; Sinclair, 1975). One thing is common, however; the cultural experience in which the child develops is a significant factor in the ...