I guess the first time I thought about it was when I brought him to my parents’ house for the first time. I was trying to consciously decide if I was going to tell them that he was Asian.
I mean, I had never introduced any other guys as "Frank the Italian-American" or "Joao the Brazilian-American" (never happened, but a girl can dream) so why should I preface his introduction to my family with a mention of his race? So, I decided not to say anything.
When my mother answered the door, I could see some surprise register on her face. Clearly, she was not expecting him to be of a different race. To her credit, her initial surprise subsided and she was perfectly polite for the rest of the evening. My father reacted the way he reacted to any new person in the house; he ignored him by hiding himself with the newspaper.
My mother immediately started peppering him with questions about himself, as any mother would, "Where are you from? Do you have any siblings? What do you do?" When my suitor started talking about working towards his Ph.D. my father's newspaper slowly started to unveil his previously hidden face.
When my suitor mentioned that he was studying biology, the newspaper came down completely. That's when I realized that my Dad was not at all a racist, but an intellectual snob. It did not matter to my dad what race he was, as long as he was a hardworking, intelligent kind of guy. My mother was just pleased that he had manners. He knew how to say "please" and "thank you" and "that dinner was delicious!" and that was all that mattered to her.
After that evening, when they inquired about him, it was always, "How are things with the scientist?"
That was all that mattered
Didn't your dad realize your husband was an intellect when he saw that your husband was asian?
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