When Anti-Miscegenation Laws Reflected the Worst Kind of Bigotry

My grandparents’ marriage became a national ‘scandal’ because of anti-Asian hate

Aimee Liu
Published in
6 min readMay 15, 2021

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Denver Post, May 29, 1906. Image: Author

“Los Angeles Heiress Elopes With a Chink”

That headline still shocks me. It shouldn’t. Epithets like “chink”and “Chinaman” may have fallen from favor, but as we’ve seen throughout the past year, anti-Asian hate seethes just below America’s surface. And historically, nothing triggers racist venom like the prospect of “mongrelization.” To prevent intermarriage between the races, America kept anti-miscegenation laws on the books for three centuries, from the 1600s until 1967. When my Chinese grandfather married my white American grandmother in 1906, those laws were still in effect throughout the West, which is why my grandparents had to cross five states to legalize their union.

None of that history is new to me. I’ve spent decades writing about my father’s family, even basing my novel Cloud Mountain on this epic marriage. But until a couple years ago, when a distant relative sent me the actual news clippings about their wedding odyssey, I assumed it was a private affair. What shocks me is that racist hatred stalked and hounded them every step of the way. Newspapers from coast to coast tracked their search for a kindly minister, published updates from…

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#StopAsianHate
#StopAsianHate

Published in #StopAsianHate

#StopAsianHate is a former blog from Medium chronicling the xenophobia and anti-Asian racism that plagues America. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Aimee Liu
Aimee Liu

Written by Aimee Liu

Author, Asian-American novels (Glorious Boy), nonfiction on eating disorders (Gaining), writing, wellness. Published @Hachette. MFA & more@ aimeeliu.net