According to Our Hearts
Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and the Law of the Multiracial Family
-
- $36.99
-
- $36.99
Publisher Description
This landmark book looks at what it means to be a multiracial couple in the United States today. According to Our Hearts begins with a look back at a 1925 case in which a two-month marriage ends with a man suing his wife for misrepresentation of her race, and shows how our society has yet to come to terms with interracial marriage. Angela Onwuachi-Willig examines the issue by drawing from a variety of sources, including her own experiences. She argues that housing law, family law, and employment law fail, in important ways, to protect multiracial couples. In a society in which marriage is used to give, withhold, and take away status—in the workplace and elsewhere—she says interracial couples are at a disadvantage, which is only exacerbated by current law.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A sweeping re-examination of race from vantage point of loving interracial relationships, this book critically shifts away from conflicts between races toward conflicts between interracial families and society. Law professor Ouwuachi-Willig uses the romance of Alice Beatrice Rhineland and Leonard Kip Rhinelander that resulted in 1925 Supreme Court case, Rhinelander v. Rhineland, as the focal point for her investigation of today's society. She recounts the romance and marriage leading up to the publicized trial all the way through to its aftermath and lasting implications. Steering the conversation towards a critique of current legislation, Ouwuachi -Willig's draws on a variety of sources including her own experiences to humanize the disadvantages within the law that are still existent today. She highlights the way government administration indirectly separates multi-racial families into individuals, each with a discrete racial identity. In reality family is one unit within society, large enough for multiple racial identities. Her talent for blending statistics and storytelling shine as Ouwuachi -Willig passionately and logically argues to create interraciality as a protected category within the law.
