Yvette dates men from different backgrounds, but her Dominican dad worries that cultural and racial tensions may lead to heartbreak. And relationship coach Sherrae Lachhu shows us how to use our core values to advocate for ourselves and our romantic partners.
Yvette Bodden is the author and founder of Awakened-Woman. You can learn more about her work, book and podcast here.
Featured Expert:
Sherrae Lachhu is a licensed marriage and family therapist who empowers individuals to be the best versions of themselves in life, love, and business through her speaking, coaching, consulting, and therapy services. With over two decades of experience in community-based mental health, Sherrae has worked with a diverse range of clients from all walks of life. She has provided therapy to individuals, couples and families, provided supervision and mentorship to numerous coaches and clinicians, and served as a clinical director at a local mental health agency. In 2021, Sherrae made the decision to leave community-based mental health to solely focus on launching her virtual practice to support individuals, couples and businesses. As a highly regarded professional, Sherrae specializes in working with Black, interracial, and multicultural individuals and couples, and has helped many individuals, couples, and organizations to maximize their strengths and overcome their challenges. Learn more about her work here.
If you liked this show listen to When Mom Doesn't Believe in Romantic Love and Dating, But Not to Get Married, the first episode on a special series on dating and relationships.
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Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi everybody. Today we have Yvette with us. Dating outside her Dominican culture is not the norm in Yvette's family. She knows her father has concerns about how a partner's family might treat her and about how accepting they might be. But Yvette has a different perspective based on her own experiences dating, which makes talking to her parents about her relationships and parsing through their well-meaning advice, very, very challenging. Let's get into it.
Yvette: My name is Yvette Bodden. I am the founder and author of Awakened Woman as well as the author of A Journey to Becoming the Best Self, published in 2019. I was born and raised in New York City. My parents are Dominican immigrants and growing up I called my parents mamí and papí.
Dating in my family, first of all, we were three girls, one boy. My dad was a typical Dominican man and his first job responsibility was to protect his daughters. I did like boys and they were all Dominican, but when I got to high school, I saw something different for the first time. I sort of wanted to know what it would be like to date outside my culture, and my mom was very easygoing, but my dad was more concerned about what the reaction would be on the other side of that relationship.
My parents were very old school. I'm brown skinned. There wasn't a question about whether they were white or black. We were Dominican and that was it, point-blank. I can't really say for sure that race played a role. We never had those direct conversations, but it was the seventies, so I had to make my own conclusions sometimes.
My first real boyfriend, who was my first love, he was a Greek boy or young men. It really came up when I introduced him to the family and he saw the boy. He mentioned “he's not from our culture, there might be some roadblocks, ot everyone may be as open to a relationship that has two different cultures.” I think he was afraid that I would get hurt and maybe I would see the ugly side of society.
My parents embraced him. He spoke Spanish fluently. He understood the culture. He had a lot of friends that were sort of in the community. So it was great. After about a year, I went to visit his family, and I remember his mother, very old-school, Greek, conservative woman. She looked at me from top to bottom and she barely said two words. So I understood in that moment what my dad meant.
Now, where I am in life, I never stopped dating outside my culture. I actually enjoy those differences. Learning about other cultures, to me, the most important thing is that you are a good person and you are respectful and you're a good partner.
I've been dating a man for a long time now, and he is of Armenian background and it's really simple, but just watching him enjoy my music, he loves Romeo Santos, he loves Bad Bunny. We've attended Romeo Santos concerts. Sharing that with him and giving him that experience is something that I'm sure he'll never forget whether he's with me or not, because I shared a piece of me with him.
There have been moments, particularly in the past couple years when the world has changed so much. There have been some challenges in dating outside the culture where that conversation with my dad comes up, his fears come up and it's almost like a little reminder that people see the difference. Not everyone, but people see the differences.
Lantigua: Like Yvette, I was also in a long, long-term interracial intercultural relationship. So her story reminded me that in those relationships we're often learning to navigate intricate dynamics with a partner, pretty much on the fly. You never know when a difference is going to pop up and need to be addressed, but if you're a first gen, who is also the first in the family to date outside of your culture, oof, you are learning to manage all the family dynamics while your romantic life brings things up on both sides of the relationship. So how exactly do we do all of this? To help us figure it out, I did what I always do. I called in an expert.
Sherrae Lachhu:
I am Sherrae Lachhu. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I'm also a speaker, coach and a consultant, and I'm super excited to be here talking today about relationships and family and love and communication.
Lantigua: We're so happy to have you. Thank you for coming back. Same question as always. What did you hear as you listened to Yvette's story?
Lachhu: What I heard was a daughter feeling like “I understand times were different, things may not have been acceptable,” and then there was this almost secrecy too, “I never really asked, I didn't really want to get into it, but I'm assuming that it really wasn't race-related, really just about culturally, ethnically, this is who we are, and anyone outside of this really couldn't understand.” And I mean, I get it. I think there's some things that our parents often don't want us to be othered. Life is already hard enough, particularly when you are ethnic and ethnic minority or racial minority, or been minoritized, I should say. And so in that space, I could understand when people feel like ...
Lantigua: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've never heard this one.
Lachhu: Sure.
Lantigua: When you've been minoritized. Oh my God, that is lovely.
Lachhu: Yes, I've had to correct myself. It's like, technically we are not the minority. All of our people groups have been minoritized, colonized, and so we have been reduced systemically, but we are not minorities.
Lantigua: Oh my God. I know that that was a little of a sidebar, but okay, let's get back to Yvette's story, because all of the things that you said you heard in her story, I also heard in her story. So because I'm Dominican, I was just kind of nodding along, especially because I was married to a Nigerian and my children are part Nigerian. And we're raising them very aware of their multiple identities. And so I understood the hesitation initially, which is like maybe if we don't talk about it won't be a thing. So let's talk a little bit about how you help your clients deal with that hesitation, because sometimes that hesitation kind of builds and it doesn't always end well.
Lachhu: What I often walk my clients through, and I have a lot of clients that are from different backgrounds, and what I tell them is, how do we figure out, based on what you value most, what you need to do next?
And so what they start with is what are the things you value most? So if it comes to family, I value family. I value faith, I value autonomy. If my value for autonomy supersedes my value of family, I love my family, but I want to be autonomous more than anything else, well then when I make my action steps, I'm going to make it with that in mind, with that hierarchy of needs of values in mind. And so I'll often use an example of even myself and my husband who is Indo-Guyanese, so his entire family is Indian and my entire family is Black American. And so if my family had an issue with it, that wouldn't serve me well because I'm very close to my family and I love them, but there's a hierarchy of needs and my need for love and acceptance supersedes where it has to come from.
Lantigua: Oh, once you identify your own hierarchy of needs, you just have to identify where you want that need and how you want it to be met.
Lachhu: Absolutely. And so by doing that, you're taking agency of your life. The more sure you are of yourself and your own identity and how you put those needs and how you put those values, then when you have that clarity and you approach your family with that clarity, oftentimes they're willing to accept it. They may not like it, but they're willing to accept it.
Lantigua: Oh, I really, really love the way you framed that because we're good as first gens at understanding this concept of what are my basic needs? What are the things that actually help me to survive and to thrive? So I have a couple of follow up questions. The first one is, as a couple, what are the conversations that we should have if we believe that these are going to be issues, or if we begin to experience these things as being issues, our differences to our respective families, how do we get onto the same page and how do we come up with a strategy that makes sense for our relationship?
Lachhu: When you're first gen, you're doing something different than was set before you. So when we break away from framework, when we create new blueprints, when I break away from that, there's a novelty. It's a novel experience. That's great. It's exhilarating, but it can be frightening because the people before me didn't walk the same path. That's why they're scared for me. So how do I do it? You're very hard-pressed to figure out a way to look at your standards, your expectations, and your boundaries without clearly assessing your values. When people say, what are your core values, you'll have people give you a whole litany, like a whole long list of a bunch of things, but they haven't really, they're aspirational. So I use this thing called ...
Lantigua: You're like, you wish you had those values.
Lachhu: Yeah because I know they don't have those values. Because when I ask them things about their life that they're presenting me with, I'm like, well, if your values were congruent with what you just said, you wouldn't be here with the same problems that you have. If your value is that you are to be respected above all else, you wouldn't find yourself in a relationship or friendships where you're constantly being manipulated and exploited. And so by saying, what does my life show that I value? And being able to differentiate between aspirational values and earnest values. And so usually when couples are here and they're thinking like, Okay, I'm breaking away from something that's traditional. How do I do this? Figure that out. What are my values? If my values are some of the traditional things that I love, my parents love, my family love, can I show them how I can incorporate that? Am I with a partner that understands the value of incorporating that? But you have to know what that looks like before you take that back to the people who love and care about you.
Lantigua: All right. So I'm going to share something that…We had pastoral guidance before we got married a long, long time ago. And one of the things that stuck with me was that the pastor told us in session that we are our partner’s ambassadors to our families.
Lachhu: Bingo. Yes.
Lantigua: Oh, you agree? Okay, okay.
Lachhu: Yes. I told my husband, not just even to the family, I told him, you are now representing Black folks. Act accordingly.
Lantigua: Yes, the responsibility is yours!
Lachhu: The responsibility. The movies you didn't know, the heritage you didn't know, you need to know. And he also has partially black children. His children are Douglas, they're half Indian, half Black. This is now part of your family. You are the representative. So when I'm not in spaces that you're, I don't need you to come back and tell me what was said, I need you to correct it on the front lines. I believe you do have a responsibility because even if you think you don't have it for you, if you choose to have children, they can't be blindly led. Give them some facilitation or guidance or direction.
Lantigua: So let's go back into Yvette's story because she talks very specifically about when she was dating a guy who was Greek. She had an opportunity to visit with his mother, and she literally saw his mother just looking her up and down, being a little bit stoic and a little bit distant. What was her Greek boyfriend's responsibility at that point?
Lachhu: I will say this, I don't think it was just his responsibility. I think it was also her responsibility. I think her responsibility is to tell him what his responsibility is.
Lantigua: Ooh. Say that louder for those in the bleachers.
Lachhu: Let let me explain to you guys. When you are the one that is being introduced, you don't wait to see what they may do. You go in with the assumption that I need to teach people how I expect to be protected and treated when I'm going into unfamiliar circumstances, when I'm going into territory that is not my own, that I am not familiar with, right? That's the first rule of responsibility, being very clear and direct about what your expectations are for not just the treatment you will receive because he can't control that, but with saying how I expect you to conduct yourself as I am the stranger coming into this. I believe that his expectation was, know your family, sir Like, you knew your family. I know my family. Prepare your family for your mate or your significant other and prepare your significant other for them.
So what he clearly could have said is, "My mom is funny acting. I'll be honest. Listen, at the end of the day, I want to be with you and I get to choose who I want to be with, but I do not want you going into the situation blind. So I want to let you know what's happening so that if she does or says anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, we're leaving, would that be appropriate for you?" And so if you know that that's your mom, it's okay. You can still love your mom. You can even still invite your girlfriend. Prepare her accordingly, because to walk in a situation like that unprepared, you feel unprotected by the person that is supposed to be thinking about you or caring about you.
Lantigua: All right. My last question goes to, what level of tolerance should a partner have when there are repeat instances? Because I have throughout my life experienced both marital and non-marital, mostly heteronormative relationships where people are like, oh, well, my mom just doesn't like her, so she doesn't ever go when the kids and I go visit. And it just becomes a thing. And so you spend so much time navigating this thing that everyone has come to accept that these two people simply don't get along, don't like each other, whatever that might be. At what point should that be a consideration for not being in this relationship anymore?
Lachhu: So hopefully prior to making a strong commitment ...
Lantigua: Marriage.
Lachhu: ...Be a marriage or kids, but sometimes that doesn't work that way. What I will say is in my 20 plus years of experience, I have never found it highly successful for people to not clearly draw the lines when there is a schism. If the mate on either side doesn't clearly draw their lines with where their allegiance first lies, not that they have to disregard the other people, but this person is prioritized over, because everything is hierarchical.
Mom and wife can't be on the same level. Father and husband can't be on the same level. There has to be a hierarchy. If there is not, someone's going to be offended either way. Relationships don't often last when people feel like they are made to have to tolerate things. So you need to ask yourself, how important is it that I'm integrated into their family? How important is it that this person likes my family and that my family likes them? And then how important is it that I am integrated into their family? It goes back again, the values. What do you value? If you're a big family person and you want the families to be blended, you can't do that job by yourself. It takes two parties to do it. That needs to be done and said from the outset,
Lantigua: You have been so incredibly insightful, Sherrae. Thank you so much.
Lachhu: Thank you. It was a pleasure as always.
Lantigua: All right. Here's what we learned from Sherrae today.
Identify your earnest values. Be honest with yourself about what's actually important to you. This will help you prioritize your needs and figure out who can help you meet those needs.
Voice your expectations. Be proactive, and explain to your partner how you want to be treated and guided as you navigate unfamiliar situations with their family.
And remember, clarify your relationship hierarchies. First, get clear about where your allegiance lies, and communicate that to your loved ones. Doing so will help you make important decisions and let everyone know where you stand.
Thank you for listening, and thank you for sharing us. How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer. Trent Lightburn mixed this episode. I'm the creator and host Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @talktomamipapi. Bye everybody. Talk to you soon.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “Her Intercultural Dating Makes Papí Nervous” How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything, LWC Studios., February 27, 2023. TalkToMamiPapi.com.
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