Loving Day

[nanila]

I had wanted to post this yesterday, as it was the 50th anniversary, but ran out of time. So, a day late, but no less important: Here is my very personal celebration of the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision, handed down on 12 June 1967, that legalised interracial marriage in the USA.

Without it, my parents might have been jailed or permanently separated. Without it, I might not exist. I am grateful that what was just and correct prevailed in the face of popular opinion.


[Image of my dad, baby!me and my mom, with one of my aunties in the pool at a Honolulu hotel. Photo taken by my maternal grandfather.]


[Image of me in a flowery yellow dress being cuddled, and surrounded, by my Filipino cousins and aunties.]

Comments

[rmc28]

<3 <3 <3

[nanila]

<3 <3 <3

[whereisirisnow]

Baby-you and Keiki are so similar!!

[haggis]

That was my thought! So cute :)

[alatefeline]

Thank you for sharing these. Those photos are wonderful.

[nanila]

Thank you for saying so. <3

[cactus_rs]

It blows my mind that decisions like this are in living memory. Like we had figured out nuclear bombs but couldn't deal with interracial marriage? Better late than never, I guess.

Those photos are adorable.

[nanila]

Some people still can't deal with interracial marriage. Fortunately, though, they don't get to have legal grounds to contest our right to it.

[evilsusan]

So much love in the photos. It's insane anyone ever thought it was wrong.

[nanila]

Thank you. And of course I agree!

[cmcmck]

It led to all sorts else around the world as well- like the fact that I have a legal identity at all and am married........

[nanila]

Both of which I'm very glad for & also annoyed that the fight to maintain them continues.

[silveradept]

Here's to the hope that nobody is going to be hateful enough to try outlawing love between consenting adults again.

[nanila]

*clinks glass* I'll drink to that.

[redsixwing]

N'awwwwwwww. <3 <3 <3

[nanila]

:D :D :D <3

[lurkingcat]

♥ ♥ ♥

[nanila]

♥ × 3!

[roarofsilence]

Gorgeous <3

[nanila]

Thank you. <3

[angelofthenorth]

That's lovely

[nanila]

Loving Day is such a good name for it. :)

[coughingbear]

So lovely.

It's dusty in here.

[nanila]

Aw. Thank you. :)

[kotturinn]

Lovely.

So happy in the one with your cousins and aunts!

[nanila]

I was a very smiley baby, allegedly. :)

[davidgillon]

So absurd a law, and so appropriately named a decision.

[nanila]

Indeed. It would be churlish not to celebrate Loving Day.

[worlds_of_smoke]

♥

[nanila]

♥!

[gorgeousnerd]

Great pictures and a great post. ♥

[nanila]

Thank you. ♥

[st_aurafina]

Gorgeous photos (I agree, you look just like Keiki!) And a great reason to post. <3 <3 <3

[nanila]

Aw, thank you. There's one thing that always amuses me about the first photo, and that's the white tourists looking over with big smiles on their faces.

[mortician]

Adorable photos. <3

[nanila]

Thank you. <3

[soliano]

Adorable and a good looking family. Sadly there is still much backwards thinking.

[nanila]

Thanks, and yes, there is. Happily in this instance the backwards thinking doesn't get to have any legal backing.

[mysterysquid]

So ridiculously recent.

As I mentioned on FB, that was the year Aboriginal Australians were recognized in the census and allowed to vote.

Please let's NOT go back to those days? Ever?

[nanila]

Please let's NOT go back to those days? Ever?

That sounds like a grand plan. I'm in.

[novel_machinist]

I love old pictures like this. <3 It's super hard to imagine that there are people who are alive still who remember when people made such a big deal out of what seems like such a strange and arbitrary thing.

[nanila]

My parents largely kept the impact of (micro)aggressions away from me when they could, but I vividly remember an occasion when the three of us crossed from Canada into Michigan on a road trip and the US border guards gave my dad a really hard time, asking him for his birth certificate, questioning our familial relationships. He was furious.

[ayebydan]

♥

[nanila]

♥! :)

[trascendenza]

Man, this gets me right in the feels. Such adorable photos.

I'm so glad that we exist! <333

[nanila]

*high-fives* <333

[paw_prints]

It's terrible that interracial marriage was ever illegal in the first place, but the fact that it didn't become legal until 1967 just blows my mind!! That's almost within my own lifetime.

Lovely, lovely photos! You have a beautiful family! And like others have said - baby Keiko is the dead spit of you when you were wee (sunny smile included)!

[nanila]

I don't think all states had explicit anti-miscegenation laws on the books, but the decision by the Supreme Court rendered all of the ones that did, moot.

Thank you! I'm very lucky to have quite a lot of photos from my early childhood. My maternal grandfather and my parents were shutterbugs.

Keiki is aptly nicknamed for more than one reason. In Hawai'ian, it means "small child", so that's an obvious choice. But in horticulture (and I didn't know this when I picked it for internet usage), a keiki is a plant produced asexually by an orchid plant. The baby plant is an exact clone of the mother plant. ^.^

[forthwritten]

Baby Nanila was adorable! And spookily similar to Baby Keiki.

[nanila]

Aw, thank you! Yes, he's definitely my child - the phenotypical relationship is strong there.