Update: My (26F) fiancee (28M) says I am not American, despite being born and raised here.

A Redditor (26F) has been grappling with her fiancé (28M), Alan, making ignorant remarks about her identity, including claiming that she isn’t truly American despite being born and raised in the country. After seeking advice from the Reddit community, she decided to have an open conversation with Alan about the issue.

The conversation resulted in Alan recognizing his ignorance, apologizing, and making an effort to change his views. They’ve agreed to continue discussing race as needed, and the wedding is still on. Read on for a deeper look into their resolution.

‘ Update: My (26F) fiancee (28M) says I am not American, despite being born and raised here.’

First, WOW. Did not expect this post to get so much attention. I originally planned to reply to all the comments, but theres like 500 on that post now, PLUS messages in my inbox. So, going to be that person and say a general thank you to everyone who took the time to reach out and weigh in.

I read all your comments and messages and I decided to talk to Alan. I texted him before he got done work and asked him if he had any plans after, and if not, I’d like to talk to him about something. He said he’d come straight home.

He got home and we sat down to talk. I opened with saying that I loved him very much and that he was so different from anyone I’d ever met and let him know how much he means to me. I then said “But” and brought up what happened at his parents’ dinner.

Like many of you suggested, I made it clear to him why it was hurtful/ignorant. I told him that in all our time together, he had never made me feel “other” and therefor it was a pretty bad shock to hear him say what he said.

I told him that it’s hard for a lot of people to be minorities in this country, because you always have other people expecting you to play the cultural-bound immigrant, even if you just aren’t interested.

For me, personally, I just prefer not to have to have one foot in two different worlds. I grew up here and that’s all I really identify with. The fact that because I look the way I do, or have the last name I do, people *expect* me to be more than I am in regards to India.

It’s very frustrating when it’s a damned if you do or damned if you don’t situation. Even in the thread, I had people saying that I’m ashamed of being of Indian descent because I don’t f**king care about all the cultural ties to it.

To that I say, hey, did you think Alan was *ashamed* of being German/Irish because he’s not calling himself German/Irish -American or keeping any norms alive from those cultures? So once again, it falls on me to have to play this part that I have *no f**king interest in playing*.

So stop shoving this idea that people are married to their ancestors’ culture down people’s throats because it creates yet another barrier when it comes to integration.. And then I showed him the thread.

By the time he got done reading everything, comments included, he look mortified. He apologized for the way he treated me during dinner and he admitted to me that his views had been ignorant.

We had a long discussion about norms and attitudes he grew up with, and as many of you noted, Alan grew up with “white” being the default for American. He said he never had thought about how caucasians get a free pass when it comes to being American, but someone with different features is immediately considered an “other” and needs a hyphen.

I apologized to him for not explicitly spelling it out, but I told him that I assumed in this day and age it would be a little more obvious to him. We talked about future children and we both agreed to have them grow up American, and if later they chose to connect with other roots then that was fine too. He said he never wanted to make our kids feel like he made me feel with those comments.

And no, he didn’t want the whole Bollywood wedding some people thought he wanted. He was just making sure I knew that i had that choice. But now he has promised not to bring it up again and we’ve finally laid *that* issue to rest. I also told him, albeit a bit more jokingly, that I wouldn’t be making him any rohti so he can stop holding his breath that I’d become some indian housewife.

We both agreed that this is probably not the last conversation we will have about race. But we also agreed that we wouldn’t let it go under the rug again. He said he won’t be hyphenating anyone else from now on, and instead let them set that identity for themselves. I appreciated that a lot and I could actually see that he took it seriously, that he wasn’t just saying whatever I wanted to hear.. So, wedding is still on. Yaay

Really, thank you guys so much. It was good to feel validated in this. It made me want to actually approach the issue instead of ducking my head and ignoring it. If I didn’t know about this sub, I probably would have kept it bottled and so much resentment would have accumulated before I finally exploded. Like a firework. On 4th of july. :p

**tl;dr**: Talked to my fiancee, he was completely mortified after reading the thread/ listening to what I was saying. He is making an active effort to change his views and he apologized to me for the ignorant comments that were made. Wedding is still a go

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

fullmetalzoologist −  No, no, no, you’re not supposed to communicate properly! Where’s the juicy drama r/relationships craves in you calmly explaining your opinions and feelings to your fiancee and having him understand and accept them? For real though, congrats. I’m so glad this is a happy ending for you guys! We don’t get enough of them.

tipsana −  hey, did you think Alan was ashamed of being German/Irish because he’s not calling himself German/Irish -American or keeping any norms alive from those cultures? So once again, it falls on me to have to play this part that I have no f**king interest in playing.

This is so insightful. And I’m amazed that *in the context of a question regarding unintentional racism*, you again had to deal with additional unintentional racism! Very illuminating to see such concrete proof of its omnipresence.

Endless__Throwaway −  Your are completely spot on with this. it’s hard for a lot of people to be minorities in this country necauae you always have other people expecting you to have one foot in two different worlds. It’s frustrating when it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I abolutely agree! And when you said, did you think Alan was ashamed of being German/Irish becsuse he’s not calling himself that? Thank you for this. This is the b**lshit hipocracy I see and hear a lot.

I can empathize with a lot of your post. It sucks even more when you do have interest in that part but you can never appease anyone. At all. Never. I’m glad it worked out in your favor though.

Fatscot −  Stop behaving like grown ups, if you keep doing this “talking respectfully to each other” nonsense you will have a long and (mostly) happy marriage

jazjaz130 −  No tasty /r/relationships drama today. Truly tragic. Seriously though, great to see this stuff worked out! Always good to have a happy continuation!

EatGymLove −  So happy with how your fiance reacted and that it all worked out for you. 🙂 This post is really close to my heart as I’m also a minority in a Western culture, albeit British instead of American. I even had someone repeatedly asking me for my “real Asian name” because he didn’t believe that my Western-sounding name was my birth name.

bareley −  I’m still amazed that people in the last thread were saying that he harbored secret racism that he’d never expressed to you in the years you’d been together, and that “it’s not your job to rid him of his ignorance.” If you’d taken that advice instead of communicating with him, you’d have thrown away a great relationship. Well done. I’m happy for you and hope you enjoy your upcoming wedding!

Springheeled_Jill −  As a very small addendum to the otherness/hyphenation discussion, I will say that plenty of white Americans do hyphenate–or perhaps, have if forced upon them?

Whiteness has to do with social acceptability as much as anything else; I mean, Italians and Eastern Europeans weren’t “white” when they first came to the U.S., for example. So, yeah, being “Italian-American” is a way of underlining otherness, but it’s perhaps also a “f**k you” at The Man–what The Man then saw as stigma, I will trumpet from the hilltops! You know: taking an attempt at marginalization and turning it on its head, marking it a mark of pride.

There are other reasons–Irish- and Scottish-American identities can be…complex. Yeah. Let’s leave it as “complex.” Sometimes cultural groups were isolated and homogeneous so a sense of identity beyond “American” developed. Sometimes…

it makes life a little more interesting to have and celebrate cultural links beyond suburbia, y’know?. Just spitballing here. Anyway, I am a Scandinavian-American: its just like being a regular, mainstream American but better. Because it just is (uff da!) 🙂

[Reddit User] −  For me, personally, I just prefer not to have to have one foot in two different worlds. I grew up here and that’s all I really identify with. The fact that because I look the way I do, or have the last name I do, people expect me to be more than I am in regards to India.

It’s very frustrating when it’s a damned if you do or damned if you don’t situation. Even in the thread, I had people saying that I’m ashamed of being of Indian descent because I don’t f**king care about all the cultural ties to it.

To that I say, hey, did you think Alan was ashamed of being German/Irish because he’s not calling himself German/Irish -American or keeping any norms alive from those cultures? So once again, it falls on me to have to play this part that I have no f**king interest in playing.

So stop shoving this idea that people are married to their ancestors’ culture down people’s throats because it creates yet another barrier when it comes to integration. I agree with this wholeheartedly and want to share an anecdote from my life. I’m white American, many generations deep.

I love Indian culture, went there to study abroad, minored in South Asian studies, etc. One of my best friends from college is ethnically Indian, born in India and moved here as a child and raised in NYC.

However she never mentions anything about Indian culture, and I noticed this very early in the friendship so I don’t try to talk to her about Indian culture. It’s just not something she’s super interested in. She has other interests, like the Yankees. I figured it out early, and that was that… I never classified that as “good” or “bad” it’s just who she is, and that’s fine. As long as she’s happy doing what she does, our friendship has lots of other aspects and her ethnicity doesn’t define her to me.

elimeny −  For the record OP, as a white female American, I also found this really insightful and educational for myself, to really think about what it means to be “American” and the assumptions we make about people who aren’t white, even if we don’t know we do it.

And also, it made me think a lot about how white Americans really love talking about how they are German-American, or Irish-American, and enjoy talking about our heritage and family history of how we got here. It’s kind of an obnoxious American trait.

Kudos to you for your patience with your fiance and really communicating to him what was frustrating to you. And also, props to your fiance for not getting overly defensive, and really listening to what you have to say and being constructive about it. The way that you guys managed to resolve the issue says a lot about what a good marriage I think you will have.

Having tough conversations about identity, race, and cultural expectations can be eye-opening for both parties involved. It’s encouraging to see the fiancé recognize the need for change and acknowledge the impact of his words. Do you think it’s possible for couples to grow from such moments and continue their relationships stronger? Share your thoughts in the comments below.