Jasmin Alibhai-Brown and Colin Brown are walking a fine line between raising their 5-year-old daughter, Leila, in the English culture while preserving an echo of her mother's Pakistani roots. (By Janet Jarman for The Washington Post)

Dealing With Differences
Continued from Page One

Tina Fry and Ken Barnett are another of the Slough area's mixed couples, together now for 14 years. She is white, a secretary for a real estate agent; he is black, a regional supervisor at a company that replaces automobile glass, born in Britain to immigrants from Jamaica. They have two children.

Tina can't remember ever encountering overt hostility on the street stemming from her marriage. "Black and white together – people are used to it now," she says. But when they travel to other parts of Britain where the sight isn't so common, they can touch off double-takes and social fumbling.

Once, they went to a wedding reception for one of Tina's relatives in a solidly white community. Ken was the only black person there. Someone saw him and announced to the group: "Let's welcome our colonial friend." There followed questions of how long he had been in Britain; no one could imagine he might belong here. "It was clear that everyone was uncomfortable," Ken recalled.

Ken and Tina also have different views of the role race plays in everyday life. Once when Ken returned from a vacation to find he'd been passed over for a promotion at his company, he concluded that there were racial reasons to explain why a white co-worker got the job. Tina, however, thought it was more related to what she calls "attitude" in her husband – an inflexibility and reluctance to listen to other points of view.

The same kind of thing can happen when, say, slavery is depicted on a TV drama. Ken leans forward and feels some personal connection. But Tina looks on it as a historical phenomenon and might give Ken a good-natured razzing, asking what experience he ever had with slavery.

Ken comes from a large family, headed by a single parent, his mother, and would have been happy having more than two children with Tina. Her formative years were different, with just one sibling and both parents. Ken is more laid back about paying bills quickly, about being on time for appointments. "I don't believe in rushing for the sake of rushing," he says, a trait he traces to his Caribbean roots. Tina, on the other hand, generally wants things dealt with promptly.

They've dealt successfully with these differences, as the length of their bond shows. But more important, they feel, are the many British cultural traits they share.

Both grew up speaking English. Both enjoy sitting down with the racy News of the World, a popular tabloid newspaper, on a Sunday. Both come from families that set the table with streamers and balloons at Christmas. Neither is much interested in religion. Both have a taste for the spicy Caribbean food that is available all over Britain these days, but they like traditional English cooking as well; Ken currently can't get his fill of baked potatoes.

Ken has been to Jamaica just once, for the funeral of an uncle several years ago. Although he felt an emotional affinity with the island, Britain is his home. As for whatever differences he has with Tina, they're no big deal. "Our relationship is based on live and let live," he says.

The Family Factor

Early in the relationship, Gary tried to smooth the way for Georgina by bringing her around to his parent's home for a visit. It was not successful. His mother and father were polite but distant; there was an awkward wait as a hunt was staged for the type of tea that Georgina requested. After an hour or so, Gary and Georgina got up and left.

After children were born, his father became reconciled to the marriage before his death several years ago. His mother never did, and today Gary no longer sees her.

Georgina's parents have filled the gap for him. He and Georgina and the children visit them several times a year, staying at their home and talking about just about everything. "I wish I could say the same about my own family," Gary said ruefully.

About 24 percent of whites interviewed in the Policy Studies Institute survey said they would mind if a close relative married someone from a minority group. The result was roughly the same among black respondents; among people from South Asia, however, the figure is much higher – 51 percent for Pakistanis; 39 percent for Bangladeshis.

Religion appears to be one reason for the differences in the figures. People from the Caribbean are for the most part Christians, if they subscribe to a religion at all. The South Asians are generally Hindus or Muslims or Sikhs, and in general, said Ousley, religion is more of a "dominant feature" in their lives.

Indeed, the tradition of arranged marriages has not died out among some of the Indians and Pakistanis. When people from these groups do marry outside the group, it tends to be those who are well off, educated, culturally Anglicized. They face the risk of ostracism, of being told that marriage to a white is really about turning one's back on one's origins, about wanting a very visible symbol of success.

With traditional Hindus, though, there can be an economic advantage to a family whose daughter marries an Anglo-Saxon – there is no need to pay a ruinous dowry. The groom's parents would never think to demand it.

The Rainbow Generation

(The Washington Post)

Yet at the same time, interracial marriage can dilute the cultural identity of the minority parent's group. Over time, the children can shed the language and customs of that group and move toward those of the dominant white one. To not a few parents, this is a matter of deep concern.

Jasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Muslim woman of Pakistani heritage, came to Britain in 1972 and eight years ago married a white man named Colin Brown. From the start, they say, they tried to run their marriage as a partnership in which both cultures could bloom and command respect.

They get no small reinforcement from the community around them. Their neighborhood of West London, Ealing, has such a supply of mixed relationships that, when out walking, the couple sometimes plays a game of trying to guess at the new pairing permutations that come into view. At times it's necessary to draw close to listen for what language is being spoken.

Now, with a 5-year-old daughter, they are walking a fine line between making her comfortable in mainstream English culture while preserving an echo of her mother's roots. She carries one of the most English of surnames, Brown, paired with a first name that is distinctly Muslim, Leila. She attends a Church of England school and Christian services; she also worships at a local mosque.

She speaks English, of course, but at home mother and daughter – and maternal grandmother, when she visits – often speak the Gujarati and Kutchi languages of northern Pakistan. Mother sings lullabies in those languages at bedtime. Leila loves french fries, but she's also learning the tastes and techniques of the far-off country's cuisine.

Often the task requires considerable energy. Kutchi, for instance, is not a written language, so it must be conveyed orally. But there is help from others seeking to preserve such cultures here. Some mosques, for instance, lend a hand by publishing cookbooks that help mothers to pass on the mealtime traditions of the old country.

So far, so good. Leila is fluent in the two Pakistani languages and often won't go to sleep at night until her mother has sung old-country lullabies. "She seems to have a bit of a Pakistani soul," says her father with approval. She has acquired it despite "the huge crushing weight" of white culture around her.

That was brought home to him last year as the family strolled through a London festival marking the 50th anniversary of the independence of India. The parents paid little attention to a performance by Indian dancers; Leila spent the better part of an hour taking it in.

"It would be awful in 100 years if nothing is left of these distinctive cultures," said her mother, who has written extensively on interracial marriage. "I keep working with her very, very hard."

But in the end, will the culture survive in their daughter? "I have no idea," she said.