CROSSING RACIAL BARRIERS

It would seem that Greg and Amy, both 17 and honors students at Irvine’s University High School, are a perfect match.

They radiate niceness, exuberance and brightness, the very model of well-behaved, relatively trouble-free youth. Their friends are much like them--students whose interests range from Disneyland and beach picnics to American politics and global technology.

For 2 months now, they have been going steady. But no matter what Amy and Greg (not their real names) do, no matter how societally correct they appear, there is an inescapable--and physically obvious--fact about them as a couple.

Greg is white. Amy is Korean.

And interracial dating in this day and age is still not a matter to be taken lightly.

Interracial dating remains a societal anomaly--a subject to be approached with great caution, a practice admired by some, vilified by others.

True, there are signs that the practice is becoming more acceptable, as indicated by the accompanying High Life poll of students at 14 Orange County public and private schools.

Nevertheless, analysts in multicultural relations and assimilation argue that this kind of relationship, long taboo throughout American society, remains light-years from being widely accepted.

Despite the years of highly publicized integration efforts in housing and schools, the greater influxes of ethnic-minority immigrants, and the vanishing of anti-miscegenation laws, “I don’t think the opposition to (interracial couples) has really eroded all that much,” says one leading analyst, UCLA sociologist Harry Kitano.

Some parents agree.

“The kids may downplay (racism), but it’s out there, as much as ever,” says an Orange County parent whose son, who is white, is dating a black girl. “If they go to a restaurant, and if they hold hands or snuggle a little--believe me, they get the stares, the double takes.”

And for most families, the issue of interracial couples, while a far less closeted practice these days, remains an intensely private matter.

It helps explain why there are no reliable estimates on the numbers of teen-agers in interracial relationships.

However, researchers believe that such interracial dating trends parallel the nationwide trends in interracial marriages--greater visibility, yes, but the rates of growth are relatively slow. (Nationally in 1984, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 739,000 interracial marriages in which one of the partners was white.)

“There has been some growth (in interracial marriages), especially with some Asian groups. But overall there hasn’t been a real breakthrough, a real dramatic increase,” says Kitano, a Japanese-American and acting director of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center.

And the trend in Orange County, researchers suggest, is probably even less prominent, at least statistically, even though the High Life poll suggests that interracial couples are becoming a more visible if still small phenomenon.

“You’re talking about a highly conservative county and one that is still overwhelmingly Anglo,” says multicultural specialist Christine Hall, former counseling psychologist at UC Irvine’s College of Medicine.

“I question whether this kind of practice can ever really take hold in Orange County,” says Hall, now an ethnic minorities administrator with the Washington-based American Psychological Assn. and herself of mixed black and Japanese descent.

There is still “color” hierarchy at work in reactions to interracial couples.

To white supremacists and other opponents, analysts say, the most taboo combination is still black and white, while Asian and white or “dark-complexioned” Latino and white are less objectionable.

“We’re literally talking color here, the visible gradations,” explains Raymond Vagas, a Laguna Hills-based marriage therapist, who is of African and Spanish descent. “When you’re talking ‘race’ in those terms, you’re including ‘dark’ Hispanics.”

Psychologically, the reasons for entering an interracial relationship, counselors say, are exceedingly complex.

It can involve such lofty reasons as multicultural idealism, defiance of tradition--and love. It can also involve fascination with ethnic myths, with “opposites” and with protest chic.

But that is one of the problems, says Vagas, whose clientele includes interracial couples. “There is this tendency to keep harping on what’s ‘wrong’ with these couples.”

Rather, the issue should be “what’s wrong with a society that refuses to accept these relationships as normal,” says Vagas, a member of Multi-racial Americans of Southern California, a newly organized support group of about 200 interracial or intercultural families.

Indeed, the parents interviewed for this story argue that this “societal labeling” is a key problem.

“The beauty of (an intercultural) relationship at their age,” says one Anglo parent, whose son is dating an Asian, “is that they’re so open and fresh now. They’re not stuck with the labels that society--and adults--pin on such relations.”

Consider a 17-year-old couple in Santa Ana--we’ll call them Deborah and Ken. To them, their dating--she is white, he is black--is not that startling, especially in Santa Ana. After all, the high school population in that city is predominantly nonwhite: 72% Latino, 12% Asian, 7% black.

Their backgrounds, other than racial, are notably similar. Both are from middle-class families. Both grew up in ethnically mixed neighborhoods.

At their high school, their closest friends are other inter-ethnic couples, including Latinos, blacks and Filipinos. Mixed dating “is no big deal,” Deborah says. “I mean, so many people are doing it, especially at our school.”

Ken is “great to be with. We kid a lot, and he’s easy to talk with,” says Deborah, who had previously dated only whites. “He’s really nice. He can be very serious and thoughtful.”

The reactions of parents, of course, are crucial. “We know couples who don’t dare tell their families,” Deborah says. “Not us. Our parents have been real supportive.”

Deborah’s mother says she took the news in stride. Deborah “told me she was going out with someone new--a real neat guy. Then she told me, sort of offhanded like, that ‘he’s black, you know.’ ”

“My concern wasn’t his color, but whether he was good for her,” the mother adds. “This is the way I’ve tried to raise her--to be a person without prejudice, to see past color and cultural differences. This is the way it’s supposed to be in America, right?

“I have a snapshot now of them,” the mother says. “It’s always in my wallet. I like to show it off. Why not? They’re great kids.

“People will look at it, and say, ‘My, she’s very pretty.’ But when they see him, they usually say nothing. They just stare.”

Amy, the 17-year-old Korean immigrant in Irvine, represents a dramatically new ethnic demographic.

Asians are no longer a rarity in that part of south Orange County. Although the high school population in Irvine is still overwhelmingly white--76% of total enrollment--the number of Asian students has grown significantly, and is now 15%.

Still, Amy and her white boyfriend, Greg, like to say it was good old American politics, not some classic East/West encounter, that drew them together.

“We’re both interested in politics and we were both Dukakis supporters,” recalls the tall, personable Greg. With a laugh, he adds, “That makes us a minority, all right--a pair of liberals in Orange County!”

Other factors may have helped. Greg has long shown an eclectic interest in things Asian--particularly ancient philosophers, films directed by Japan’s Akira Kurosawa and dining at Oriental restaurants.

And Amy, whose family immigrated from South Korea in 1980, has become highly Westernized--her English is virtually unaccented, her dates have always been with Caucasians.

In the other American regions where her family lived, like Idaho, there were no Korean or other Asian communities. So, explains Amy, who can project both shyness and vivacity, “if you went out, you dated Americans.”

Her parents, at first, were not pleased by this. “We were worried because our two cultures are so different,” says Amy’s mother. “Koreans are so traditional; Americans are so open, so direct.”

But Amy’s mother says she no longer harbors such reservations, and Amy herself rejects any suggestion that she may be abandoning her Korean heritage.

“I am still respectful of my parents’ culture,” she says. “I will always be part Korean.”

Greg describes their bicultural relationship this way: “We’re sharing, not giving up our cultures. This makes us both more receptive, I think, to real differences between us, not just the common bonds.”

“Besides, race is not the issue,” Greg says. “The issue is that we’re individuals--we’re persons. I don’t see (Amy’s) color. I see her .”

Quietly, he adds: “We wish people didn’t always have to bring that issue (race) up.”

But, intentionally or not, students involved in interracial dating cannot help but stand out.

“I know these students resent being considered trailblazers,” says Bruce Baron, an Irvine Unified School District principal, who developed a study project on racial and other inter-ethnic issues, including dating, for the district’s high schools.

“But in their own way,” he says, “what they’re doing is pretty gutsy. Whether they like it or not, it puts them right on society’s frontiers.”

Indeed, counselors say, the reality of racism is as ominous as ever. And interracial couples are often among the choice targets.

It helps explain why several of the families contacted for this story did not want to be interviewed at all. Families that agreed did so under the proviso that no photographs be taken or actual names used.

Said one of these parents: “We don’t hide it. My son’s friends know, their schoolmates, and a few others.”

Citing recent reports of racist-oriented outbreaks in Orange County neighborhoods and campuses--such as a lawn cross-burning and circulation of white-supremacy literature--this parent adds: “But we don’t want the whole world to know it. Not now. Not with the way things seem to be going.”

While those incidents were mostly directed at blacks, state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp last week noted: “There is an intolerable level of hostility against Asian/Pacific Islanders throughout this state, and it has to stop.”

However, parents and teen-agers say, racism in Orange County is usually subtler, more covert.

There haven’t been any “problems,” says one black youth, who is dating a white girl, “at least not big problems.”

“If you mean stares and people saying things to you to your face--that doesn’t really happen much,” he says. “I mean, if you’re cool about it and don’t go looking for it--people leave you alone in Orange County.”

Indeed, he and the other students interviewed tend to treat the question of racism--and the whole matter of interracial dating--with a studied nonchalance.

But not some of their parents.

“I tell my son (who is dating a girl of another race), that he better get used to (racist attitudes), and if he doesn’t, he had better get out of it,” said one father. “Because if they decide to stick it out, things could get a lot meaner for them.”