A Real American/International Love Story

Before our story begins, I have to tell you why I was an American love story even before I came into being! My mother is Mexican-American and my father is African American. I was born in Colorado, and then we moved to Chicago in the 60's, a difficult time for interracial couples.

I didn't even know what a "nigger" was--'til I found out that meant me. Every year from age seven on, I was spit on, beat up and hated by every racial group there was. My parents had a messy divorce. And worse, we were really poor. Still, I managed to go to University, and to Law school where I met him.

When I met him, he was an exchange student from Vienna, Austria. It wasn't love at first sight. I never had a "thing" for blue-eyed blondes, but the force of his personality--his kindness, his intelligence and wit, his being--was overwhelming. I have never met anyone like him, and I know I never will.

We are so different. But we are the same, and as corny as it sounds, we are a perfect fit. We are so perfect together, that it is sometimes a surprise that people hate us.

I have always been used to people looking at me--in either hate or curiosity. Scarcely a week of my life has gone by without someone asking me, "What race are you?" In Chicago, I grew up knowing that certain neighborhoods were off limits, and that if I went, there was a good chance I'd get the hell beat out of me. That was just a part of life, and I learned those lessons in order to continue living.

He never learned these things and in America, it has been a hard lesson. He got irritated when he saw people staring at us, their jaws dropping at the sight. He has never been a minority, but now he is--he's in a interracial relationship, and when he is with me, he loses his white citizenship.

The threats of violence, the looks of disapproval and the feeling that at any moment someone could harm us because we were together were very hard for him to take. He is European, and he wanted to kiss whenever the moment took him. In the US, even same race couples don't show affection in public; with an interracial couple, it was a spectacle. After some really threatening situations even I started to get scared. Thus, when an offer to move back to Europe came, we took it.

In Frankfurt, Germany, we had some of the best and worst years of our lives. It is an international city, with couples as or more exotic than we. Although the stereotype is that Germans are a scary group, obsessed with racial purity, in Frankfurt at least, nothing is further from the truth. Nobody looked at us, nobody cared. Life was great. We spent our years traveling all the cities of Europe. We got engaged in Paris, married in Salzburg (civilly) and Vienna (in the church).

During these times, we were happy, because we were left alone. We were both foreigners in Germany; all we had was each other, and that was enough.

But for awhile, our happy days ended. While in Europe, my husband was diagnosed with metastatic cancer at age 26. What followed was surgery and several courses of chemotherapy. In spite of all I had been through in my life, this was my most difficult time. I felt helpless, and unable to do simple things like gather information or converse in German with the doctors. I thought that my life had been hard enough just being born poor and a minority in the US. Now, I was so happy, and the best part of my life, my husband, could die. I felt very isolated and desperate.

We had no support system because both of our families were so far away, and we had no real friends in Germany. But we made it through. We became even closer, and I gained even more love and respect for my husband. His strength during this time, and his ability to endure pain and the prospect of death and still be as funny and warm and witty was amazing.

For three years he has been cancer free, and as creepy as it sounds, we have been enriched by the experience. We are grateful for everything, and we really enjoy life and each other. We moved back to the U.S., to San Francisco (the only place I have ever been to in the U.S. where there are far more unusual couples than us), and here we remain.

In short, our lives have been a series of unbelievably happy days, with a little bit of misery thrown in. We have spent most of our years (nine of them) walking together through the streets of so many cities in Europe and America. And in every city, we walk as fast as if racing, although neither of us has a destination in particular. It is our conversations --conversations that are so loud and heated most people take them for arguments--that speeds our walks . We are so engrossed in what the other is saying, we don't notice our speed!

It is the same for our lives. We love each other so much, and have been together for so long that we ignore the evil that is around us. Although on the outside, we could not be more different, and could not have bee