Under the skin
When Carmen Fields’ future husband asked her to meet his mother, Fields refused. “No way. I didn’t want to be the reason she opened up the front door and dropped the Easter ham,” she told a Harvard audience on Wednesday. An African-American whose spouse is white, Fields knows from experience that life in the United States holds unique challenges for mixed-race couples and their children. Fields and fellow panel members — among them College junior Eliza Nguyen —addressed some of those issues during a discussion called “American Masala: Race Mixing, the Spice of Life or Watering Down Cultures?” at the Student Organization Center at Hilles. “I didn’t want to be the reason she opened up the front door and dropped the Easter ham,” said Carmen Fields of having her mother meet her white husband. Nguyen, president of the Harvard Half Asian People’s Association (HAPA), distinctly remembers the moment it dawned on her that she...