Introduction

            Racism is an ugly part of American history that is still being resolved presently.  Oftentimes, white Americans have not liked the idea of non-whites achieving similar social or economic standing, and preferred that there be a class system in society based on race and heritage.  Of course, while an intrusion of one race into another by means of mixing neighborhoods or work groups was deplorable, interracial marriage was outright forbidden.  Many states passed laws forbidding the marriage of whites with non-whites, criminalizing the relationships that some men and women sought out.  For example, until 1948 interracial marriage (that is, marriage between a white and a non-white) was prohibited.  After the law’s repeal, some interracial marriages did occur, but not a lot, and not without consequences (Burma, 587).  Those who participated in interracial marriage opened their personal lives to public scrutiny and found acceptance anywhere to be difficult.  Members of different races entering into relationships made people uncomfortable, they saw this phenomenon as the downfall of society.  However, these interracial relationships, as hard as they were, still occurred everywhere.  Young white girls went on dates with Filipino men, US GIs brought home foreign brides from Japan and Korea, and all the while American culture struggled to accept these different marriages.  Even so, many Americans, born in the US and abroad, continued to spur the constraints of society and partake in these marriages.  This raises the question: were interracial marriages really such a big deal? Or were they just over sensationalized by the sociologists and anthropologists that studied them?  The social scientists, who worked extensively to cover this topic, focused almost exclusively on the relationships between whites and non-whites, since the European population of the US was not much concerned with how minorities lived among each other.  This shows that the majority saw interracial relationships as a social problem, and viewed them as such because they brought about the supposed downfall of the white race.  In particular, many were concerned with the relationships between Filipino men and young white women, who met often in the infamous Taxi Dance Halls. 

            The marriages that came from the Taxi Dance Halls rarely lasted longer than two years. (Cressey, 167).  These unions sprang from the dalliances of the young Filipino immigrants who visited the venue and the women who worked there, selling their dances to the men.  These women were usually young white girls who, had recently left their families and formerly segregated lifestyle.  Why did these marriages occur?  Was it only passing teenage rebellion, or a curiosity for these foreign men?  While all of these may have been the excuses given by disgruntled white parents upset that their daughters were falling for non-white men, the answer may be that these marriages happened because the opportunity was there.  The fact that different races were put together in the Taxi Dance Halls was enough to allow for the mixing of races, whether or not it was socially or legally acceptable.  These Taxi Dance Halls, and the relationships they produced, were “problematic” enough to spur public outcry and sociological studies to come to the root of the issue: that interracial marriages between white women and Filipino men was a step in the downfall of women who eventually succumbed to prostitution.