Anti-Miscegenation Laws in the United States

The Anti-Miscegenation Laws in the US were used to enhance racial segregation. They were used to criminalize interracial marriages and relationships. In some extreme cases, these regulations forbad sex between people from different ethnicities. The article by Lisa Dorr explores the relationship between gender and the eugenic viewpoint. Various states implemented anti-miscegenation laws in the US. They have several similar characteristics. First, most Acts considered interracial unions as either illegal or void. Second, the penalties for breaking the laws included fines and imprisonment. Third, many States indicated that the groups of people that were considered illegal to marry the whites included the Negros, Mulattoes, Chinese, Japanese, and Indians. Fourth, most States recognized foreign miscegenetic marriages by both residents and non-residents as void. However, others such as Nebraska, Indiana, South Dakota, and Utah considered miscegenetic unions by non-residents as valid. 

The eugenic ideology was used to control the intermarriages and sexual habits of Americans. Dorr (1999, p.145) indicated that the implementation of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 was solely not concerned by the blood of an individual but rather by their ancestry. A white person was, therefore, an individual without a trace of nonwhites, including Asian and African-American blood. This definition was geared to ensuring that near whites did not claim the white status. Most Southerners understood the importance of racial separation since they believed that the lack of eugenics would cause them to have future generations that had inferior genetic characteristics (Dorr, 1999, p.146). The article explains that the eugenic notion led to gender, class, and racial prejudice since the whites believed to be superior. Moreover, it that there was an increase in the support of immigration restriction as mitigation measures of these intermarriages. The eugenic ideology discussed in the paper refers to the selective mating of individuals considered to have desirable and favorable characteristics. The anti-miscegenation laws, therefore, promoted the eugenic viewpoint to police the sexual habits of American citizens in the name of preserving native genetics. 

Reference 

Dorr, L. L. (1999). Arm in arm: Gender, eugenics, and Virginia’s Racial Integrity Acts of the 1920s. Journal of Women’s History, 11(1), 143-166.