My Parents’ Marriage Was A Holy War
By: Nefissa And Mambo
Tags: Race, Divorce, Abuse, Relationships, Marriage

My Parents’ Marriage Was A Holy War

What I am waiting for is for someone to ask me how the interracial marriage relationship affected me.

Photo by Jack Sparrow on Pexels

On the first date, my father invited my mother to a pool billiard in Bayridge, Brooklyn. He had been living in America for just three months but he expertly leaned over and struck the tip of the cue ball into the pocket until the 8 ball rolled into the last pocket.“You don’t ever want to see me angry.” He says to her. She doesn’t reply.

My parents’ met the week before their first date in front of Macy’s flagship store located on 34th street in Manhattan. My mother spots him halfway down the street. It was a beautiful April day in 1981 and as a 23-year-old Afro-Cuban immigrant she sees her future husband. She asked for his phone number. What she did not know was that he would be the first and only man in her life.

My father is a tall, dark, and handsome man from Alexandria, Egypt. He is 6’4” with light skin and has wavy and not curly hair. This was her opportunity to “fix her race.” A chance to have light skin children.

Daddy had a 6-month VISA with no plans of returning to Egypt where he had a very wealthy father whom he desperately hated. The last time my father spoke to his own father was in 1981. My father told his own father that he wanted to start a chicken farm which led to a humongous fight and would be the last time that they would ever speak to one another and he left for America that same year.

What my father was interested in was the naturalization certificate that my mother had in her possession. Naturally as a Muslim man in the early 80’s he sees potential in her. She was a 23-year-old virgin with childbearing hips, free-spirited and sweet as pineapple.

Her biggest flaw was his greatest strength. My father is from the Middle East, a place where generations of men have raised their own children. My mother only met her father three times so she actually never lived with a man until she married my father.

My mother was a Caribbean woman who happened to be a descendant of the Trans Atlantic slave trade. A part of the world that is still reeling from the effects of its colonization. Millions of Africans were conquered by Portuguese and Spaniard masters to cultivate sugar cane, rum, tobacco among other things. When an African American enslaved woman gave birth; the child would be auctioned off to European masters.

In the Caribbean; a woman who could take care of children on her own is continually prized. When that woman meets the first love of her life it is usually her first time living with a man. She might not know that some men cheat, others gamble and still, some hit their domestic partners. And some men do a combination of those three things…

They were married in three months. The honeymoon was at the Six Flags Great Adventures theme park in New Jersey. An immigrants’ dream vacation when you are in your twenties living in New York.

The first fight and definitely not the last was during the honeymoon stay at the hotel. They were both virgins and she got her period and he was very impatient about it. Two months into the marriage; they are temporarily living in her mother’s apartment. The first physical altercation ensues in the bedroom. “Why were you talking to that man in the elevator?” “Because I can!” She gets one punch on the left knee and a second jab on the right knee. Who knew a Black woman could bruise so easily.

The following day she tells her mother that she wants a divorce but her mother suggests otherwise. He teaches her how to make his mothers’ rice, tears every page of every single person from her contact list in her telephone book. He also demanded that she stop speaking Spanish.

Four years later she was pregnant with me which meant to him that she had to quit her job. A year and a half later she gives birth again with twins this time. Both times my mother was pregnant he actually hit her more. He broke fans in the summer, poured salt all over her scrambled eggs for breakfast, and forced her to sleep on the floor naked.

We grew up eating all his favorite dishes such as macaroni bechamel (middle eastern lasagna), shawarma (gyro), and ful mudamas (Egyptian refried beans). On the weekends he would work a second job and that is when we were able to try her coveted Cuban black beans with ropa vieja (steak and onions) and rice with sweet plantains.

My mother grew up in a religion called Santeria which had real power from what I saw growing up. My grandmother was a high priestess who practiced many spells on people. Those curses broke over 60 marriages and brought sickness to others. There were “magic stones” and nightly cups of water for these spirits to drink under my grandma’s bed, which would evaporate quickly. For Halloween, the children in my class wanted to go to my grandmother’s house. I did not know that grandma’s house was haunted until my friends had told me. These supernatural things were second nature to me.

There was constant friction and fighting in the morning at the kitchen while we children ate our breakfast. He would call her “fat cow” and “dumbhead” while she made his coffee and mousakka ( a tomatoey breakfast egg dish).

My father did not permit me to be friends with boys or paint my nails. The few times he would take us outside he demanded that my mother and the kids walk behind him like a row of ducks. It was not until I went to Egypt as a child that I learned that women and children are expected to walk behind men in public.

As the years went by through my childhood I would see much polygamy. When getting into my dad’s car I would run quickly in the car to “woman proof” the car for my mother. I would hold lipstick and hair barrettes from other women in my hand that I found in the crevices of the car seats ready to throw them out once approaching the highway.

I even found Six Flags Great Adventure cups, which was my parents’ honeymoon spot. My father would take other people’s children to adventure parks instead of his own, knowing full well how many times we begged him to take us. Those same women would be given clothes and shoes by my father through his gambling money that we desperately needed.

Over the years my parents actually embraced each other’s religions. My mother never ate pork throughout the marriage and never dated another man even when my dad divorced her. My father found himself not only loving “the American way” but Spanish speaking women as well. He would go on to date women from the Caribbean and South America for life. He also stopped hitting women for over 25 years.

When I was young my father was a devout Muslim who would pray five times a day. I loved to kneel down behind him when he used to pray knee down on his Islamic prayer rug. Every Ramadan he would intently fast and demanded that my mom show him no affection. A little bit later in life; the pull of America would distract him from his faithful practices. He stopped praying and fasting; cutting my introduction to God completely off and causing me to search for the deity on my own.

My parents’ marriage was a holy war in which neither would lose but they would both win. My parents grew codependent upon each other. Even after my father divorced my mother he would go on to live with my mother until her death. People often ask me what my racial makeup is. What I am waiting for is for someone to ask me how the interracial marriage relationship affected me.