It is this refusal to assimilate that stokes the argument to keep the others out of this country. But Jews and Greeks (here and in their homeland) require a bloodline for membership. So do the governments of Qatar, several African nations, and America for an American Indian classification. Most Laotians hate for their own to mix with Chinese, and many Cubans feel the same about Dominicans. And Tibetans will not let other races adopt their orphans. So why does my stomach turn when I hear an American radio station talk about a purebred white bloodline? Perhaps because these other nationals are at risk of losing their culture to a neighbor threatening to overtake them, yet I don’t feel America’s white man’s majority, or at least his dominance, is in any real jeopardy. Yes, Kwanza is celebrated in our preschools and Yom Kippur shuts down the cities of L.A. and New York and Spanish-only radio stations are found across the country. And you might wonder if the fanatical descendants of Plymouth Rock have a point about their country changing too much or too fast.

Until you recall that this is the point that birthed America. It was not built as a refuge for just a few. These states were united for anyone suffering under a government that no longer took care of them. Our land, minus the unsustainable portions we gave back to the people who are really from America, is full of people who came from elsewhere, including the Anglo descendants of King James. There is no “seniority clause” in our constitution that gives more privileges to those who fled here the earliest. At this time in our history, when large portions of the world are so angry at the seeming entitlement of America, you would think our country might come together. But for all the social progress we have made over the last thirty years in public — in education and real estate, and business and friendship even — forward movement has not fully crossed over into the privacy of people’s homes. Many good people in this country, including my husband’s parents and mine, are still drawing a line at who is acceptable for love — and who is not. Many adult Americans alive today have been told by someone in their family that all people are created equal but still, “You can’t love one of them.” Maybe there was also a seemingly reasonable argument as to why whole groups of people are not “right” for your affections. Maybe these theories still make some sense but leave you to wonder if they fit with how you live the rest of your life — or if you would teach these sentiments to children. Yours or anyone’s.

My mother’s limited experience with race was the smallest issue I faced when marrying a man whose hair is one shade darker than mine, as his family’s idea of a wife for him was never me. I’d love to think I could just walk you along my path to marriage and believe this could solve any problem between every Hatfield and McCoy of varying shades in America. But my experience is only one — of a racial mix that isn’t even that foreboding — and still it took a village full of advice for me to arrive at my union. So instead of pretending I’m a genius pioneer who scaled every racial speed bump America has to offer by my lonesome, this tale includes the most riveting couples I’ve met on my journey to making a family.

With the help of all their insight, I finally constructed a road map to the destination I was originally looking for: the time and place in America where multicolored love stories live happily ever after. Where love really does trump race. And once I discovered it, I was no longer seeing this place solely from the perspective of my family. I was thinking about it from yours.

You and I are forever entwined. We are countrymen. My experience as an American has to inform yours for it to mean anything for my children — just as yours must inform mine. As much as I fear the nosy lady in the supermarket with her inappropriate questions about my children’s race and the ignorant person behind me at the DMV who is soliciting a judgment about my marriage, I have inadvertently been both of them to other people. Over time I have learned that as unique as another couple might look or as colorful as another family might seem to me, it’s not out of the ordinary to them. It’s just their family.

Excerpted from the book Kissing Outside the Lines: A True Story of Love and Race and Happily Ever After by Diane Farr. Excerpted by arrangement with Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group.  Copyright (c) 2012