{"id":62683,"date":"2022-01-05T03:16:08","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T03:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62683"},"modified":"2022-01-06T20:49:22","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T20:49:22","slug":"their-interracial-romance-ended-painfully-after-college-they-reunited-42-years-later-and-now-live-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62683","title":{"rendered":"Their interracial romance ended painfully after college. They reunited 42 years later \u2014 and now live together."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/2021\/10\/04\/college-breakup-interracial-relationship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Their interracial romance ended painfully after college. They reunited 42 years later \u2014 and now live together.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Washington Post<\/a><br \/>\n2021-10-04<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sydneypage95\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Sydney Page<\/strong><\/a>, Freelance Reporter<\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/2021\/10\/04\/college-breakup-interracial-relationship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 95%; display: block; border: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-apps\/imrs.php?src=https:\/\/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/QD7QMH7ODFAQHJUOB56KVXMWXQ.PNG&amp;w=916\"><\/a><figcaption style=\"width: 95%; font-size: x-small; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">Steve Watts and Jeanne Gustavson, while they were dating in secret in the 1970s. The couple met in college at a German Club meeting, when Gustavson was a freshman and Watts was a senior. They dated for eight years. (Courtesy of Jeanne Gustavson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When Jeanne Gustavson spontaneously booked a trip to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chicago\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chicago<\/a> last summer, she had no idea what to expect. She was going to visit her first love \u2014 whom she had not seen in 42 years.<\/p>\n<p>The last time Gustavson, now 68, spoke to Steve Watts was in the spring of 1979. They were young and in love, but there was one persistent issue: Watts was Black, and Gustavson\u2019s family forbade her to see him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey had this mentality that Blacks and Whites don\u2019t belong together,\u201d said Gustavson, who was raised in the northern suburbs of Chicago, and now lives in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Portland,_Oregon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Portland, Ore<\/a>. \u201cIn my heart, I knew it wasn\u2019t right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, she flouted her family\u2019s strict rule and dated Watts in secret.<\/p>\n<p>Although she did not like disobeying her parents, \u201cI couldn\u2019t let him go,\u201d Gustavson said&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/2021\/10\/04\/college-breakup-interracial-relationship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Their interracial romance ended painfully after college. They reunited 42 years later \u2014 and now live together. The Washington Post 2021-10-04 Sydney Page, Freelance Reporter Steve Watts and Jeanne Gustavson, while they were dating in secret in the 1970s. The couple met in college at a German Club meeting, when Gustavson was a freshman and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,8,20],"tags":[3027,5488,32684,32726,5509,17054,32685,31982,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-62683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-chicago","tag-illinois","tag-jeanne-gustavson","tag-jeannie-gustavson","tag-oregon","tag-portland","tag-steve-watts","tag-sydney-page","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62683"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62687,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62683\/revisions\/62687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}