Love conquers all, or so we'd like to think. But when a relationship comes up against the ties of family, culture, and tradition, it helps to have the patience of a saint and the skills of a diplomat.
Increasing numbers of American couples claim mixed racial heritage, and millions of others come from mixed religious backgrounds. While many of these couples are indeed drawn to one another in part because of their differences, the same qualities that may have attracted them can become relationship stumbling blocks.
Susan and Arturo are part of this growing trend toward multicultural, multiethnic relationships. Susan, a strawberry-blond optometrist from Seattle, prepared to travel with her fianc� Arturo to spend Easter at his family home in New York City. The couple had met just seven months earlier when the dashing sales rep, originally from the Dominican Republic, came into Susan's store to check his prescription.
"One of the things I noticed immediately about Arturo is that he is extremely chivalrous � so different from the guys I knew," says Susan. "Arturo is always appropriately dressed, holding the door open, escorting me somewhere. I had always looked for that chivalry in a guy, but I had been looking in a world where that just didn't exist � until I met Arturo."