Aarati and Jonathan got married in 2006. Jonathan is White and Jewish and Aarati is Indian-American. They met in Chicago, where Aarati was pursuing her PhD and Jonathan was working as a journalist. They later moved to Washington DC, and then Philadelphia.
Born and raised in New Hampshire, Jonathan was unfamiliar with the daily realities of racism in the United States before he met and married Aarati and became the parent to two biracial children. Whereas Aarati, who was born in India and grew up in mixed race communities in Delaware describes herself as a “race straddler”. Currently, they both work in the arena of racial and social justice.
In this episode of the Loving Project podcast, they discuss the joys of sharing both their cultures with their children and of watching them develop their own racial identities.