(Mr. Watson, Mrs. Watson recalled the other day, was an “extremely good dancer who everyone wanted.”)
Soon after Mr. Watson proposed, Mrs. Watson’s father traveled from New Mexico to try to talk her out of marrying him.
“What is your problem?”
The Oakland public schools were racially mixed, and the Watsons’ children rarely faced overt discrimination, though José Watson said
that when he was a teenager, a police officer suspected he was driving a stolen car because he was black and pulled him over.
Mr. Watson, 89, and Mrs. Watson, 88, do not have to look any further than their own family to see how much has changed since their marriage.
“It was very unusual then, and I never told anyone that I was married to a black man,” she said.
We Are Not Unusual Anymore’: 50 Years of Mixed-Race Marriage in U. S. -
By JENNIFER MEDINAJUNE 11, 2017
OAKLAND, Calif. — For their first date, in 1949, Leon Watson and Rosina Rodriquez headed to the movie theater.