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StoryCorps: A mother defies her parents to begin a family of her own

In 1967 the landmark Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia made the United States a better place for many people in love. The ruling declared the 1924 Racial Integrity Act, which prohibited marriage across racial boundaries, unconstitutional. If not for Loving vs. Virginia, Robyn Raber Luna would not have been able to marry her Filipino husband and then have their daughter, Rachel Luna Hemmer.

Daughter Luna took her mother Hemmer to the San Francisco StoryCorps booth at the Contemporary Jewish Museum and asked her mother how she first introduced her father to her grandparents.

ROBYN RABER LUNA: "The issue was not mine, the issue was my parents... They grew up in a situation where they themselves were discriminated against as Jews. So, I think that part of it came from a very protective place... They understood what it meant to be different, but to then put yourself in a situation that makes you more different made it really hard for my mom in particular."

This interview was facilitated by Frank Kingman and edited by KALW’s Isaac Silk. 

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