1949- James Wong Howe marries Sanora Babb

James Wong Howe, relative of Anna May Wong, was born in Taishan Guangdong, China in 1899. His father emigrated to America when Howe was born to work on the Northern Pacific Railway and 5 years later sent for his family to live with him in Washington. Howe’s interest in photography began at an early age, and grew exponentially after his several oddjobs in Los Angeles, being a photographer’s delivery boy and taking stills during film productions under director Cecil B. DeMille. Howe developed a new method of photography as he captured a darker look in the eyes of Mary Miles Minter as she was producing a film with DeMille. Minter adored the photograph, so she made Howe her preferred photographer. Howe then established a reputation for himself as he was able to make female actresses look their best without having to cover them with any filters or stuff like that. He eventually built his way up and became a popular cinematographer and developed new methods of cinematography as well (ie: handheld camera, the camera dolly, lighting techniques, deep focus, and many more.) He then married (Caucasian) novelist Sanora Babb in Paris in 1947. It was not legally recognized because of the anti-miscegenation laws and interracial marriage bans at the time in the US. Their marriage was legally approved in 1949, after all such laws (such as the ban on interracial marriage) were realized to be unconstitutional. The Hays Code, the banning of a non-Caucasian to kiss a Caucasian on screen, however, lagged behind in being abandoned much later in 1968.




Sanora Babb 1938


The marriage of these two accomplished individuals was met with much scrutiny. The judge who married them just said, “She looks old enough to marry, if she wants to marry a chink that’s her problem.” It took them three weeks after inter-racial marriage was made legal to find a judge that would marry them, but even the one they found was disheartening. Considering the fact that the law banning people of different faces to join in marriage was in effect for so long, starting from the time when Asians and other immigrants established themselves as minorities in America, there was probably opposition coming from both parties, Asian Americans and White Americans alike. The law was in place for so long that no one in the country would be fully accepting of a marriage between two people of different races. James Wong Howe and Sanora Babb, however, defied these discouraging odds and wed anyway. This wedding in particular was significant to the lives of other Asian Americans in the nation because both of them were quite popular, so everyone had to find out about such a marriage. Having this inter-racial marriage be displayed for the country to see creates the sense that Asian Americans, (and non-Asian Americans) can marry whomever they wish to marry. The people of America started the process of acknowledgement in accepting the fact that people of different races are not so different after all, and that a miscegenated love (and that which follows) does not pose a threat to the American nation.