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bayetea · 1 month ago

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Something that has always intrigued me about Frank/Hazel's dynamic is how interracial marriages were prohibited in Louisiana (and like fifteen other states) until 1967 with the ruling of Loving v. Virginia and how that would have impacted the development of their relationship because that would be such a culture shock for Hazel to experience. Do you have any thoughts on this?

(p.s. loving hippocrene so far, you're probably the best Frazel writer I've seen)

omg yes I think about this allll the time 😩 (and thank you for reading hippocrene I'm so glad you like it!!!) there's so many layers to this and I'm fascinated by it all. I think that in order to find an answer to this there's a lot to unpack first

(tags: frazel, character analysis, rr crit, some camp jupiter analysis, us history and segregation-era racism, canadian racism, anti-black and anti-asian racism, poc interracial dating, and just being candid about race in general idk. also this is very long)

so on one hand hazel isn't new to interracial romance, because she was already kind-of-sort-of "involved" with sammy (who presumably wasn't afro-latino; hazel notes sammy as mexican american in son + says that sammy considered himself colored and indian. you can certainly still headcanon him or leo as afro-latino tho). and the thing with anti-miscegenation laws was that they weren't usually concerned with interracial poc x poc relationships.

they existed to preserve white racial "integrity" (particularly to "protect" white female purity from black men), to prevent black people from achieving the same social status as white people, and to uphold segregationist ideas about the "necessary" separation of the races. you see the echoes of stuff like this in hazel attending a school for "colored kids and indians"; it didn't (usually) matter that children of color from different ethnic backgrounds were intermingling as long as they weren't intermingling with white kids. (there was a 1932 louisiana state code passed that specifically prevented black people and native americans from marrying each other + concubinage, so if sammy did in fact "count" as indian, then they actually wouldn't have been able to get married until loving v. virginia had hazel stayed in the past)

I do think it's important to note that asians (and other races) were often an afterthought in jim crow era racial integrity + segregation laws (as was typically the case in the black-white binary racial system that the us was built on), and furthermore, jim crow policies were not uniform in scope across the us. in some cases, asian americans were lumped in with whites and in other cases they were lumped in with "colored" groups (they were 100% subjected to legal and social discrimination in either case though; in a lot of cases they were specifically excluded from even attaining citizenship). because of that, as far as I can tell, hazel could have hypothetically married someone of asian ancestry in louisiana - but I mean, there were very very few asian americans living in the new orleans during that time period to begin with, so it isn't so unlikely that hazel had never even met an asian person before she died, let alone spared a thought about her ability to marry one

but, hazel did spend 8-9 months at camp jupiter before she met frank (I'm getting that specific number from a line in hoh). these months would've been the biggest time period of culture shock in her life. camp jupiter is essentially a post-racial society as we understand it in hoo (but they've supposedly been stationed in the us for hundreds of years according to hazel in son) and while we don't have racial statistics for camp jupiter, I feel like it's safe to assume that the diversity of this camp and its racially integrated nature would have been absolutely mind-blowing for her (cj doesn't even "segregate" based on godly parent, which hazel expresses gratitude for. hmm interesting)

like can you imagine what the first month at camp must have been like for her??? hazel died before the civil rights movement even started. surely nico debriefed her on what to expect but man... she went from being segregated to living amongst underworld spirits for 70 years to having a white brother and sharing intimate spaces like the roman baths and sleeping barracks in racially integrated social groups. that must have been SUCH a culture shock I can't even imagine (and that's not even touching how things have drastically changed for women. seeing reyna, a woc, running a military camp must've been a whole source of amazement and disbelief in itself)

I bring this up solely to recognize that hazel did have some time (those 8-9 months) to acclimate to being unsegregated and intermingling with kids of different races. so by the time she meets frank (about 3 weeks pre-son, before his 16th birthday) she's probably not shellshocked to meet and befriend an asian guy. still, I think getting into a romantic relationship with one would have provoked some complicated thoughts from her, i.e. how does she relate to frank? she's probably never seen a black/asian relationship before, is it possible to make that work? is that a thing that happens in these modern times? it's not a bad thing to wonder about this stuff! frank grew up in the real world and hazel knows that. camp jupiter is not the real world, something with which she has no significant experience in her second life. I can definitely see her being curious and concerned about how race relations are in the post-2000s west (spoiler: they're not great) particularly between black people and asian people, since she's dating one. like she just doesn't know. how would she know?

going off of that, I would've never expected rick to get into the nuances of a black/asian interracial relationship in the books (nor would I expect him to handle that capably) but I have always considered it bad character writing to introduce a fascinating character like hazel, an undead time traveling black demigod from the jim crow south, and offer soooo little racial observations in her povs. hazel cannot be a character who doesn't think about race. she can't be a character who isn't hyperconscious of the things that makes her different or less than because her character is built around her countless experiences of being and feeling othered. she was othered by a white segregationist society in the 1930s (she literally had to sneak around with sammy at the "whites only" riding club), she was othered by members of her own race due to her mother's reputation as an evil witch, she feels othered as a girl from the past living in modern camp jupiter, and she feels othered as a resurrected girl amongst the living. and the crazy thing is that the books (specifically son of neptune) acknowledge all of these emotional complexities except for the most obvious one: hazel almost never thinks about race in her povs??? (or gender for that matter)

even after spending 9 months at camp jupiter, you would think that she would constantly be feeling some type of way about being around white people after growing up segregated (or even some relief that things in the present are better than they were in the past). you would think that she would be so alert with feelings of double consciousness (look up this term if you don't know what it means) but the most we ever really see from her is this:

we see hazel get mad that the amazons keep slaves (except they don't keep slaves it's like. a consensual bdsm thing. like it's literally bdsm according to kinzie there's no other way to interpret them in a way that doesn't suggest some kind of abuse. ok rick thanks for throwing that in there)

she expressed disbelief that "this rich white man is her father" irt seeing pluto for the first time (who apparently looks just like hitler. again thanks for that rick)

when she finds out that romans fought for the confederates in moa she says to jason's face: "as a girl whose grandmother was a slave, can I just say... not cool?" (I HATE this line lmfao I wish I could throw a tomato at rick for this) and then he has an incredibly awkward "not all white people" moment. I love jason to death but it was so awkward it made me sob. and then this whole thing about the confederates goes nowhere

I mean that's pretty much it where hoo is concerned. she referred to nico as a skinny white boy once and that was funny (but very inconsequential)

I always got the sense while reading the books that rick was extremely hesitant to get into this stuff for fear of doing something "wrong", but the consequence of such reservation is that he made his character, a black girl from the jim crow era, appear to view the modern world through a largely colorblind lens, and that just doesn't make any sense whatsoever for a girl who would have grown up seeing signs like "whites only" and "coloreds served in rear" everywhere she went as constant reminders that the world considers her subhuman (and isn't it crazy that she still died to save such a horrible world?). so when it comes to digging real deep into hazel's character you really have to fill in the blanks that the books don't provide (she has the 2nd fewest povs of the prophecy 7 which doesn't help)

SO. in context of alllll of those layers - what I mean to express is that even though you don't see this in the books, realistically, hazel must be well-aware of frank's racial (and cultural) differences from her. is she shocked/intimidated by the idea of being with an asian guy due to all of her experiences? my anticlimactic answer is... probably a little bit? really though, I think any potential shock on her end is subdued by the fact that frank is a fellow poc, and the primary obstacle to their relationship during hazel's first life would've been shunning and ostracization (and as said previously, she was already shunned and ostracized by her community because of her mom so. same old same old).

I will say that if hazel were dating a white person then THAT would probably yield sooooo much more conflict on her side of things (and if anyone is wondering: no, that doesn't make her racist. one can't expect a black girl from the jim crow era to not be sensitive to such things). if you're a person who ships hazel with any white characters then that could definitely be an interesting subject to explore, just try to approach that kind of matter with lots of empathy for someone of her background

I think part of it is also just the ease of being with frank. he's not intimidating. he may be older than her (by <2 years. pls let's kill the age gap misinfo in 2025) but he's a bumbling probatio dependent on her for guidance and companionship for his first few weeks in the legion. the boy is very sweet and very endearing. so while I'm sure hazel felt a little confused about a romance with a chinese boy initially I think it must have also been pretty clear within the first week of knowing him that like.... he's just a guy lmao like he's just a teddybear and he's so approachable, there's nothing to be worried about

and we could ask the question of how frank feels to be dating a black girl too, but I don't think there's nearly as much complication on his side of things because he's not from the jim crow era lol. he just really really really likes hazel (that boy is downbad horrendous from the get go). while it's not uncommon for families to pressure their children to marry within their own ethnic group, I truly can't imagine emily zhang putting such ideas into frank's head (and as I discussed in this post I made recently about the complications of frazel having kids, frank grew up not really invested in his own heritage to begin with). he's also canadian not american and I'm sure hazel doesn't know jack about canada but she would have cared enough to learn more about where he comes from early in their knowing each other

maybe before they were dating, frank would've had some concerns like "is she even into asian guys?" (very common thing for poc to worry about when they have a crush on someone of a different race). I think he just tries to be sensitive to the fact that she's from a different time - I totally see them having funny awkward conversations like "when I was a kid I almost drowned in a public pool" "when I was a kid I wasn't allowed to swim in the public pools" "... oh. I'm so sorry" LMAO. like he might feel like he has to walk on eggshells when it comes to hazel's experiences with racism in the 1930s because it's (understandably) very hard to talk about this stuff; his own experiences with racism are going to be very different from her own, and I imagine him perhaps feeling like it's hard to talk about those experiences with her because he might feel like they're so insignificant compared to her own (canada/vancouver, where frank grew up as a fourth-generation immigrant, does have a long legacy of anti-chinese racism, and this article from the guardian described the city as "the anti-asian hate crime capital of north america" during covid. that the zhangs are described as "one of the wealthiest chinese families in vancouver" doesn't erase the fact that they were living in an area that has specifically hated and discriminated against chinese people for a long long time).

allll of that said though, I don't think frank actually thinks about their different races so much. like idk maybe their wildly different hair textures are a source of fascination/appreciation, but otherwise I think their racial differences are generally unnoticed by him. this is a good thing but colorblindness can also be a bad thing sometimes. nuance or whatever

another kind of funny (and sad) thing is that frank and hazel both just have no real surviving family (I know nico is hazel's family + frank probably has mars siblings at camp but that's not what I'm talking about), and one of the biggest worries that interracial couples tend to have is how they're going to bridge the cultural gap between their families (or deal with racist family members) but marie is dead and emily is dead and grandma zhang is (presumably) dead so crisis averted lmao /j

the last thing I'll take note of is that interracial couples do face unique struggles that monoracial couples don't, that's just a fact. they get stared at in public more, they get harassed on the street, people say weird shit about what their babies will look like, they might get called a traitor by their own race, they have to prepare themselves for the unique challenges of raising mixed race kids (if they ever even want kids), etc etc etc. and yes, there are lots of people out there who still hate interracial relationships (as recently as the year 2000, 40% of alabama voters voted against repealing the 1902 statute that forbade interracial marriage. consider this in context of hoo taking place in 2009-the 2010s) it's all complicated and it's sometimes very uncomfortable. but I mean, so is everything else about hazel's life

and frazel is probably safe and fine as long as they're choosing to stay in camp jupiter/new rome instead of the real world, which again is presented in its current state as a kind of post-racial independent demigod society (they do have some weird obsessions with legacy-building and generational prestige though, and grandma zhang did seem to indicate that romans had an anti-chinese racist history irt frank's ancestor, hence why she wasn't sure if attitudes had changed during frank's lifetime. I do have to wonder about the presence of potentially bigoted lares at camp tho lol). can't say I actually buy cj as a race-blind utopia in the present day considering their history but again, I think that's what the books want us to believe. that frank and hazel, a chinese-african american couple, are co-praetors in toa (I never liked hazel becoming a praetor as a writing choice but w/e I don't care) of a place with a yucky racist history like camp jupiter, is almost kind of poetic justice I guess?

I hope all of that makes sense, and again I'm really glad that you like hippocrene!! if you're interested in this subject and remember this little tidbit from ch7:

then I'll just say that that uncomfortable subject will come up a little bit more between them in upcoming chapters because I think it's very interesting and worthwhile to talk about 😌 thank you for reading!!!

#fictional interracial couples in fandom spaces are a pretty interesting subject to me as well because audiences can just be #so bad at and incapable of understanding/engaging with/growing invested in them #I love frazel tho and I love them in son of neptune. there's so much to say about them #anyways. these are the things I type up instead of doing my homework #frazel #frank zhang #hazel levesque #rr crit #pjo hoo toa #rick riordan #riordanverse #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo character analysis #baye.txt #rick riordan critical

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