This open access book examines the romantic activism of ordinary women who, by being in long-term ethnically and racially ‘mixed’ romantic relationships between the 1960s and 1980s, defied the social and cultural expectations of their families, communities and British society. It provides an alternative history of twentieth-century British love and sexualities using Leicester, one of the first ‘super-diverse’ cities in Britain, as a case-study. New oral life-histories describe everyday experiences of childhood, becoming an adult and roles such as lover, wife and mother. Across five thematic chapters that explore choosing a romantic partner, dating in the nascent multicultural city, racism and resistance, female respectability and changing and developing British identities, the women’s voices enable an authentic reimagining of living through the social and cultural transitions of a period of British history renowned for problematic struggles with gender, race, equality and diversity. Despite their varied cultural backgrounds, common themes relating to gender and race thread through the women’s experiences. Memories and reflections illustrate the historical opportunities and challenges of the women’s romantic choices and show how they confronted social and cultural norms and lived with the consequences. They reveal how differential engagement with cultural difference combined with resourcefulness and resilience resulted in the women’s reshaping of cultural practices and the creation of new cultural identities. These pioneering women facilitated demographic change processes that were fundamental to the origins of Leicester’s trailblazing ‘everyday’ multiculturalism; a transformational development that questioned and reworked what it meant to be British in the later twentieth century.
